Who Says You Can’t Put 30,000 Miles on a Seven-Second Motor?
Scott Klepinger is known for smashing out seven-second quarter miles from his ‘86 Camaro, but lesser known is that he had the same engine in the car for seven years without a rebuild.
Klepinger estimated that the Billy Briggs-built motor had done somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000 miles of street driving during that time — an unbelievable distance for such a high performance mill. His best with the motor was a 7.98/173mph. The 427 LS finally had to be pulled apart in 2020 when Klepinger discovered some metal in the oil, but not before he took part in Drag Weekend 500 up in the midwest – which he won.
The 427ci LS went seven years without a rebuild, while running seven-second passes.
“We were hoping to go ten years between rebuilds but I started seeing little fragments of aluminum in the oil and I was like, ‘That is block material.’ Something was eating it, and my bet was that it was a lifter,” he said.
“I was on the edge of not doing Drag Weekend 500, but we hadn’t had any events in 2020 and I didn’t care what happened, we were going to do that event. My average for the event was an 8.02, but I was terrified the whole time it was going to tear itself up.”
Scott dangles the front end every so slightly on a clean pass at Summit Midwest Drags.
Klepinger’s instincts proved correct and a lifter pin was found where it shouldn’t have been. With that discovery, the motor was rebuilt for the first time in seven years and given some love. After doing 800 miles of driving on the fresh motor, Klepinger went to the 2021 running of Summit Midwest Drags, where he recorded an 8.179 average. At Sick Week he bumped the average down to an 8.035, while at Summit Midwest Drags 2022 he hit a new personal best of 7.955 (though his average was an 8.108 after a rough first day). Not bad on a 275 radial, and while getting 24mpg on the road.
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“It drives like a kitty cat, that is what I love about it. You put it in drive, and it clicks right through the gears. You get to the track, grab the transbrake, and it goes right through the gears again. It is not the most glamorous generation of Camaro but I am comfortable in it and it doesn’t cost me a whole lot.”
Trailer burnouts? No problem with four figures of horsepower on tap.
