'70-'73 Camaro Rally Sport front end
 

Too many legal stockers with incorrect front ends... if it has the small "bumperettes" it must have the extended center nose piece and the small round parking lights above the bumpers. If the '69 Camaro racers had to replace their cowl hoods with flat ones, shouldn't the 70-73 Camaro racers have to run front grilles,bumpers and parking lights that are correct ?
The only legal combo that was built with the small bumperettes was with the Rally Sport option. The RS option could be combined with the Z28 or SS options but it becomes the "passive" option and the Z28 or SS emblems are displayed rather than the RS script.

Re: '70-'73 Camaro Rally Sport front end
 

incorrect front combo shown below ... (disregard cowl hood which was also never offered by Chevrolet for these cars)

Re: '70-'73 Camaro Rally Sport front end
 

Do you guys really care - or is it just winter withdrawals.

Is it a performance advantage - NO - who gives a crap with the way the last few years have gone

Ron
West Coast wedge - V10 that is

Re: '70-'73 Camaro Rally Sport front end
 

The correct RS front end is heavier , the euro bumper around the grill is not light and yes there was never a split bumper with the lower marker lights

Re: '70-'73 Camaro Rally Sport front end
 

Its a simple fix. Take the split bumpers off and install the one piece bumper.

Re: '70-'73 Camaro Rally Sport front end
 

2 small bumperettes weigh less than the full size bumper many of these cars should have. Likely not much of a performance advantage if any but aesthetically incorrect.

Re: '70-'73 Camaro Rally Sport front end
 

"aesthetically" - that is the point - only a few are left who care - new cars are 5 to 8 years old and people will need to learn what is legal with the new cars - many are not perfectly correct.

It will come as no surprise - I am sure -
I have made the exact configuration change on our 1970 Camaro and the weight saving is less than 10lbs - the attachment brackets (most of the weight) are the same - if you go to the trouble of replacing the "hard nose" - not worth the cost of old collector car parts. You have to buy lower front valances and cut holes next to headlight. No one ever complained - they worried about the radiator not being stock number of rows - LMFAO. I even bought the correct fog lights but never needed them.

Re: '70-'73 Camaro Rally Sport front end
 

Having had a 70 1/2 Camaro RS/SS, I think the these(Stock/SS) cars should race with the correct parts on them.
Yes, this is one of my pet peeves and also, apparently I am old.....

Re: '70-'73 Camaro Rally Sport front end
 

If we go down this road, Stock is going to end up looking like Super Stock. Oh wait, it already does. Never mind...

Re: '70-'73 Camaro Rally Sport front end
 

SO super stock should cost more than stock - pony up and spend the money for non-performance oriented accessories - I am afraid that is no longer true any more

IMHO

Another two months of these sort of meaningless threads - then back to racing and discussing performance advantages.

Sorry - I just think it is funny when we get into the winter doldrums.

Ron

Re: '70-'73 Camaro Rally Sport front end
 

Except that diligence to retain factory produced accuracy is one of the major factors that has sustained the value and credibility of Stock Eliminator for close to 60 years. If you throw that to the wayside as "meaningless", then you will erode the identity of the eliminator significantly. And that's not an opinion, it is truth.

Re: '70-'73 Camaro Rally Sport front end
 

At first glance,this thread appeared to be a by product of end-of-season malaise and boredom, but it does bring up some interesting points.What if you had a car with some small exterior errors,such as a '72 Chevelle with '71 parking light lenses and bezels,otherwise it's completely legit,you went 1500 miles to a national event only to have a tech official not pass it over that? That could be an aggravating circumstance at best. As long as the car is correct as far as the generic appearance and the year,make,and model claimed,the combo is legit,and the weight is correct as it passes over the scales, there should be no problem. All efforts to make it legitimately correct should be made.If it's a '69 Nova,it should look like one. On another current thread, the discussion came up as to openly discussing illegal weight reduction of body parts,illegal modification of the body itself,etc,and whether openly advertising this kind of thing is wise. Tech officials read these discussions,they basically know who is legit or not, and they probably don't appreciate confronting every incident where somebody deliberately is trying to fudge on the rules.They already allow us some pretty good breaks,after all, you could have been one of those folks with a 69 Camaro 255/285 horse car with the SS hood a few years ago. So many of those cars were around with the SS hood for so long that many were probably bought and sold like that with no intent to cheat anybody or anything. It would be wise, however not to advertise the ways people push the rules.No sense waving a red flag in front of a bull.

Re: '70-'73 Camaro Rally Sport front end
 

Didn't someone get sent home from Indy this year for a incorrect grille? I thought I read or heard that somewhere.

Re: '70-'73 Camaro Rally Sport front end
 

Greg - very good post man .. I am surprised .. These experts have no idea what is legal on the new cars (last eight years) because they have not had forty years to figure it out and have never owned one.

The rules of NHRA stock eliminator have changed constantly - some have not noticed - various heads, manifolds, valve spring, transmissions, etc and other performance oriented things do not upset them as much as an in correct tail light.

Some things (people) never change.

Next year it will be new - old things.

Oh well it is winter and I am bored - so you purest fire away - it gives me an occasional minute of joy.

This is drag racing not world peace.

