LS-Swapped 1970 Chevy Camaro Has Been in the Works for 25 Years: Track Time Tuesday
Homebuilt 1970 Chevy Camaro build went a bit overboard versus the original plan, but its owner isn’t complaining.
Many of us grow up either owning or dreaming of owning at least one car in particular, one that perhaps we wind up getting and keeping for decades. But more often, we reluctantly part ways with those vehicles, only to later regret it. That’s certainly the case with Scott Coleman and this 1970 Chevy Camaro, as his very first car was a 1980 model that he grew up wrenching on, yet later sold it and regretted parting ways with it. Now, 25 years later, he has this wicked 1970 Chevy Camaro in his garage to fill that void, a car cool enough to score a feature at Chevy Hardcore.
“When I first saw the car, it was pretty rough,” Coleman said. “The drivetrain was shot, and most of the interior was missing. However, it was a number matching car with the original engine intact. Initially, I wanted to just get it running and drivable, but honestly, this is the last full resto project I will do. I like to go fast, so I decided to do a total rebuild from the ground up and build a nice compromise of a street/track performer, a restomod if you will. The numbers matching engine was put in storage and the canvas was cleared. I always wanted a sleeper, just a blah-looking bite-you-in-the-ass car, but it got a little carried away.”
First, Coleman took his new Camaro down to the bare shell, fixed all the rust, and painted it in a very attractive Dodge Viper color dubbed Green with Envy. Then, he got to work making it fast, a job that began by securing a 5.3-liter LS powerplant from a 2002 Chevy Suburban. To that, he added an Elgin cam, reworked heads with 862 castings, 11.0:1 compression, Bosch 210 fuel injectors, Comp Cams Rocker trunnions, Howard’s valve springs, hardened pushrods, LS7 lifters and a Cadillac CTS-V LSA supercharger with a Griptec 2.45-inch pulley. The engine breathes through a set of Speed Engineering 1-7/8-inch headers and a Pypes 3-inch dual stainless steel exhaust system.
Backed up by a reworked 4L80-E gearbox and a 9-inch rear end with 4.11 gears, this 1970 Chevy Camaro may be Coleman’s dream car, but it’s also undoubtedly quick. Coleman didn’t talk numbers in this particular interview, but he’s got one heck of a combination of parts in one heck of a nice-looking, home-built hot rod, which is good enough for us.
Photos: Chevy Hardcore
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