LS-Swapped 1967 Camaro Takes on 1963 Chevy II in Tight Drag Race: Track Time Tuesday
Hot 1967 Camaro and 1963 Chevy II take two very different approaches to making power, yet produce similar results.
There are countless hours of drag racing footage out there on the web, giving us endless hours of enjoyment and, um, research opportunities. After all, it doesn’t matter how much power a car has or how many cubic inches reside under its hood, it’s all about how that vehicle uses its power to achieve the best possible time slip. Sure, dyno runs are fun and all, but we’re interested in real-world results. And in the case of the LS-swapped 1967 Camaro and big block-powered 1963 Chevy II in this video from Cars and Zebras, it’s a very entertaining and very close race, to boot.
The 1967 Camaro has been treated to a 6.2-liter LS3 V8 that’s been punched out to 408 cubic inches, which undoubtedly has it making more than the factory rating of 430 horsepower and 424 pound-feet of torque, though we’re not told how much more. What’s particularly cool about this first-gen Camaro is that it still looks mostly stock, with the original wheels still fitted to the outside. Under the hood, the modern mill even has an old-fashioned open-element air cleaner up top, which is a nice touch and might just fool some folks looking on from a distance.
The Camaro’s foe on this particular day is a 1963 Chevy II that takes more of an old-school approach to making big power, and that’s by replacing the original straight-six with a carbureted 396 cubic-inch V8. Once again, details are quite scant on this particular vehicle, though we do know that the smaller Chevy II has a roughly 450-pound advantage in terms of curb weight. The Camaro is running 4.10 gears, but there’s no mention of what the Chevy II has out back.
Regardless, these two very different vehicles line up and put on one heck of a show for the crowd, as well as us. The Camaro jumps out to an early lead, but the Chevy II quickly evaporates that advantage and pulls even as the two vintage Bow Ties rocket toward the finish line. When both trip the lights, we see that the Camaro ran a 12.06-second quarter-mile at just under 115 mph, while the Chevy II took a close win by running an 11.89 at 115 mph.
With two very different cars producing very similar results, this matchup is indeed an intriguing one, and proof that there’s always more than one way to get from point A to point B in a hurry.
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