Chevrolet COPO Camaro Review: Quickest Camaro Ever Produced!

 Hot find: If you're interested in the history of Chevrolet, the GM Heritage Center offers some excellent free and interesting online GM Historical pamphlets and books.

Picture of the Chevrolet L88 recreated as the ZZ427/480 (480 horsepower). Like the original, it features an iron block, forged steel crankshaft and high-flow aluminum cylinder heads.
The ZZ427 (480-hp) is a recreation of the 1967-69 L88 motor available from Chevrolet Performance Parts. It features and iron block w/ aluminum heads.		 Image of the GM Performance Parts aka Chevrolet Performance Parts 427 Anniversary Big Block Crate Engine
Chevrolet Performance ZL-1 motor replica - "427 Anniversary Big Block crate engine". It features aluminum block and heads. Limited to 427 units total.

Official historic 427 muscle car engine replicas or recreations made by Chevrolet (General Motors)

Anyhow, the new COPO Camaro muscle car  was clearly conceived with the same drag racing intentions as the nearly half a century old 69 COPO, in the Stock Eliminator and Super Stock NHRA (National Hot Rod Association) classes, and the new COPO is also available with the modern lightweight, and hand-built and naturally aspirated LS7 427 (7.0 L) small block, made famous by the Z06 Corvette, as one of the three power option choices.

The NHRA classes the COPO was designed to compete in generally run times in the nine second range, or better, on the quarter-mile today.

Full side view of the General Motors Chevrolet COPO Camaro

COPO specs: Also, the new Chevy COPO Camaro, or Camaro Stock Eliminator project, was in development before the new 2010 5th Generation Camaro even hit the highways. The new 3,175 to 3,250 lb COPO Camaro uses a production Camaro SS body (with the majority painted in white or black), has a standard solid Strange Engineering S-9 rear end unit with aluminum third member, 35-spline spool and 35-spline axles, 4.10:1 or 4.29:1 rear gearing, manual brakes and steering, full chrome-moly roll cage, lightweight semi-stripped interior, Hoosier racing tires (9.0/30.0R - 15 94.0 inch rear radial racing slicks with 4.5/28.0 - 15 inch fronts) with Bogart racing wheels (15 x 10 inch rear and 15 x 3.5 inch front), and a Hurst "Quarterstick"  operated a 2-spd. automatic ATI "Pro Glide" automatic transmission and torque converter designed for the strip. Read the new official GM Chevrolet COPO Camaro full specs here.

"Strange Engineering" played a significant role in the performance parts selection

An picture of the LSX based 327 cubic inch 5.3-liter cast iron V8 COPO Camaro racing engine is available with either a 2.9-liter or 4.0-liter supercharger. There is also the naturally aspirated, or no supercharger, aluminum LS7 427 cubic inch 7-liter naturally aspirated engine option.
The 327 cubic inch LSX-based supercharged engine

COPO Camaro engines: These are the 3 high-performance engines to choose from. Published horsepower ratings for these COPO engines are, as is tradition, grossly underrated. The new COPO Camaro engines have a maximum recommended rpm of 7,500, and the NHRA horsepower rating is 550 hp for 4.0-liter supercharged 327, 500 hp for the 2.9-liter supercharged 327, and 425 hp for the LS7 427.

  • "A Stock" aluminum LS7-based (Holley) naturally aspirated 427 (7.0L) V-8 small block. Same displacement as the original 1969 427 COPO Camaro big block.
  • "AA Stock" cast iron supercharged, LSX-based 327 (5.3L) V-8 featuring a 2.9L twin-screw Whipple supercharger
  • "A Super Stock" cast iron supercharged, LSX-based 327 (5.3L) V-8 featuring a 4.0L twin-screw Whipple supercharger


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