We’re getting into the heavy lifting on our 4th Gen Camaro mating up our 800 horsepower naturally-aspirated World Products 454 Warhawk and Automatic Transmission Factory Stage IV High Horsepower Powerglide to the 2000 F-body. We’ve got a full write-up on this killer transmission on the way, but in the meantime we thought we’d show you what it takes to get 10 pounds of motor and transmission into the 5 pound sack that used to hold a weak-sauce V6.

Because this is a serious drag car build – we’re shooting for low nines – we needed to be equally serious about how the engine and transmission mated up to the chassis. Having a ton of power isn’t worth a damn if all it does is rip the motor mounts out, so we turned to Madman & Co. Racing for a motor plate and a mid plate. The advantage to this kind of setup (on top of being quite a bit stronger and more rigid than a stock-style motor mount) is that it will give us far better clearance for headers, and motor plates make getting the engine in and out of the car much easier.

The motor plates that bolt to the front of the block are made from quarter-inch 6061 aluminum, while the mid-plate is .100-inch steel. Both will bolt to steel tabs that will be welded to the frame once everything is in the right spot.

First order of business was to cut the no-longer-needed engine mounts off the tubular K-member.

Sean also took the areas of the frame where the tabs will be welded down to bare metal.

The mid-plate is provided oversized, so it can be trimmed to fit the application. In our case, we needed to cut it down to clear the transmission tunnel to get our desired set-back.

With the mid and motor plates mounted, Sean and Tweedy test-fit the engine and transmission.

There are plenty of guys out there running carbed LS engines in 4th-gen chassis, but we had a hell of a time trying to find any pictures or write-ups about what it takes to get hood/cowl/windshield clearance for that kind of a setup on the web. Therefore, as a public service, we’re documenting our own trial-and-error approach:

Because of the height of the single-plane manifold and carburetor, we knew that the top of the engine was going to want to occupy the same real estate as the cowl and base of the windshield. Time for the factory glass to come out...

Sean cleverly repurposed the hood release cable as a tool to cut through the weather seal to pop out the windshield.

With the manifold cheated forward on top of the engine, you can see how much further back it all needs to go.

Sean marked out the area of the cowl that needed to be cut, leaving some extra room for the throttle linkage and fuel lines.

With the cut made, the manifold and carburetor can finally go in the right spot.

The top-down view shows how much Sean had to section out of the cowl. The plan is to use a Lexan windscreen cut to match, with the cowl boxed in with sheetmetal that will extend up to meet the windshield to seal off the passenger compartment.

Down below, you can see how the tabs (which are just tack-welded to the frame at this point) will bolt to the motor plate.

Because Sean is a perfectionist, he cut and tacked in triangular gussets for the mid-plate mounts as well. The mid plate will also get relieved a bit more for extra header clearance, as you can see from the markings.

Now that we’re happy with the way the engine and transmission sit in the car, we just have to do the finish welds on the plate mounting tabs and drill the appropriate bolt holes, then tackle boxing up the cowl and getting a plastic windshield in there. Stay tuned as we keep getting closer to ready-to-run!