General Motors revolutionized the automotive world with the introduction of its small-block Chevrolet V-8 in 1955, and—100 million of the pushrod heroes later—we’ve come to think of the engine as one of Detroit’s all-time most bulletproof powerplants. This, however, is not the case in 24 Hours of LeMons racing. In the parts-bustin’ arena of low-budget endurance racing, the Chevy small-block is right down there with the Toyota R and Honda B on the “Allegedly Reliable Engines That Aren’t So Reliable in LeMons” list. Team Steam was the latest group of racers to discover this reality in a LeMons paddock, after dragging their “IROC Maiden” 1988 Chevrolet Camaro 1500 miles to the Yee-Haw It’s Texas 24 Hours of LeMons last weekend.
Our introduction to the IROC Maiden came at last December’s Arse Freeze-a-Palooza race at Buttonwillow Raceway Park in California. The mullets-and-’80s-metal theme impressed us as highly appropriate for a third-gen F-body racing in California’s Camaro-centric Central Valley, but various mechanical ailments held the Maiden to a mere 28 laps all weekend, good for 124th out of 131 entrants.
Some teams just would have thrown in the towel on the Camaro at this point, opting for an MX-3, Crown Victoria, or some other machine known to handle the rigors of LeMons racing. In the case of Team Steam, their tribulations served as fertilizer for huge mullets and set in motion an absurdly ambitious plan to tow their Camaro around the country and enter nearly all of the 2012 events. The Yee-Haw It’s Texas race, held at Texas World Speedway last weekend, was the first stop on the Thrown Rod World Tour; the boys put the IROC Maiden on the trailer and drove two solid days from Los Angeles to deep in the heart of Texas.
During the pre-race inspections, I donned my purple judgment hat and suggested to Team Steam that they might get the 350 in their car to hold together longer if they kept the revs below 4500 rpm, a strategy used by the handful of LeMons teams that have kept a Chevy small-block alive for multiple races. “Sounds like a good idea!” they said.
The green flag waved on Saturday morning and the IROC Maiden looked and sounded great on the track. But then there was this unpleasant knocking noise from under the hood. Better pit and see what’s up!
Bad news: spun rod bearing, complete with busted rings and a cracked piston. So much for Judge Phil’s “keep it under 4500 rpm” advice, but maybe my next piece of racing wisdom would be more helpful: “I hear there’s a junkyard near the track. Just buy another 350 and swap it in: problem solved!” So, they took their rented Ford Explorer over to the junkyard and bought an allegedly good 350 at a very reasonable price, just before closing time.
Hey, what’s up with those dents in the oil pan? Oops, turns out them crafty Texas junkyard cowboys saw them California city boys coming and slipped them an engine with a thrown connecting rod. So far I’d been zero for two on helpful advice.
Team Steam wasn’t going to give up at this point. They figured they had enough good parts between their pair of bad 350s to make one good 350, and they geared up for an all-night engine thrash. Hey, wait a minute—why do these pistons look so small? Yes, it turns out that the junkyard slicksters added insult to injury by selling a 305 as a “350,” which meant that Team Steam only had one good block and seven good pistons, and all the parts stores were closed.
This setback still wasn’t a knockout punch for Team Steam; they decided that they’d take the best rod bearings between the two engines (the 305 and 350 use the same bearings), reinstall the bad piston, remove the rocker arms and spark plug for that cylinder, and run a V-7 until something else broke. They needed the rod on the bad piston in order to keep from losing oil pressure via an uncovered rod journal; I suggested they just weld the oil holes up on that journal and do without the rod entirely, but they’d had enough of my advice by that point.
Sunday morning, it turned out that the Franken350 project hadn’t worked out so well. Team Steam then found a guy on Craigslist parting out his 350-powered truck. Back to TWS with another small-block; the rental-car company wasn’t going to be so happy with the vast quantities of engine fluids spilled in the Explorer, but Team Steam would deal with that problem later. Today we race!
Hey, the cylinder heads on this engine don’t look like your usual low-performance smog jobs. By the flayed skin of Eddie, these are genuine big-valve “camel hump” 462 casting heads, used on late-’60s factory hot-rod 327s and highly sought after by vintage-Corvette freaks. What a score!
Not only that, the IROC Maiden would be getting four-bolt main bearings, Crane rocker arms, and probably lots of additional engine goodies not visible from the outside. All that remained was installation, and how hard could that be?
At this point, Team Steam got to work on swapping the Camaro’s 1988-vintage Tuned Port Injection fuel-delivery hardware and rod-dented oil pan onto their long block. I thought of recommending that they go back to Craigslist and find some desperate crackhead selling a cast-iron intake and Quadrajet for ten bucks, but refrained from doing so.
I got busy in the Penalty Box and didn’t have any more chances to check on the IROC Maiden’s progress. When the checkered flag waved at 4:00 p.m., there had been no sign of the Camaro on the track. Team Steam had run out of time. For their 3000-mile round trip and weekend-long slog in Chevy Hell, we awarded them the not-so-coveted I Got Screwed trophy. We’ll see the IROC Maiden again next month, at the Sears Pointless race and with screaming Corvette motor in full effect.
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