THINKING FASTER
WE GO UNDER THE SKIN OF NEW ZEALAND’S FASTEST TIN-TOP
UNDER THE SKIN OF NEW ZEALAND’S FASTEST TIN-TOP
Asilhouette body draped over a purpose-built tubeframe chassis, 850hp (634kW) of carburetted 18-degree V8, zero driver aids, and 14-inch-wide rear slicks — these are the hallmarks of the cars built to race in the series known as ‘Trans-Am’. At first glance, you might assume that this is exactly one of those, but, ladies and gentlemen, what we have here is not a Trans-Am — well, at least, not in the traditional sense. Read on, and you will discover that this is a machine of far greater capabilities — although numerous people told owner Cameron Jones that he was a dead-set idiot for trying to make this combination work.
To understand how Cameron came to shoehorn a 20B peripheral-port (PP) turbo into a Trans-Am, we first need to wind the clock back over two decades to Cameron’s early years racing SS2000 in an RX-2 coupe that he describes as looking cool but lacking the pace to match the RX-7s. So, after building up a widebody Series 1 (S1) RX-7 to beat them at their own game, and transplanting the driveline over from the RX-2, he was rewarded with the championship.
“I was building engines for Gavin Stewart and his workshop burned down. The fire destroyed his car, and all we managed to salvage was the 13B turbo engine, which he suggested we put into my RX-7. After a season of testing, we won the OSCA national and North Island championships that next year,” Cameron recalls.
Around this time, GT1 was formed — an all-comers class of the fastest machines little old New Zealand could muster. With many fewer rules hamstringing the RX-7’s potential speed, Cameron jumped right on in and the real fun began.
While the RX-7 might have had the pace to trump the OSCA field, GT1 was another league, and, after finishing fourth in his first season, Cameron realized that the RX-7 just didn’t have the pace to hit home. A new build was needed, and he knew exactly the car for the job — well, kind of, as he explains: “Every time I’d enter or leave the track at Taupo, I’d see the silhouette of a race car under a blue cover in one of the workshops. I finally stopped into the shop to find out it was Paul Pedersen’s Trans-Am, which they’d stripped and never rebuilt.”
Eight months of negotiation followed before Cameron could finally take the shell and all the bits back to Palmy — it took two trailer loads. The Camaro had some serious credentials, built by famed US sports car builders Riley and Scott. With Paul behind the wheel, it had secured both a first and a second in the local Trans-Am championship. Cameron, however, was fixated on GT1, and what he intended to do was something completely different to what anyone had done with a Trans-Am before. People were not shy about letting Cameron know how nuts they thought the idea of putting a rotary into a Trans-Am really was — not that he was listening.
The initial build process spanned only three months, with the 13B turbo set-up being swapped over from the RX-7. Getting the combination up to speed would not be without its challenges,
Although Trans-Ams typically run 16s, a switch to 18inch Fikse wheels in 2015 not only unlocked a wide range of better developed rubber but also allowed for decent-sized brakes, as it was a struggle to keep brakes under the thing. Taken from a V8 Supercar development machine, the AP Racing rotors measure 365mm up front and 330mm out back, both clamped by monobloc AP calipers
Built and developed by Cameron himself, the short-crank 20B features a Mazda Factory Racing (MFR) dry-sump front cover, peripheral-ported housings, a custom intake, and a Garrett GTX45. The package produces 633kW and 840Nm of torque
Running an HGT six-speed sequential, Cameron is actually a test driver of sorts for HGT, so anything that needs testing will be found in here before hitting the market. It’s one hell of a brutal proving ground, don’t you think?
Just how fast? Try 1min 3s around Cameron’s home track of Manfeild, and 1min 2s around Hampton Downs. To put that into perspective, it’s faster than most TRS cars at the recent New Zealand Grand Prix at Manfeild
Unlike Cameron’s RX-7, the Trans-Am is a purpose-built race car with a full tube chassis. Adjustments can be made to every single arm, including the fully floating three-linked diff
though, and, over the next few seasons, Cameron would work hard at getting it all to gel. The real potency of the combination was unlocked with the switch to a 20B, sparked after a taste of driving Tony Stewart’s 20B FD.
“We’d shipped my car to Thailand to race, and it wasn’t going to be back in time for the first round of GT1, so, I borrowed Tony’s FD, and we won the round,” Cameron told us.
That was all the tempting Cameron needed, and it wasn’t long before a three-rotor was well under way. However, in true Cameron style, he took a route that was a little different to that everyone else was taking. At the time, no one was really messing with peripheralported turbos in circuit racing, but, with the first power run netting 484kW, Cameron knew that he was on the right track with his drysumped short-crank PP 20B. Now punching out around the 633kW mark, the development has never stopped and probably never will. Hell, Cameron is even working away on developing his own turbo in an attempt to lower intake temps by around 10 degrees from their current state. Cameron just can’t leave the car alone — there is always something to rework, re-engineer, or refine. “My mates tell me to just leave it alone, but I can’t,” he admits. Clearly, it’s Cameron’s willingness to try new things, step outside the box, and not listen to the naysayers that’s got the TransAm to where it is — which is essentially the fastest tin-top in the country. It’s not the fastest vehicle in the GT1 class, though, with the three Crawford prototypes just that step above, and that is pushing Cameron more and more.
No BC Golds around here! These are Triple Eight racing-prepped Sachs dampers with Eibach springs
In a quest to rope them in, aero dynamics has been an area under development. In true Kiwi backyard style, it’s all been done with a rather large blower and some talcum powder. While that might sound rudimentary, the results speak for themselves. Nipping at the heels of the big-dollar prototypes, the car is just under five-seconds-a-lap quicker around Manfeild than a traditional Trans-Am and quicker than most of the Toyota Racing Series (TRS) field.
Aero upgrades aside, there are a few other changes that give the car an edge over the traditional Trans-Am. The wheels are now 18-inch, which not only opened up a wider choice of rubber and compounds but also allowed much bigger brakes, stolen off a V8 supercar development machine. Much like the original, there are still no fancy driver aids; it’s all a balancing act between Cameron’s feet, hands, and mind.
If you ask us, we need more minds like Cameron’s that are keen to step outside the box and not follow the easy route. If Cameron had listened to those naysayers in the early days, New Zealand’s fastest tin-top would not be sitting in his shed right now.
Cameron has a connection to Triple Eight Racing, so a few parts from its spares inventory can be found in the Camaro, including the push-type pedal box, which is a one-trick piece of kit
Cameron admits that the body is a little used, but makes no apologies — “If you’re in my way, I’ll give you a nudge,” he laughs