When Chevrolet pulled the wraps off of the Camaro ZL1 (which most of us had assumed would be called the Z28) it opened a new chapter in GM’s performance history. By building the fastest factory car to ever wear the Camaro name, GM has raised the bar both for itself, and the automotive aftermarket.

Thus it didn’t take long for Lingenfelter Performance Engineering to get their hands on a new ZL1 and claim that they would be the first to take the supercharged Camaro into the 10’s. Recently, they came tantalizingly close to attaining that goal, but fell just short of breaking the 10-second barrier.

Being Lingenfelter, it only makes sense that they went and modified their ZL1 (one of the first off the assembly line) to try and squeeze out more horsepower. Yet the modifications still remained minimal; a supercharger pulley to increase boost by 3-4 psi (bringing it up to about 11-12 psi total), an ECM reflash, a cold air intake, a 160-degree thermostat, and some Nitto skinnies and drag tires.

Yet, these small modifications resulted in some big horsepower gains. On 93 octane fuel, the modified Camaro ZL1 put 585 horsepower down at the wheels. On VP109 racing fuel the power output jumped to a mind-blowing 652 horsepower at the wheels. Yet even on race fuel, the best run Lingenfelter could eek out was a painfully-close 11.03 at 130 mph. So close, so very close…but still not quite in the tens. However, we don’t imagine it will take them too much longer to get there.