Project: LS-Gun Air Bagging a Camaro

Can a late model hot rod ride on air and handle like a road racer we'll tackle and test this new dimension in air suspension on a project, right of our own.

Plus we'll invade the ultimate cool car cruise where thousands come to show them on the square

log them on the strip and smoke them at the baddest burnout contest ever.

And it all starts right here in the horsepower shop first with the project that could make your late model muscle machine cut corners with the best of them. Now, a lot of you may still feel that

airbag suspensions are all about slamming show cars into the weeds. Well, I gotta tell you recently, Mike and I took part in a test that definitely got our attention

here on this two mile Indiana road course. We tried several street machines equipped with air ride suspensions and we're pretty impressed.

But then we watched a couple of veteran race drivers take a stock late model Camaro through the paces.

And while we have lunch, a crew of air ride swapped the stock suspension for one of their systems.

After that, the pro drivers went back out made several more runs, handmade believers out. Just about everybody. In fact, they shaved up to five seconds off the previous baseline runs.

It's like they painted it like we've been in a white car before launch and a black car after launch. It was uh

really amazing that, uh, the corner, the stability and the control you had with the car has a good feel, has a better balance and like I say, the opportunity to change that balance to fine tune it I is there, you know, so that makes it even sweeter.

Pretty amazing. Huh? That's why we decided to try out one of these kits on our 98. Now we're not going to do the install as fast as the guys did out on the track because we want to show you the individual steps and the simplicity of the kit. Now up front, we're going to use a shock wave system, but we'll get to this a little bit later out back. We're gonna use the cool ride, which uses a tapered air spring and comes with these bolt on mounting bra

jackets

to manage the air. We're gonna use a four way air valve and this ride pro digital controller that comes with all the harnesses and that to hook it up. Now to supply the air, we're gonna use this air pump and a three gallon tank.

You could handle the swap at home with hand tools and some jack stands either way the first step is to loosen the shock at the top

and get this coal spring

out of the way.

Now assemble the fitting and air spring to the upper mounting bracket.

Here's an important tip, use Teflon tape to make sure you get a leak proof seal on the fitting.

Here's something I really like about this fitting. It's got a push to connect design that fits super tight and releases just as easy.

Yeah, that fitting is uh the exact same style that big rigs use on their air brakes. Here's how this thing is gonna install. This part of the bracket will locate under the existing shock mount hole will run this carriage bolt through the slotted bracket inside out and through an existing hole in the Camaros frame.

Putting a little air in the line will make sure that the air spring extends far enough to sit on the axle mount

while the car is still in the air. I wanna drop this lower plate onto the original coil spring retainer. Now, this plate is pretty important because it makes sure that the new air spring sits on a smooth flat surface and prevents damage

back on top. You can tighten the shock and sandwich the bracket

up front. I had to move the master cylinder out of the way to access the bolts for the stock coil overs.

After removing the two lower bolts that connect it to the lower control arm,

we can wrestle the shock wave from the upper control arm.

Ok. Here's one of the shock wave pieces you got a peek at earlier

and as you can see side by side, it's pretty much a direct bolt in the main difference in this one is thanks to the air system, you get adjust

a ride height and spring rate and well, that's good for carbon corners and cruising.

Oh, here's another nice feature, adjustable valve.

Now, that means you can fine tune the ride for the quality and handling that you like. Now, before we can stab this thing in place though, we gotta remove, modify and reuse this upper bracket.

We need to use compressors to relieve the spring pressure while we get the retaining that off.

Well, it was supposed to come off looks like it's time to use the trusty air chisel to chew the nut away

and free the mount from the shark.

The mounting stud on the shock wave is a little larger. So we need to drill out the mounting plate hole a little to make it fit,

then we can slide it into position and secure it with the stock hardware

with the air shocks mounted, we can move on now to the air control system.

Now, that means we're gonna mount this tank and reservoir back here where the uh nitrous bottle used to live. Oh, we got something to take its place next week. You're not gonna believe. Meanwhile, we'll finish our installation and take the Camaro out for our own track test right after the break,

we're back and our Camaro is ready to ride on air after installing air bags all the way around

and securing our tank and compressor in the trunk.

