For weeks, Tom Heatley has been thrashing to get his black True Street Camaro ready to make a pass at the NMCA/NMRA double header at Zmax Dragway in Concord, North Carolina.

Tom has been working on the project for the past few years, after parting with his old 1969 Camaro that was running in the 8.40 zone. Tom decided to go with the fourth generation F-body because of its slick aerodynamic profile and one happened to be available from a friend in Alabama.

Street Legal TV profiled the car build back in March and last month brought you exclusive news on the chassis dyno session in preparation for the event at Zmax Dragway.

To bring you up to speed on the project, Tom contacted tuner Job Spetter and chassis builder Jamie Miller fromMiller Race Cars to design and build the Camaro. Spetter had worked with Paul Major on his rear mount twin turbo C5 Corvette and jumped at the opportunity to apply the rear mount turbo technology on the Camaro. Miller Race Cars stripped the car and installed a 25.2 NHRA legal cage. After the cage was complete, Heatley took the car toDMC Race Cars for turbo fitment, plumbing, and finish work.

“The main reason for putting the twins in the rear was to get the weight off the nose,” said Heatley. “Knowing we were going to have to run a small drag radial tire in the street classes, we decided to get more weight on the tire. That was the best way to make it fast.”

Tom Heatley’s 1800 hp True Street Camaro makes its debut a ZMax Dragway.

The combination powering the Camaro is a 477ci big block Chevy with Twin 88mm Garrett rear mounted turbos. Mixing the fuel and spark is an ACCEL Gen. 7 DFI system with an MSD 3571 Ignition unit. A Racepak V300 monitors the engine functions and an AMS 1000 boost controller manages the 18 pounds of maximum boost down the track. A two-speed Powerglide with a Neal Chance converter transfers the 1,800 + horsepower to the rear tires.

A 477 cubic inch big block Chevy with Twin 88mm rear mounted turbos powers the street legal Camaro.

Job Spetter worked with DMC Racecars on the rear mount turbo setup.

Tom picked up the car at DMC Race Cars in Halifax, MA weeks ago and spent a few days with the car on the chassis dyno for a Job Spetter tune. After backing out a rocker arm on the dyno pull, Tom fixed that issue and headed to Cecil County Dragway for some checkout passes. Tom made two passes on the 1/8 mile track at Cecil County and recorded a 6.40 et running at partial boost.

After running the checkout passes and fighting the typical new car blues, Tom packed up the Camaro and headed to Zmax Dragway for the car’s NMCA True Street debut.

Heatley gets his game face on preparing for another pass at ZMax Dragway.

In the first qualifying session and running on a conservative tune, Tom ran a 9.45 et at 168 mph. Second round qualifying netted at 9.10 et at 173 mph. Talk about a back-half charge running the 1320! After making several passes in qualifying and the required True Street 30 mile cruise, Tom was ready to race on Sunday.

Heatley made a 9.216 et pass during Sunday’s first True Street round, struggling to build boost in the first half of the track.

In the True Street second round, Heatley pulled into the staging lanes and was ready to make another conservative pass. After preparing the car for a burnout, a Zmax track worker motioned to Heatley to shut down after he thought he saw a leak from the under the car. The Heatley team tried to prove to the track worker that there was no leak and even jacked up the car in an attempt to prove the car was clean, but it was too late. The call had already been made to abort the pass.

Heatley missed the first round pass and had to pack up for the trip back to Tennessee. Upset with the ruling after all the hard work, Heatley took some satisfaction when the NMCA presented him with a plaque for BEST APPEARING DRAG CAR at the event.

The NMCA presented Heatley with a plaque for BEST APPEARING DRAG CAR at the ZMax event.

Heatley reflected on the car’s debut and took some satisfaction in just making it to the event. “For the first day out with a lame tune up and not making boost for 3.5 seconds it was a pretty decent weekend,” said Heatley. “I plan to get with Job (Spetter) and try to put some power into the car while testing down here at my local track. A converter swap is also in the works to free up the power at the line. If everything goes good the next few weeks, I’d like to come out swinging at the NMCA race at Milan.”

Once everything is sorted out, Tom Heatley plans to run several NMCA True Street races with the Camaro set on kill, and he would like to set the True Street record. He also has plans to run Outlaw 275 radial events around Western Tennessee, Missouri and the Mississippi area. A trip to Hot Rod’s Drag Week might also be in the plans once he gets the car up to speed.