Lingenfelter Performance Engineering is well-known to readers of our publication – we’ve followed the progress of their black 5th Gen Camaro drag development mule as it went from mid-tens to high nines, then finally down into the eight second zone. Now, Lingenfelter’s Graham Behan tells us that there’s a new addition to the stable, set to debut at the Holley LS Fest in September, and it’s going to be a purpose-built competition car.

“Basically what we are doing is making a 2010 Camaro for the [LSX Challenge Series] Real Street class,” Behan reveals. “It’s going to be a small displacement, large bore 358 with a single 76mm turbo. It’s essentially a solid rear axle with a torque arm like a Gen 4, Powerglide, probably with a lockup torque converter, and we’re going to try some different strategies in that too.”

With a clear goal in mind (namely, competing in next year’s LSX Challenge for the full season) the new white Camaro is a radical departure from the current car. “If you think about it, the black car was kind of brute force and ignorance,” Behan admits. “We developed the suspension, and that car’s gone a 1.30 60 foot, but when we first took it out to the Camaro Fest, it ran a 10.30. In testing, it ran a 10.20, and we were at the end of the supercharger, basically. We said, ‘we’d like to get a nine, so how much nitrous do you think that will take?’ We put 75 on it and ran a 9. Then LMR was out there claiming a 9.59, so we said, ‘we might as well go out and chase that,’ and we did it with a manual 6 speed instead of their automatic. We beat them at the LSX shootout – their best was, I think, a 9.52 and ours was a 9.46 out there. So then we decided that since we had a 9.5, why not go for an 8? So we got our 8.9 with a 6-speed and the LS9 short block in it, and we were really quite pleased with ourselves.”

Even though the existing car is a heavy hitter, it has shown clear signs that it’s reaching the end of its potential as it currently stands. Per Behan, “Now we’re looking at how we went out in Arizona and absolutely destroyed second gear when we did a WOT no-clutch shift, even using the torque cut module and a faceplated Liberty transmission that was put together by RPM Transmissions. So now, the car is still equipped with a 6060 case, but I’ve got straight-cut spurs in there specificaly designed to be the strongest gear I can get. We’ve done some work with Liberty on changing the angles on the dog rings and the faceplates to make it easier to get it out of gear because one of the problems we had in Arizona was that with a seven and a half degree back-cut angle we couldn’t physically get it out of first gear under the nitrous load.”

To make further progress and to enhance reliability, a fresh start (and an automatic transmission) was called for. “The Real Street car is going to be a far more elegant racecar that goes out for a purpose,” says Behan. “[With the black car] we wanted to be quick, and we wanted to do it with a manual 6-speed just because we could. That car evolved, rather than being planned. Along the way it developed some great stuff for us, and it gave the guys in the shop a kick, to be working on a race car again.”

Starting with a V6 chassis, Lingenfelter began a blank-slate project to build the ultimate 5th Gen Camaro drag car. “We took it to Advanced Chassis and they put a 25.2 cage in it for us, and did the rest of the chassis mods,” Behan explains. One of the more interesting aspects of the project is that the company will be pursuing two different engine programs with one radical difference: “One of the engines is going to be a 90 degree cruciform crank, and the other is going to be flat-plane,” reveals Behan.

For those not steeped in crankshaft theory, most 90-degree V8 engines have a crank with rod throws arranged at 90 degree angles (forming a cross-shaped arrangement) to provide an even firing order and smoother balance. A flat, or single-plane crankshaft has all the throws at 180 degrees to each other, like a pair of inline 4’s joined at the crank. While a cross-plane crank forging must be “twisted” in order to put the throws at the proper angle, a flat crank can be forged in a single operation, making it potentially stronger. Cross-plane cranks also require more counterweight for primary balance.

On the left, a conventional cross-plane crankshaft. On the right, a 180-degree "flat" crank. Note the difference in counterweight mass.

“The thinking behind that is that we tested a flat-plane V8 in Pro Stock Truck back in 1998 – we never raced it, but we tested it on the dyno and at the track, and we had a significantly lighter crank,” says Behan. “We feel that to optimize an engine to run with a 76mm turbo, we have to peak power way late – something like 8500 RPM is what we’re going to try for peak power. The flat plane gives us some advantages, in my mind. Plus, can you imagine what people will think when it shows up at the Holley LS Fest sounding like a real busy 4 cylinder?”

We love carbed LS engines, but this was just a little practical joke. The car will actually run a BigStuff3 engine management system.

Only time will tell which layout proves more successful in actual competition, but it’s that sort of out of the box thinking that advances the sport, and we’re delighted to see a company with Lingenfelter’s engineering chops going out on a limb to try something so different. Of course, they’re not above joking around a bit too – Behan related how they had posted pictures to their Facebook page showing the new chassis with a carbureted mockup engine between the fenders just to stir things up. “People were telling us we shouldn’t go that way,” Behan recalls in his dry, English accent. “Apparently fuel injection’s better…”

We can’t wait to see what the car does when we’re at the LS Fest this September, and to be honest we’re a little envious of Behan’s job. “It’s a great time to work at Lingenfelter,” he admits. “We don’t necessarily want to go out and spoil anybody’s fun – there are a lot of guys who have been out to the two races this season that we haven’t, but our main thrust is to develop the car and then run it in next year’s full series, because that is the 10th anniversary of John’s accident. We want to be in the series all the way through next year, and that’s what we’re preparing for.”