A Week with My 2012 Chevy Camaro LS

After having an uninterrupted week with my 2012 Chevy Camaro LS, I now have a real feel for how the car is as a commuter. My work is about 20 miles away from home, mostly over city roads. I picked up the LS automatic because honestly I’d be doing nothing more than killing my good leg with constantly pumping the clutch in city traffic. The V8 would have used too much fuel for commuting, also.

I’ll admit, it feels nice. The suspension is firm, but not overly tight. I’m able to take a corner without a worry of lots of lateral yaw, and at the same time the suspension absorbs road noise…. mostly. It’s not a cadillac, which is nice. The engine’s nearly constant low RPM is a comforting feeling, usually sitting below 2,000 RPM. The exhaust is really quiet for a pony car, though. While idling it’s actually super quiet, and inside the cockpit the exhaust isn’t easily heard unless you’re gunning it. That doesn’t mean it’s low poer, there’s lots of get-up-and-go to this 6-cylinder. Stock it has 323 horsepower, and the power arc seems fairly uniform. The fact that the rear-wheel drive isn’t limit-slip differential is nice for me. I’ve always enjoyed having the mechanics working as they should 🙂

After owning the car for a week, I’ve decided on the modifications I’ll do to the car over the next year.

• Sunroof – This roof needs a sunroof, badly.
• X-Pipe exhaust with MRTv2 muffler – This car needs to be opened up to sound better
• Make it more industrial – All the happy happy shiney chevy/GM logos need to go
• Vertical opening doors – ONLY if I ever find myself not being able to get out without whacking the door on everything. (Remember, I’m disabled)

I took a look at the turbocharger & supercharger packages sold for this engine, but for some reason I just can not see myself spending $6,000+ on ~100 horsepower addition, when I’m not racing anyone and I’ll be driving as a commuter.