speedvision yenko/copo t.v

[Denis]

mapquest says it's 2,130 miles and 36 hours of driving from seattle to collinsville. figure three days time driving, four days elapsed, each way.

pebble beach concours d'elegance wraps up on the 19th of august. that's about 9 days from when our cars would need to get picked up locally.

looks do-able from where i'm sitting, although you might remind fred it took him three months to get my dang car shipped here from maryland

[SuperCars]

Over in Europe here for two week trip, (my wifes choice for the kids springbreak), but have my laptop to keep in touch. I see my friends are making arrangements to get me to bring cars to the Reunion. I'll have to think about it.

Hey Charlie did you drop the reserve on the Duece like you were talking? I think Jim needs to be a three Duece owner. lol.

I didn't get to see the Supercar Show on TV. The producers called me and asked me to send pictures of my 68 Yenko though. I referenced it as being unique as a "Special Order Drag Car" as shown on its GM tag riveted to the door pillar post. I told them about the old article of my car in Chevy Action that asks the COPO question. Seems to be a lot of mystery on this.

Anyway I have the copies of the GM documents obtained by Fran Preve that have a lot to do with this. I have studied these for hours trying to solve the mystery. There are about 50 pages, most of which deal with COPO 9737 which was typed on the bottom as 9737 Yenko Sports Car Conversion. In the 1969 COPO 9737, the word Yenko gets dropped so it appears that in 1968 this was a 1968 Yenko only COPO order. Anyway, I sent Marlin a couple of the noteworthy documents. I haven't forgot, but I promised to send to Brian too(When I get Back). Marlin if you could post the one showing the GM Lab report for 68 Yenko 427 Camaro Smog Emmissions test, which is a document that shows a 68 427 Camaro was factory built.

My personal belief as has been discussed on this web site off and on is that the 68 Yenko COPO 9737 MV code motor is predominantly the L78 396, and Yenko did the 427 transplants. But I also believe there was at least one or two 427 Camaros from GM. I don't think my car was labeled "Special Drag Car" because it was the ordinary L78. But whether you want to call it COPO or Pilot Prototype is the real question.

The Tonawanda GM engine documents I have show the MV code as F body CONV L78, of which approximately seventy some were built. (I am typing from memory so don't hold me to exact numbers.)On this same sheet it shows the separate code for the standard F body L78 as well. In addition to the Tonawanda records, I have the engine ECR's (Engineering Change Recommendation Orders) showing on the L78 the Add and Delete of intakes and carbs etc, to the L88 intake and Carb. These add/deletes were done under one engine assembly part number. It is the engine number of the MV Code. But towards the end of the production year, under COPO 9737, the engine assembly part number is superceded by a different ECR engine assembly number, not just once, but twice. This possibly tells me there were three different motors during this 68 COPO 9737 production run. One other noteworthy item is a handwritten note by one of the GM engineers on the engine ECR is stating make RPO V78 mandantory for Yenko 9737. When I go to the list of RPO's that make up the Yenko 9737, it says RPO V78 is something to the effect of: nonconforming and for export only. Other items on one of the ECR's state use L78 fuel pump only for delivery to Yenko, new pump to be installed at Yenko. If the motor was already a L78 as installed by GM why would the Engineer say to install the L78 fuel pump only for delivery, as if it truely was an L78, it would already have the L78 pump on it?

Well I must be bored over here to have typed this much. I've refrained from typing this in the past as I don't like controversy. So all I can say is that the above is all speculation on my part, as I am no expert. Also typing from memory as I don't have the Documents here in frontof me. Kevin.

[Edited by SuperCars (04-01-2001 at 12:46 AM).]

[JoeC]

On the COPO document in CHEVY ACTION it appears to show 9737HD. The "HD" can be an ECL code to show a configuration change in the COPO number. Such as on the 69 Camaro 9561AA (4sp) and 9561BA (TH400). The Chevelle 9562 had eight different ECL codes. Chevy could have used a different ECL suffix code on the 9737 to build different configurations of the 1968 COPO Camaro. I'm sure they wanted to build at least 50 427 Camaros in 68 since the Hemi Darts and 428CJ Mustangs were NHRA legal. If Chevy built 50 of the "MV" 396 engines with the 850 Holley DP and open plenum L88 intake, they could have ran them in NHRA Super Stock. As far as I know, the drag racers were just using the RPO L78 396 Novas and Camaros in 1968.

[COPO]

Kevin, great information. I would agree regarding the special tag rivited on your car. It must have been a pilot or prototype car. Have you ever tried a NICB search on the car to find the original destination once it lef the plant? Perhaps it was sent to GM Engineering?

I'm on the spring break trip myself for 3 weeks. Taking a crusie of Asia/India Currently in Thailand (Phucket). Kids are having fun and it's nice to be abel to keep up w/the board via satellite.

[Edited by COPO (04-02-2001 at 02:56 AM).]

[Denis]

copo:

if it's not too late, i'll pay you good money to bring back a t-shirt with the name of that town where you wrote from.

if it's too late, well, phucket.

sorry, sometimes i can't help myself...

[COPO]

Sorry Denis, enroute to Cochin, India now. Phuket is actually pronounced poooket. Of course they had the Hard Rock Cafe shirts, but I wasn't sure of your size. If you want something in India let me know. So far, I haven't come across any rice powered Yenko or Motion cars, just elephant powered. A Mopar lovers dream.

[MikeA]

I was glad to see there was some racing at the Supercar Reunion. Does anyone know what Ray Morrsion's ('68 COPO Nova) ETs were? That is a very cool Nova!!

[Chevy454]

MikeA:

I had my brother dig up his time slips from the Reunion last year (since he ran Ray), and here is what it said:

R/T: .6716
60: 2.2245
330: 5.9056
1/8: 8.9598
1/8 MPH: 80.57

That 1/8 mile ET is around a mid-high 13 second 1/4 mile, which is pretty good considering no tuning on the car, and that he doesn't race it on a regular basis. It would have been interesting to have saw what kind of ETs Ray would have turned with the BFG Drag Radials in his trailer...

[MikeA]

Thanks for the info. Why only an 1/8th mile?

[Chevy454]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Why only an 1/8th mile?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, the track used to be 1/4, but a couple of years ago, for some reason (insurance?), they backed it down to 1000 ft. But, on the evening they were there, they were only running the 1/8, so that's what we did. We were just glad we had a place to run!

This year, though, the racing will be done at Gateway Intl. Raceway, so we won't have to convert ETs from 1/8 to 1/4! It should be a lot of fun, and we are going to try and use some of the track time to make sure our Camaro is set up for the PSMCDR. I guess we will see if we know anything about rebuilding an engine or not...