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So many gearheads out there dream of owning a “cool car” starting at a very young age, and that dream usually grows into a giant obsession that lasts into adulthood. Pennsylvania native Jef Fern was able to purchase his dream car at the tender age of 17 and has been working on it ever since. Over the past 34 years, his 1970 Camaro has gone through many phases, and has been transformed into a wicked twin turbo ride that has killer looks and the ability to lay down single digit passes at the track.
Before his senior year of high school, Jef had mowed every yard, painted every house, and done just about every odd job he could to earn some cash for his dream car. With the $1,800 he had saved, Jef was able to purchase his new ride, and he could not have been happier.
“The Camaro came with absolutely no bells and whistles, unless you count the badly spray-painted florescent orange traction bars and rear cover. The car was a dark forest green, so those highlights stood out like a sore thumb,” Jef says about his new pride and joy. Under the hood was a 307 cubic-inch small-block backed by a four-speed transmission and GM 10-bolt rear end — your standard type parts — but it was all he needed at the time.
The Camaro came with absolutely no bells and whistles, unless you count the badly spray-painted florescent orange traction bars and rear cover. – Jef Fern
In 1983, the Camaro suffered its first big mechanical failure, and tested Fern’s newfound wrenching abilities, when the 307 under the hood finally failed. “The local junkyard provided a 327 and I added the obligatory 600 cfm Holley carburetor and Torker intake, and finally gave it its first set of headers,” he explains, on where he sourced his new powerplant. But as Jef found out the hard way, when you add more power, new things break, and so he had to become proficient in swapping out transmissions. Four of them, to be exact.
After Jef went off to college, priorities had to change. He tells us. “I was a student at Lincoln Technical Institute at the time and studying mechanical drafting. I had no money and a mind full of dreams, brought on by every car rag I could get my hands on, and by the masterpieces that Rod Saboury and Rick Dobertine had built.” So, the Camaro was relegated to daily driving duty, and any modifying activities had to move to the back-burner.
Once out of school and working for a civil engineering company, he was in a position to turn his attention back to the Camaro. Jef reminisces about how his big-tire dreams became reality fondly.
Fern did extensive body modifications to get this tire to fit so clean under the car.
”Jim’s Auto Works tubbed the car for me and I spent the summer of 1989 getting my Pro Street car ready to go (which was in black primer at the time),” he says. “Before the end of the summer, the car was out on the road with a tunnel ram-equipped 327, a four speed, an 8-point roll bar, 4:88 gears, and big fat tires.”
After rolling around in this form for the summer months, Jef decided the following year it was time for a few big changes to the car, and to start, he had good friend Mark Knarr paint the car a screaming shade of yellow. That wasn’t the only change, though, as Jef shares. “My girlfriend, Lori, lent me the cash to buy my first blower — a B&M Mega Blower. Mark and I built the first blower motor for the car and the monster was born.”
The following year, Fern’s hard work on his dream car paid off with some serious recognition. In July 1990, Fern took his Camaro to his first Super Chevy Show at Maple Grove Raceway. After getting parked, a gentleman stopped by on a golf cart to take a gander at his ride. That man was Steve Reyes from Popular Hot Rodding magazine, and that meeting led to the first bit of press for his gorgeous machine, Needless to say, he was overjoyed.
With a quick swap to some sticky tires Fern’s Camaro will be ready for track duty.
During the height of the Pro Street movement, Jef’s Camaro graced several other leading automotive magazines while going through various paint jobs, but always sporting a big blower with big, meaty tires. Unlike many Pro Street cars of the era, the Camaro was more than just a fairground cruiser; it saw active duty at the track. Even with the mild setup, it was able to click off a 10.23 best at 133 mph, which was pretty quick for a street car at the time.
Jef ran into a bit of trouble after several trips to the track, as a cracked cylinder head showed up on the drive home from one of the many shows he attended The car was grounded for a while due to this mechanical failure and a lack of funds to get it rolling again, but like any man with a dream car, this was merely a temporary situation.
Since it was already a back half car, the plan was to front half it. I bought an S&W front clip at Maple Grove’s flea market and we set out on the next chapter. – Jef Fern
Fern sat down and began to design a new and functional chassis for the car, but hit quite a snag during teardown. “After Dave cut the car apart, we noticed one very odd problem, the old 4-link setup was installed very wrong years ago, when it was originally tubbed. The brackets on the rear were upside down, which answered a lot of questions about I had about why I could never get the suspension to work correctly at the track,” he says.
With a plan in place, Guenst began work on Jef’s design that included a full 2×3 tube frame, a custom 12-point roll cage, a new 4-link rear suspension setup, and a totally new A-arm front suspension. The goal was to produce a car that would barely hover above the ground and look just like the Pro Street-class cars that ran in the NMCA to give it a great stance and function well at the track.
Jef ditched the blower motor and acquired a pair of turbos, thus necessitating the need for a new engine. Starting with a four-bolt main block, he bored it .030-inches over to bring the displacement up to its current 355 cubic-inch size. The stout rotating assembly is anchored by a Callies Dragon Slayer crank that spins a set of Crower I-Beam Sportsman Rods and a set of custom Wiseco pistons.
The top end of the engine features a pair of Brodix Aluminium heads that are filled with titanium valves, along with springs that are matched to a custom turbo camshaft from Cam Motion. A set of Harland Sharp rocker arms and Manley pushrods finish out the top end.
Taking in all the boosted air is an Eldebrock Victor Jr. intake and CSU 750 cfm blow-through carburetor that mixes fuel provided by the twin billet Holley Dominator pump. The engine gets spark via an MSD distributor, ignition box, and Optima Red Top battery.
All of the gorgeous chrome piping in the engine bay helps pump the boost from a pair of 67 mm Turbonetics snails into the small-block Chevy. Jef’s Camaro uses a set of Wrench Rat custom 1-7/8–inch turbo headers to move exhaust out of the engine. He also designed and built his own custom air-to-air intercooler, along with the four-inch exhaust.
Fern will be able to make trips down the track in comfort with this swank interior.
The transmission is a custom-built Turbo 400 that uses a PTC 3400 rpm stall stall converter to send the power back to the 12-bolt rearend. Helping bring the Camaro to a stop is a full set of Aerospace Components billet disc brakes at each corner. QA1 shocks set the tone for the stance of the car and help plant the power for trips around the block, or down the dragstrip.
The 8.50-certified cage is going to come in handy, I think, because this car should run low nines to high eights pretty easily. – Jef Fern
This Camaro is the culmination of 34 years of ownership, love, and hard work. Jef’s dream car has brought him through tough times in his personal life and brought him vast amounts of joy, and now, with this newest incarnation, Jef will show the world that Pro Street is far from dead, and his twin turbo Camaro is more than a pretty face — it’s a single-digit work of art.