Ron

Re: '70-'73 Camaro Rally Sport front end
 

There was a Firebird owner that failed tech, but it was because he claimed a year that came with the heavier energy absorbing parts behind the front bumper. He claimed that year so he could run the larger and better factored engine. The problem was he used an earlier Firebird that did not come with all the heavy energy absorbing parts. And yes the grille was also incorrect.

All this was discussed on here a few months ago.

Re: '70-'73 Camaro Rally Sport front end
 

Thanks for the complement,Ron.Why were you surprised?You're right. After the end of the season,the level of communication on these threads does seem to wander from its usual level. When we get bored, we do tend to sound like it.

Re: '70-'73 Camaro Rally Sport front end
 

Neither of the 2 remaining 73 FB at Indy had bumper reinforcements, only correct grilles.

Re: '70-'73 Camaro Rally Sport front end
 

First of all, I am not a purist about this issue. Having been bounced in tech at the US Nationals for a Chevelle that had the sway bar installed upside down and seen a '56 Chev bounced because it had '55 sun visors, I would not wish that level of scrutiny ever again. However, Ron, I took exception at describing the issue of correct representation of car models in stock eliminator as "meaningless". I liked Greg's statement that "All efforts to make it legitimately correct should be made.", although I would condition it to say "all REASONABLE efforts". What I do not want to see happen is that the attitude become one of "as long as it mostly looks like a (fill in the blank of year-make-model), it's okay", especially when some one intentionally picks and chooses stuff to gain an advantage. Heaven knows that "the advantage" is the Holy Grail of so many racers that is it easy to step over the line of selling the integrity of the Eliminator for it, actual or not. I believe we all fight for that.

Ron, I do keep up with the specs of the new cars. I lived through the 60s, the other era of so many special issue factory cars, and know how difficult it is to establish what was and wasn't in regard to those cars. Hopefully, 50 years from now, we will have better documentation for this set of extraordinary race specific vehicle than we have for that earlier era.

Re: '70-'73 Camaro Rally Sport front end
 

Back in the day when I built my first Chevelle,it was a $500 roller (these don't exist today),and it had a lot wrong with it. I had a bent 69 front bumper,a 69 grille,numerous trim and moldings were missing,no front seat,but the body was near perfect and the glass was all good.I dismantled it, did a firewall forward disassembly and rebuild of the front end and steering,and immersed myself in catalogs from OPG and Muscle Factory and learned that 68 Chevelles did'nt have near the parts availability that 66-67's and 69-72's did.I built the rear end and got it under the car and put the sheet metal on the front,and took it to my buddy's shop for paint. He needed an engine for his truck,so we traded jobs-the paint for the engine.I put all new rubber moldings and weatherstrips on it and new parts as necessary-one of the last NOS grilles OPG had before they were discontinued.This race car started as a restoration project before we could even consider racing it.I made sure it was correct because it was just as easy to assemble a correct car as an incorrect one. I also heard nightmare tales like Dwight just described in tech and didn't want the drama. I had that car a long time and built three more just about like it.I never had an issue in tech at any race,Travis teched me at the first WInternationals it went to, Bruce has teched us since then,and I think they realized that an effort had been made to try to be accurate,rather than an effort to try to see what we could get away with.

Re: '70-'73 Camaro Rally Sport front end
 

I think that "a reasonable effort to follow the spirit of the rules" policy is really where we should be going here.

However, there are two problems with that idea, as much as I like it.

1. "A reasonable effort to follow the spirit of the rules" is in itself a rather subjective idea that creates a really big gray area. The fundamental idea is sound, and really goes to helping keep the class as easy as possible to participate. Unfortunately, we will have a real problem defining what "a reasonable effort to follow the spirit of the rules" constitutes. Drawing the line is going to be difficult. And we already have a pretty broad and inconsistent application of the rules.

2. We no longer have guys like Travis, Dave, and Wesley attending and overseeing tech at all of the events. So there is a serious lack of experience and knowledge as to what is and is not correct, and possibly what is or is not a real performance advantage.

Despite the fact that we have all sorts of "replacement" parts allowed, we still don't want to have the cars stray too far from what they should be. By the same token, we do not want to send anyone home over trivial mistakes that do not offer a real performance advantage. We have to realize that it may be nearly impossible or prohibitively expensive to find the exactly correct part for some cars, and a reasonable facsimile should be acceptable. After all, to compete in Stock Eliminator you may need to spend $30,000 (or more) on the powertrain to be reasonably competitive, if you cannot do much of your own work. Do we really want to tell someone they need to spend 6 months and thousands of dollars to find some trim and/or lights, that won't matter on the track?

Should there be a list of things that get a pass? Maybe trim, marker lights, tail lights, turn signals etc should get a pass, but bumpers and grilles/grille shells should not. I don't have the answer.

Re: '70-'73 Camaro Rally Sport front end
 

Good point,Alan. Well communicated. You are right about the large gray area that can result in misunderstandings and incorrect decisions.The blinding light of the obvious is the extreme from the pitch black area of the very obscure. I hesitate to ask for a pass in some areas, that could be revoked at tech's discretion,since it's an agreed upon "legal infraction".Some times, it's hard to obtain trim parts or small items made of platinum unobtanium,that is a real issue. Another area is with local inexperienced tech people who might not know what they're looking at making an incorrect decision,but I think that's fairly rare.The dark area is occupied by those who feel the need to cheat somehow whenever they can.We all know a few of those.I see that many racers, actually almost all of us, have made more than a reasonable effort to be correct with our cars and their smaller details.