Smoke ’em if you got ’em

Mike Serrano hails from the small town of Douglassville, Pennsylvania. Things are normally quiet and peaceful in town, that is until Mike decides to take his fourth-gen Camaro for a drive.. Mike tells us that his Chevrolet started life powered by a six-cylinder engine, and when the original owner put it up for sale, a friend of Mike’s bought it, and removed the engine and transmission. The friend added a Spohn K-frame, but that was as far as he got before he realized how much work would be involved to build the car the way he wanted.

According to Mike, “I was in the beginning stages of building a Mustang with a Chevy drivetrain when I heard about the car. When I first saw the mint black paint on the roller, I knew this car could be something special, so I stopped the Mustang project, and started on the Camaro. That was about about five years ago.”

Mike and the crew at Rubright Racing of Limerick, Pennsylvania, handled a lot of the aspects of the build. They fabricated and installed the rollcage that is certified to 8.50 seconds, as well as the wiring and fuel system.

No LS engine for this fourth-Gen. That is 605 cubic-inches of big-block under the hood.

Speaking of the engine, Lorenzo’s Fast Flow Cylinder heads in Penndel, Pennsylvania, assembled the 605 cubic-inch monster. It is based on a Dart block, and is topped with Brodix BB-2 Xtra heads that have received extensive porting. Down low is a Keith Black crankshaft, Carrillo connecting rods, and Manley pistons. Frank Soldridge of PSI Speed Solutions installed the Big Stuff 3 EFI conversion and air-to-water intercooler. Finally, Billet Atomizer 225 injectors and a Waterman mechanical fuel pump feed the engine, while an MSD ignition lights the fire.

Behind the mountain of an engine is an Automatic Transmission Factory (ATF) Powerglide with a PTC torque converter. Finally, a Strange rearend is filled with a 3.30 gear and Moser 40-spline axles.

What good is having an insane amount of horsepower, if you can’t make it hook when you try to launch?, To combat tire smoke, Mike installed a TRZ Motorsports antiroll bar and Panhard bar. Controlling frontend movement has been assigned to a pair of Ron Rhodes-spec’ed Santuff Struts and springs.

The rearend is where the “hook” occurs, and is supported by Strange’s double-adjustable shocks, the stock rear springs, and BMR trailing and torque arms.

When Mike and friends finally completed the build, A test session on the dyno saw the numbers climb to the tune of 1,584 horsepower at the wheels. When tuning was completed, Mike made his first test pass in the car, and was rewarded with a track-blistering 7.93 seconds at 183 mph in the 1/4-mile.

Finally, Mike tells us that none of this would have been possible without the help of his wife Lisa, Mark Rubright, and Frank Soldridge, “This project probably would have died years ago.” He also says, “This is a true 3,900-pound street car that gets driven everywhere.”

If you want to follow Mike and his Camaro, you can check out their Facebook page here.

Since we’ve started the Homebuilt Heros segment, we have received a few candidates, but we need more. Send us a few pictures of your car with all of the pertinent information, and we’ll make you Internet famous. You can send your submissions to [email protected].