UMI's Newest Test Vehicle- 1971 Camaro, Pro-touring Project

Hell Everyone, Ryan here from UMI Performance. New here as sponsors but have always lurked the site.

We have been building suspension for the 82-02 F-Body as well as the G-Body and A-body for many years... we have now recently jumped in the 2nd gen and pretty heavily. This thread will be dedicated to the build process of our 1971 Camaro that is ultimately being built for autocross and road race events.

We aquired this car in spring of 2015 from a Spring Carlisle swap meet, unfortunately it has taken us until late 2016 to finally start the build process. Please follow along, I will start the post from when we got it and keep adding.


Here's the car as we purchased it in spring 2015 (non-Z28, only badged by previous owner) The body was recently redone and car painted, it looks good for us and saves us that step. The engine was a spent 350 (originally thought a 305 but was a 350) with a TH350 transmission.

 

A year and half after getting the car we were finally able to really start working on it. Previously we had used the car to test some shocks, fitment and dial in UMI's from a-arms. Also we took the time to dial in the cars height using some prototype lowering springs and leafs as well as trying different coilovers we were working on.


Pictures below show were we began:







Dolly we built for the body.

 

A few more pictures of the progress:

 

Here's the body on the rolling stand and some ideas for the cage mounts. The floor had some fiberglass repair patches we had found. Rear frame rails were ordered from Auto Fab Weld.

We were also finalizing some of our new suspension items for the 70-81. We installed some more prototypes on our '78 house car to confirm height and fitment as well as ride quality. We are also working on front shock extension mounts using front clips we have here.

 

Next up... the bad we found...

When we purchased this car the big selling point to us was the body was already done. The new quarters look nice and body solid. The paint quality could be a little better but for a car that will spend its life on the track it's perfect. While the body was done nicely I assumed the floor boards and underneath of the car would be a little better. The 1" thick rubber undercoating really hid a lot of the problems we are now finding. And the "new" truck pan was fiber glassed in and over top of old rusty sheet metal never removed.

We cut the bad floor areas out and replacing them with front floor pans. The truck area is cut out and we will be prepping it for the fuel cell. The new frame rails had come in as well.

 

And more bad...

The car had a lot more rust in the floors and rear trunk area than expected. The trunk was a disaster, the new trunk pan was attached to rust using fiberglass. The more we cut at it the more that needed removed. The rear trunk is completely out, the inner fenders and frame rails removed too. We will rebuild the trunk around a fuel cell. You can see below the piles of rusted metal removed from the underneath of the car.

We are also beginning to mock up the cage and the cage mounting points. This requires boxing in and reinforcing areas where it will mount.

 

Next step was working on the front subframe. This car will use the factory front subframe. We are blue printing hole locations and straightening up factory a-arm mounting holes and making sure our a-arms pivot freely. We are repairing the body mount holes and built a frame repair kit to sell from it. We will strip the frame and grind out all factory welds and reweld the frame. Lastly we removed the factory shock mounts and cut an opening large enough for a shock and 2-1/2" spring. With our new a-arms you will be able to run a 7" stroke shock mounted bearing to bearing. This kit is almost completed and read as well.

On the body, we are mocking up the front floor pans. Also removing the rear inner wheel wells. We prepped a few plates for the cage to sit on as well.

 

Pictures below are us starting to build the back half for the car and removing the inner and outer wheel wells. We will maintain all the stock mounting points, such as leaf springs ect.We are mini tubing the car.

 

Rear subframe and minitubs are going in place.







Also work on the factory front subframe.

We used our new frame repair kit #2662 and repaired the body mounts on the factory subframe. We are also mocking up our new a-arms and aligning the shock locations. Lastly, we are repairing the factory a-arm mounts to make sure they are true. One side was a full 1/2" off binding the a-arms drastically.