Any thoughts as to a shortened Camaro for improved handling? The front wheels are moved forward to place the motor behind the wheels for better weight distribution and handling. Doors cut...Rear seats would be lost in the conversion.

 

in before the flaming!

no would not do that.

 

I've seen it don before to a GTO, it didn't look too bad...

 

sorry to the op. hope ur question gets answered. just had to throw some humor in there

 

You'd be talking about a LOT of custom fab work, bevause of the unibody structure.

In essence, the front suspension is part of the chassis (welded sheetmetal subframe construction).

You'd basically have to build a 100% custom tube chassis car, then hang the Camaro body over it.

 

I remember people doing that with vans.I wouldn't go it.If the car was fast enough for Dale Earnhardt,it's fast enough for me.

 

im sure it would help, but would be a shitload of work. You can make a 3rd gen out handle most cars without shortening it.

 

buy a shorter car it would be a hell of a lot cheaper

 

these is actually a guy on tgo how has/had a shortened car, it was sometihng like 3/4 scale or so. I dont remember the guys username, but i remember seening in a couple years ago. Think he was having a hard time finding somebody to make a smaller hatch glass.

 

i daydreamed this one day, basically i wanted to make it like a vette

 

Well thats a tall order. Practically speaking heres what i see as a problem. Proportionality. If you were to say cut a foot or two out of the center of car What are you left with? You would lose the rear seats yes but imagin the proportions of the car? A long nose which is good an fine a real short mid section where the cabin is which could work but the problem is to keep the balance you would have to cut something out of the trunk other wise it would kinda look goofy being just a long nose and long trunk basically. Course by doing that then you have a seemingly ultra long nose which might be half of the car and that may not look right either as much as i loike cars with a long nose. Then imagin the roof. Cut 2 feet out of the roof and your not left with much. Now handleing yea shortening the wheel base would make handle better but how much better? I personally dont know but on the skid path if it went from .87g's to .88g's would it be worth it? How much of a difference would it have to make to make it worth doing and how much would need to be cut out to achieve the desired result? Most importantly can anything be done to sort of prove on paper this effect will be achieved? Keep in mind by shortening the car you also push the center of gravity foward. Now you also mentioned moveing the fron wheels foward to get a better weight distrobution. First there not far you can push the wheels foward idk if it would be enough to make a big difference. By doing this though you have to move the strut towers forward remount the motor ect. As you can say to try and make changes that would be large enough to make a difference would require serious serious changes at which rate it would be easier and cheaper to build a car from scratch/remnant parts of the camaro. Or just buy a vette as it already has virtually everything your looking to do.

 

Why not just move the engine back to a point where the weight distribution would be closer to 50/50????

 

It could work, although I would hesitate on stretching the frame any further. Like Radical pointed out, just set the engine back some w/new mount locations for the engine and transmission, but this of course would require some firewall and floor pan work. Of course, you would also need to shorten your driveshaft as well. I nabbed a picture from this site awhile back where somebody photoshopped a '91/'92 Bird, they shaved the bumper like a corvette, and shortened the front end, and it looked pretty amazing if you ask me....;

 

That pic looks pretty good.

 

That bird looks sick!!! Very cool.