Alright folks, buckle up. Today was all about that dang 68 Camaro gathering dust in my garage. Been itching to dive into some Smokey Yunick-style madness ever since I read up on his crazy tricks. Figured, why not try some myself? Total garage experiment mode, you know?
Startin’ With The Carb Nightmare
First thing this morning? Coffee, obviously. Then straight out to stare at that Holley carburetor sittin’ on the workbench. Smokey was obsessed with fuel flow, right? So I decided to mess with the float bowls. Got this bright idea to slightly tweak the angle of the secondary float. Not gonna lie, felt like brain surgery with a screwdriver. Took forever to get it just a tiny bit different, hoping it’d trickle fuel a little smoother when you stomp the pedal.
Playing Hide-N-Seek With Weight
Next up? Smokey was a wizard at shaving pounds anywhere nobody’d look. So I crawled under the beast. Started pulling bolts, one after another, checking which ones felt heavier than needed. Replaced damn near every bolt I could reach with lighter ones. Seriously tedious work, felt like I was disassembling the whole car just to change hardware. Found some metal brackets I didn’t recognize – might have been previous owner junk – tossed them in the scrap pile. Every ounce counts! Tools scattered everywhere at this point.
The Exhaust “Optimization”
This is where things got sketchy. Smokey bent rules… well, he practically rewrote the book. Those side-exit exhausts everyone knows? I wanted that kinda dirty-but-smart vibe. Grabbed some extra pipes laying around. Spent hours measuring, hacking pipe sections, trying to route them shorter and tighter before the mufflers. Forced me under the car like a greased rat. Kicked the exhaust pipes more times than I can count trying to get clearance near the rear axle. Looked like spaghetti by the time I tack-welded the stupid thing in place. Not pretty, but it’s shorter and straighter than stock.
Wiring Chaos & “Safety”
Afternoon coffee break. Needed it. Brain buzzing, saw Smokey hated unnecessary wire runs. Fought the god-awful bird’s nest of old wiring under the dash. My method? Any wire I traced that wasn’t critical right now, or seemed ridiculously long? I snipped it back and spliced. Got some weird looks pulling extra feet of wire out through the firewall grommets. Labeled absolutely nothing. Future me is gonna curse past me something fierce when something quits working, but hey, saved probably half a pound of copper!
Firing The Beast Up
Sun was going down. Garage smelled like burnt coffee and exhaust fumes. Said a little prayer. Cranked it over. First try? Fired right up! But dang it…
- The carb gargled like crazy for a second after revving – guess my float bowl trick might actually be doing something?
- The short exhausts were LOUD. Forget neighbors, I think folks two blocks over heard it.
- And oh man, the wiring? I’ve got a mystery light glowing on the dash that never existed before. Figure that out tomorrow.
Wiped the grease off my hands. The Camaro isn’t perfect, maybe not even street legal now, but it started, idled, and felt slightly more alive. Smokey would probably laugh at my amateur attempts, but hey, felt good bending a few rules and making things a little meaner. More tinkering needed, for sure. This junk heap somehow feels more like mine now.
