It rumbles with the throat of a thunderstorm on Main Street, and there's a roll cage and a racing driver's seat (which is connected to the factory six-way adjuster, by the way). If no one looks close, maybe they won't suspect that this car has been built by SLP as both a rolling testbed and showcase of the company's F-Car products. It can lift the front tires a foot off of the ground and cover a quarter-mile in 10 seconds. Even though it weighs 3,600 pounds with the driver aboard and the air conditioner still works, the stroked LS1 cranks out 550 big horses to move this basically stock Camaro impressively. During our photographer's drive time, he was able to induce wheel-spin at 45 miles an hour, and from a dead stop he invoked the phrase "fuhgeddaboudit" which describes any attempt to avoid a burnout. This is all with the shifter in "D." Of course, the "Loud Mouth" exhaust was a constant reminder of this 382ci LS1's potential and might have encouraged one or two "hard starts."
SLP began with a box-stock '00 model year Z28 that ran 13.6 and, according to chief engineer Brian Reese, "started adding our own parts." Appearance components including the hood, rear spoiler, and graphics were first. Then they enlarged the stock 346ci LSI with a longer-stroke crankshaft, rods, and pistons. CNC-ported heads, a beefed up valvetrain, and an 85mm mass air meter (a reprogrammed Delphi unit originally intended for 6.0L LS1 truck engines), and this small-block churned out 500 hp and 490 lb-ft of torque. With the installation of SLP's prototype "Stage II" heads with 2.02/1.57 valves, enhanced porting, and a deeper resurfacing cut to raise compression to about 11.5:1, they added another 50 hp, resulting in approximately 550 hp. Great for a naturally aspirated small-block! Exhaust comes through tuned-length headers (about 33 inches), "off road" race pipes instead of cats, and "Loud Mouth" exhausts (essentially in-line expansion chambers instead of mufflers). The computer is reprogrammed, and the rearend has been switched out for an SLP/Moser prepped 12-bolt with 4.11:1 gears turning 10.5-inch DOT Mickey Thompson's. The factory 4L60E is still in place, although it's been beefed up and a higher-rpm stall converter has been fitted.
Even though we may do without Camaros for a while, it's nice to know that there is some awesome potential in the ones we can still get our hands on.