Small-tire no-prep drag racing has become an increasingly advanced arena of the sport, and newcomer Jim Wood has ensured that when he loads up from his upstate New York home to compete, he’s not bringing a knife to a gunfight.
Wood tabbed one of drag racing’s top chassis builders, Dennis MacPherson and his team at DMC Racing in Massachusetts, to transform his 1968 Chevrolet Camaro into double-framerail machine designed to attack no-prep racing and drag-and-drive events. Wood acquired the car via eBay in 2014 in a story that turned wild, as the transaction ended in an array of high-value missing parts. Wood eventually involved law enforcement, justice was served, and he got the deliverables he had agreed on.
“This thing was pretty rough. It looked like a barn find someone that had been drug out of a field and started turning it into a race car and then stopped,” he explains.
Wood first had a chassis shop put a mild-steel cage in the car, and then it went to DMC for final assembly, wiring, and plumbing. As the story goes, once Dennis got into the car, some quality issues were identified that sparked concern between the pair. In a story that’s as common as the day is long, the rather simple project turned into a full-on race car build from the ground up.
“Dennis at DMC is the man with the magic,” says Wood. “When he took on this project, he made it clear he wasn’t just going to finish it—he was going to make sure everything on this car was as rock-solid as it gets.” DMC’s work included building a complete chromoly double framerail chassis from the firewall back, utilizing Wood’s original steel body and doors. Only the front clip replaced by a fiberglass piece. The Smith Racecraft front end gives the car a semblance of a stock suspension setup. Weighing in at just over 2,500 pounds, it’s impressively light for a car with this much original sheet metal.
Horsepower comes compliments of a 427 cubic inch LS, built upon an RHS block, assembled by Billy Briggs and equipped with twin Bullseye 80mm turbos. With a Marcella manifold and custom-fabricated headers, the setup churns out an estimated 2,200 horsepower at the wheels—power that is sent through a Rossler Turbo 400 transmission with a ProTorque converter.
Wood’s Camaro is also equipped with a large 15-gallon fuel cell and radiator, along with provisions for a passenger seat, and has fully functional windows, giving him the option to take it on…
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