Now, what do you say? We complete the system?

The next link to our set up is this pair of solenoids that control air pressure to the bags. They're joined by a brass fitting so they can run off of a single air supply line.

These fittings are for the actual airlines to the bags back here. These fittings are for lines that go to the pressure gauges. Of course, these wires will connect to our computer.

After mounting the solenoid blocks, we secure the grounds

and run the feed line from the air tank

to the intake side.

Another line runs from the compressor

over to the tank.

Ok. Time to mount the pressure, sending units

and connect the lions from the solenoids

to the sending unit gauge ports.

Now I've already attached the airlines to the bags themselves and ran them through the car and into the trunk area here. Now you can run them underneath, just be careful to keep them away from heat sources and rotating objects either way they still need to hook up right here on the solenoid block.

Well, this is the ride pro ECU that controls the whole system and this thing needs to live at least 18 inches away from the compressor to avoid RF interference.

And also you want to be able to access this off on switch that you use to preset your right height on the other side. Well, that's for the electrical connections

with that in mind. I think I'll mount it down here next to the solenoids.

This positive pro boat source comes from the battery and connects to the pressure cut off switch.

This other positive comes from the pup and it connects to the other spade on the switch.

Then we can connect our harnesses to the computer

along with these wires that lead to the digital controller.

Well, that's it for our installation back here. Now, bear in mind we mounted everything so you could get a good view. You probably could come up with something more compact and streamlined in your ride. Every car is different and so is every setup,

the whole installation should only take you about eight hours. And at the end of the day, you can set all your preset ride heights with this control box, check this out.

Of course, there are four different controls. One for each air bag up or down.

You can program your air pressure presets by following a few simple steps. After you do, you're ready to go cruising on air.

Literally,

the first challenge on the cones course is finding the right air pressure combination.

There's a lot of trial in there

and this obviously, wasn't it

a Camaro was a real cone killer, or at least the driver is,

man. I know I can do better than that. I'm gonna go ahead and let a couple of pounds out of the rear and see what that does for us.

Staying pretty level. It's pretty good

and this new suspension is like night and day.

It handles awesome.

The coil springs worked. All right. But these new bags with just a few air pressure increments, this thing can really cut some corners.

This project is in the bag but stay with us. There's much more horsepower ahead.

Welcome back to the show and to a little town with a big monthly tradition. It's called Summer Nights. Recently named one of the top 10 cruise sites in the country.

Five years have been in existence, started with just 275 cars. Now, we're averaging well over 1000 cars and you can see how it's growing. We're branching out to different locations all up and down the strip here in Somerset. This year, it all gets fired up with a block party here in the parking lot of a Walmart complete with an oldies band and just a few of the thousands of rides you're gonna see here this weekend,

pretty laid back here for this Friday night opening act, but Mike's found something really smoking down the road.

Now, here's where the second step of the journey begins at the burnout box where guys wait all year with their hot rods to see who can make the most smoke. Sit back and take a look.

We've all been to burnout contest where the drivers smoke their tires till the buzzer sounds. But here they smoke them until they hear the sound of mustard baloney.

Most of them will watch the heat gauge and don't want to get it hot. I don't fear it. Blow the hood off, motor out of it.

I don't care what it does. We'll just put another in, in it.

That doesn't make no difference. So it's just all for fun.

Early Saturday morning, a pack of this weekend's cruisers take a trip down to a nearby drag strip.

Not the fiercest bunch of eight mile machines, but an interesting mix with everything from 52. Chevy

to Henry J.

Where do you go to?

A

406406? Yeah.

Awesome.

First time.

What, what do you got in this bad memo

here? 351. Uh, Cleveland

four.

Wow.

How did you get those

six under there? They're bolt on the body sits on top.

Got something different here. I

think

that

the, it be the first time so it's done.

I don't have any idea what it's gonna do.

No serious competition here. Just a chance to see what kind of ETS they could get out of these classics from muscle cars

to truly old antiques.

Now, there were a few grudge matches. Get that Chevy up here by

belly, like a couple of Ohio boys who personified the traditional Chevy Ford rivalry.

