The new Camaro was born almost two years ago, and it comes as no surprise that the car has proven popular with the automotive aftermarket. From simple appearance upgrades to serious injections of horsepower--mostly by supercharging--companies have embraced the new Camaro with ingenuity and open arms.

And when it comes to the art of supercharging, Jim Bell needs little introduction to auto enthusiasts. Having made his mark drag racing Buicks in what he calls another lifetime back in the Seventies, Bell applied the lessons learned on the drag strip to developing liquid-cooled superchargers for a variety of late-model applications, among them the new Camaro.

Kenne Bell Performance Products offers three states of tune for the Camaro's optional LS3 425-horsepower V8 engine: 650, 825, and an incredible 1,000 horsepower--all street legal on pump gas. (All three modified Camaros are available through Mr. Norm's Garage as part of its RPO program of turnkey cars based on the 2010-11 Camaro.)

I've worked with Bell over the years on a variety of projects, including his tire-melting 625-horsepower Dodge Challenger. We wanted to come up with a unique challenge for Bell's personal RPO L78 Camaro: Death Valley over Fourth of July weekend.

One of the issues with many so-called tuner cars is that they work fine under normal conditions. Yet Death Valley in July is anything but normal. We expected to encounter temperatures in excess of 115 degrees, presenting a serious challenge to both the cooling system components and the supercharger, which would be throwing off additional heat.

Death Valley in July provides an additional fun challenge: spying out any future vehicles like the upcoming Camaro Z28 and convertibles undergoing hot-weather testing by automaker engineers.

I was accompanied on this adventure by Debbie and Larry Weiner, whose Performance West Group handles media relations for both Mr. Norm's Garage and Kenne Bell. (Debbie spent the entire journey in the Camaro's back seat.)

Our plans were immediately thrown into disarray when, on the previous Monday, the differential of our test vehicle--the only one in existence at the time--was damaged by staff from another magazine while testing at Fontana Speedway. This necessitated the burning of a great deal of midnight oil by Adam Montague at ST Motorsports in San Bernardino: He was charged with getting the car back on the road in time.

The process was complicated by the fact that the needed parts were not available in Southern California. Local dealers simply don't stock these kinds of parts. Through a Herculean effort, the car was delivered to Kenne Bell HQ in Rancho Cucamonga early Saturday morning ... just in time for Jim Bell to hand over the keys. We were on our way, heading north to Death Valley.

The Death Valley run is one I usually take once a week between July