Jay Leno and Edelbrock CEO Don Barry Talk Cars and Superchargers in the Latest Episode of Jay Leno’s Garage
It’s no secret that Edelbrock maintains a pretty impressive stable of vehicles to research, develop and showcase its many performance products. One of the most legendary R&D vehicles that still remains in the Edelbrock collection of cars is the famous 1967 Hot Rod Magazine Camaro.
Four months before the production 1967 Camaro arrived in Chevy dealer showrooms, Hot Rod and Motor Trend magazines were testing this pre-production Camaro back in June 1966. This is the first-ever SS350 Camaro, and it remained in Hot Rod’s test fleet for a full year before Jim McFarland bought it.
In 1966, Jim was Hot Rod’s Tech Editor. That job opened up a relationship with Vic Edelbrock Jr, and after climbing the ladder to Editor and then Publisher of the magazine, Jim would later move on to become Edelbrock’s VP of Engineering and R&D. In 1995, Jim sold the ’67 Camaro to Vic Edelbrock Jr. with just 17,000 miles on the odometer and made him promise that he would never sell it.
Over the years, the famous Hot Rod/Edelbrock ‘67 Camaro was used in the development of many performance parts for companies like Hedman Hedders, Hurst Shifters, Lakewood, Schiefer Clutches, and, of course, Edelbrock. Today the Camaro sports a Vic Edelbrock Signature Series 383 Crate Engine that puts out 460 horsepower and 460 ft-lbs of torque. Transmission is a Muncie M-21 with a 3.31:1-geared 12-bolt Posi rearend.
Jim McFarland was instrumental in convincing Vic Edelbrock Jr. to make cars available to test products under actual conditions on the street. One of Jim’s first projects at Edelbrock was converting Vic’s 1968 Camaro into a “test mule” for R&D and testing purposes. This car, often confused with the ’67 Hot Rod R&D Camaro, was used for testing manifold-and-carburetor combinations, engines, ignition systems, headers, camshafts, transmissions, and even competitor’s products. This is the Camaro that embodied the tradition that Edelbrock products were proven before they were sold to the public. Edelbrock would have many test mules after this car, but the practice began with the 1968 Camaro.
It was current Edelbrock President and CEO Don Barry‘s idea to revive the ’68 Camaro test-car concept, complete with a modern-day take on the original 1968 graphics, using one of the newest additions to the Edelbrock test fleet: a 3.6L V6-powered 2017 Chevy Camaro. This late-model V6 Camaro served as the testbed for Edelbrock’s new supercharger kit for Chevrolet’s HFV6 engine.
Any of you old-school V8 fans who take this Edelbrock-supercharged Camaro V6 lightly will be in for quite a surprise. We ran the stock V6 Camaro on our Superflow chassis dyno for a baseline comparison. With no modification it produced 276 horsepower @ 6,500 RPM and 233 ft-lbs of rear-wheel torque at 5,800 RPM. After the addition of the new Edelbrock Supercharger Kit #15995 and no other modifications, the Camaro made 376 horsepower at 7,200 RPM and 319 ft-lbs of torque at 4,250 RPM, a net gain of 100 horsepower and 86 ft-lbs of rear-wheel torque!
For more information on the Edelbrock Supercharger for the Chevrolet HFV6 engine visit our website at www.edelbrock.com.