He's got junk and I got a bad ass

and when it's all over with, can I moon him out here on the track? We're just good friends and,

and after this is over, we, we are going to separate and not be friends anymore if he beats me.

Oh,

man. I don't know.

I'm a Ford guy

but I got to go with a Chevy. I'm gonna pick the Ford for two reasons. One, it's a Ford and two. He's a rookie. He might get lucky on the first shot.

It's the best two out of three who wins. And the Chevy easily takes the first one

for an old man and the first time I did pretty well,

but we're going to try it again and

they all say that,

that Ford drivers don't know when to quit.

Round two. And the pod guy sees red at the tree. The Chevy guy sees red when his engine breaks. He red

lighted

mine bogged down and picked back up and I nailed it and then it broke, he broke down and the Ford is still going

something good.

Now for some real high horsepower low et runs a group of racers from cars for kids Southern style came to put on a show

with their blown five second raft

and muscle machine.

We, we raise a little money for special kids while we're here

to get out by what we do.

Absolutely. You guys

are

the cars for kids headliner has to be Bobby Umstead Mustang with a 604 Q big block topped with a 1471 blower.

Well, no record breaker but a fantastic five second run. Just to say,

well, time to head back to Somerset for the headliner. The anniversary Somerset cruise coming up after the break

after leaving the drag strip where we had a blast, we're headed to the main event. Now, this is where it all goes on right here in downtown Somerset.

Yeah, over 2000 Hot rods packed into this Town square. It's kind of like a Woodward cruise in Maybury

combine.

The mostly Saturday summer nights cruise is a tradition that grew from a handful of hot rods parked on the Downtown Square to, well, this

over 1000 cool cars from several states.

I was number 52 52nd car that came into the first cruise. I've been to every cruise here and had a vehicle every time.

This is a lot of fun. I had a good time and somebody, there's always stuff going on and you

and somebody you always see like that. I had like over 7500 registers. So

you see a different car about every time you come with everything from street rods to muscle cars to even a few that can't decide whether they're cars or boats, even our project supernova. Made an appearance for the admiring crowds. What do you think of it?

I love

it.

Love

it.

This 48 Buick custom Hot Rod was a showstopper that even got the attention of everyone's favorite. Kentucky Colonel.

Is it gonna get bigger and better in years to come? All we need is a little more parking. Right.

Yeah, it's tough getting in here. But, but it's a lot more fun when you get out And food and fun is fundamental. In summer nights, there are no contest, no trophies. Just the joy of being part of this big small town tradition.

And on to the Saturday night cruise, it's a classic celebration of cool cars and American horsepower,

horsepower T V's hot parts. A look at the latest performance innovations from the automotive aftermarket.

Summer nights is a great place to pick up new ideas on how to trick out your ride. Well, like this air cleaner that filters and blows as well as it attracts attention. It's called the Flying Wedge from Rush performance filters. And if it's any standard flange four barrel carburetor,

now, the filter element itself is a special cotton gauze

that attracts and capture dirt

and it's surrounded by a durable aluminum mesh.

Now, they've got them in several finishes polished like this cast or even powder coated the price. Well, it's just over 250.

If you've got a late model high horsepower F body or mustang that you take to the drag strip. Well, here's a way to maximize its power of potential. It's the Victor series drag race headers from Edelbrock. Now, these things have a 38 cent laser cut flange that's been robotically welded for a perfect fit.

They've also been designed with the correct firing order pull sequence in the collector.

Now, they come with all the hardware and 02 extensions to install them. And by the way, this expansion cone, it's a slip on piece that allows you to tune your primaries. Now, if you want to get your hands on a set of these prices run about 400 bucks.

We're seeing all kinds of cool stuff for the new Mustang GTs these days. And well, here's a part that will help it bang gears a little bit better. It's a hears competition plus short throw shifter, but not like most. You probably seen

this arm here attaches to the transmission.

It's part back here installs on the floor pan. Now it reduces knob travel by 40% for shorter throws and quicker positive shifts. One version lets you use the factory knob or an oe look, this one uses a chrome plated stick and that old white ball for the Hearst equip. Look now the prices. Well, 202 15 respectively. Well, with all due respects, it's time for us to get our rears and gear and get out of here. We'll see you here next time.