Green with Envy: Grant’s z28 Camaro

Car Build

Let's go back to 2013 to the International Auto Show in Manhattan, NY. If you have ever been to IAS, it gets a little repetitive after a while. I typically would bring a camera with a 28-70 lens just in case something would catch my eye. This gives me a good amount of room dealing with crowds when shooting something interesting. As I walked around the massive Javits Center I made my way to the Chevrolet booth. That’s when I saw it, dressed in a flat white paint job, wide wheel arches to fit the absolute lunacy of 305/30/19 tires under the front fenders. This car was my dream car. Equipped with a naturally aspirated 427 LS7 and a 6 Speed manual, it checked all the right boxes. The ‘bumblebee’ autobot from the previous generation had finally grown up.

Fast forward to the present day. I had met Grant through mutual friends at a local car show. Grant at the time had a very clean, very well put together battleship gray Jeep Wrangler JK. Now your average JK in the northeast featured the stereotypical Jeep stickers, 80lbs of dried up mud on the undercarriage, fuel wheels, no fenders, and the 50 yard light bar. I hope you’ve got the mental picture now. Grant’s was different and that’s how I knew he was different. It was built with pride. It wasn’t highly modified however the mods that were done were enough, a light touch; which is a rarity these days. He had mentioned to me about the Camaro build that would be coming in the near future. Like Leonardo Di Caprio in the movie Django, the Jeep had my curiosity, but the Camaro had most certainly captured my attention.

What Grant had secured was a unicorn. Number 22 to be exact, at below market price due to a rogue torpedo called a Mercedes S-class rearranging the quarter panel and a shoddy repair job. When I initially saw the car it was black, completely stock and yet, this car had a superior presence. It just screamed no nonsense especially when seen next to any other Camaro of the same generation. No, this car was pulled wide and glued to the ground. This wasn’t a boomer car for a midlife crisis, the z28 spilled exuberance daring you to pin the throttle to the floorboard. Seeking perfection, Grant had began surgery on the Camaro, Chris from Spray City in New York, replaced the entire quarter panel skin with a new sheet straight from Chevy. Grant then decided rather than keeping it black to respray the entire car F8 Green from the Mopar catalog with extra gold flake to really make it pop. The brake calipers were refinished, painted LRC Phoenix Orange and then cleared with Chevy Bowties for an OEM plus look. The factory wheels were kept black and wrapped in 305/30/r19 and 325/30/r19 Toyo r888 tires. Finishing off the exterior, Grant added Yitamotor LED tail lights and a ZL1 Wicker BIll.

There’s no better sound to a car guy than a big American v8 with an equally big hog-ass cam for maximum lope. Grant kicked up the factory ls7 with a custom ground camshaft and billet timing set for that epic chop. The factory heads were replaced with LME CNC ported Ls7 heads along with conical valve springs and shaft rocker system. On the intake side is a 102mm Nick Williams throttle body paired to a MSD atomic airforce intake manifold and further ported by American Heritage Performance. To match the extra air going to the engine, a CTS-V fuel pump was added to the tank and LS9 fuel injectors and holley fuel rails under the hood. Expelling that air is a set of Kooks 2” headers into a custom 3” cat back exhaust. All said and done putting out a very stout 621 horsepower.

Grant’s ready for the next evolution of his Camaro over the winter season, hinting at some forced induction. A 427ci motor by Steve Morris and a F1a94 Procharger will be in the works expecting to make north of 1200 horsepower. We’ll be following the build and are excited to record the updates in the process. Until then, we’ll let our mullets hang in the wind, listening to White Snake, day dreaming of IROC’s of the past. █

Green with Envy: Grant’s z28 Camaro

Car Build

Build Data:

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