1968 Chevrolet Camaro SS - Chump Change

We live in a world of wretched excess. Walk though a car show and you are bombarded by mega-dollar rides and seemingly endless spending competitions. Seeing so many deep-pocket cars is almost enough to make the average guy take up stamp collecting. But it doesn't have to be this way. By investing your time and scrounging for bargains, you can end up with a slick ride for a surprisingly short stack of green. Mike Nordahl needed to build a Camaro, but he didn't want to take out a second mortgage. We say "needed" because, as a married man, Mike knows that a happy wife can make all the difference in the car-building experience. He tells PHR: "Over the years, I have owned some nice cars, such as a '67 SS Nova, '70 SS Chevelle, and a '65 Malibu. My wife, Candy, has never really liked any of them, but every time she saw a first-generation Camaro, she would 'ooh' and 'ahh' even if they weren't that great. Not having my wife liking any of my cars, I knew what I had to do. Find a Camaro." With that in mind, he began the hunt for a suitable starting point.

It took awhile, but Mike eventually came across a clean '68 Camaro. He says, "It had a nice red paint job with white rally stripes and a 100 percent uncut body. None of the other features mattered to me. I knew I would never find a car that had everything exactly the way I would want it, but this one had the base I was looking for." The seller was firm on his $10,500 asking price, which for a clean first-gen Camaro wasn't a bad deal. One reason for the lower-than-normal price may have been the limited appeal of some of the Camaro's performance accessories. "It had a 355 engine with 13.5:1 compression ratio, a hard-hitting TH400 transmission, and a Ford 9-inch rear with 4.56 gears and a spool," Mike says. "Anyone who has ever driven a street car with a spool knows how bad it goes around corners. Driving the freeway with 4.56 gears isn't very pleasant either. The car would ping on anything less than 110-octane race gas."

Nonetheless, the parts that made the Camaro so cumbersome to drive on the street made Mike a little cash when he sold or traded them to other racers. It's all part of maximizing your money. "I'm a pretty big parts collector," he says. "I have a hangar I rent at a small airport. Whenever I come across cheap or free parts, I snatch them up and toss the stuff in my hangar." This way Mike has available parts whenever he wants to make a deal.

With the old drivetrain liquidated, it was time to start putting go-fast parts back into the Camaro. With a budget of around $3,000, he started scoping out ways to build a small-block capable of getting him into the 11s on 91-octane pump gas. Mike found a core 400 short-block for $200, and digging through his hangar produced old 461 camel-hump heads and stock 350 rods. All his collected parts were sent to the machine shop, where the block was hot-tanked and magnafluxed before being align-honed, bored, decked, torque-plated, and honed. For extra strength, Mike splurged on some ARP main bolts to replace the stockers. With the factory cast crank ground and polished, he added some ARP Wave Lock bolts, and finally slid Keith Black Hypereutectic 18cc dished slugs into the cylinders. The 461 heads got some attention in the form of a Serdi three-angle valve job and ARP screw-in rocker studs, replacing the pressed-in factory units. When Mike got the unassembled heads home, he just couldn't resist rubbing on them. "I had never ported heads before, but decided I would give it a shot," he says. "I completely ported the exhaust side, but I only gasket-matched the intake ports. I spent quite a bit of time on the valve bowls and short turns. I also reshaped the combustion chambers."

After that, Mike assembled the heads with COMP valve springs, retainers, locks, and valve seals. Topping off the mill is an Edelbrock Air Gap intake and Holley 750-cfm carb. It seems like he knew what he was doing, since the Camaro put down 346 rear-wheel hp (at 5,200 rpm), and 405 lb-ft of torque at 3,900 rpm.

One of Mike's goals was to get over 20 mpg in his Camaro, so the race-prepped TH400 and converter were horse-traded for a radiator and electric fans. He then replaced it with a level-three 200-4R and heavy-duty 2,200-stall torque converter from Bowtie Overdrives. He sourced the crossmember, throttle valve cable kit, trans-cooler lines, and everything else he needed to make the installation, and a used '68 Camaro 12-bolt posi rearend with 4.10 gears rounded out his new drivetrain. "With the 4.10 rear gears and the .67 overdrive ratio, it works out to a 2.75 axle ratio," says Mike. "Combined with the lock-up converter and 28-inch tires, I get 20-21 mpg on the freeway." To help with the inevitable traction issues, he also installed a set of CalTracs traction bars and stock monoleaf springs. Competition Engineering and Rancho 9000 adjustable shocks help him dial in the suspension for drama-free launches, and the rest of the suspension is factory.

Another of Mike's goals was to have the Camaro run fast dragstrip times. With sticky Mickey Thompson ET Street Radials and weight-saving skinnies, his ride is consistently in the 11s. Mike's best run to date is an 11.63 at 115.62.Not bad for a ride he considers more of a cruiser than a racer.

Mike's car, like many rides, is a work in progress. Over the last few months he's been collecting parts to freshen up the interior, and our photo shoot was just the catalyst to get him busy installing them.The interior is mostly factory, with the exception of the Grant steering wheel and Auto Meter gauges. A Custom Autosound radio provides audio, and eventually Mike plans to install a Vintage Air system to combat those sweltering Southern California summers. So far, Mike has hit all of his goals and is happy with how little cash it's set him back. The car is simple, functional, wallet-friendly, and fun-a combination that is hard to find in this hobby today.