The Best of the GTO Videos, Part II

Here are a few more videos from various eras of the GTO.

First, when I built the heads/cam LS1 motor, I took a visit to El Paso, Texas, my previous assignment. El Paso has a great street scene and managed to find many legal venues for fun. One was the Dezert Demonz airport street races. On Sunday nights, hundreds of cars and thousands of people would gather at the private airport for cars, fun, and racing. This montage is of one of my runs against a nice Pontiac Grand Prix GTP.



Next is a different kind of montage: a compilation of launches at the drag strip in Steele, Alabama. This is still the heads/cam package I had, but the tim es were getting into the lower 12's. Included are the "conversations with the timeslip guy", where I chatted with the fellow in the booth about each of my runs. A fun night.



Finally, a view from the stands when I had built the 408 motor. This was the first 11-second run for the GTO.

Quicker at Steele

Another run at Steele Sunday afternoon, set a new personal best to help celebrate the 16th Anniversary of my Ordination to the Priesthood (March 4th).

New best: 12.761 @ 109.38 (with new CAI and A6 HPTune).
Previous best: 13.224 @ 106.76 with Cat-back only (Borla Touring).

Only changes: Cold Air Intake(Fastlane Pipeline 4") and my own custom A6 transmission tune with HP Tuners. No other mods to the motor or tune.

Best run:
Sixty: 1.942 (stock 20" PZeros at 27psi)
1/8: 8.282 MPH: 86.98
1/4: 12.761 MPH: 109.38

Overcast in the 40'sF at Steele, good track prep. I figure the CAI was worth 2/10ths, the A6 HPTune 2/10ths, and the weather 1/10th. Guessing, of course.

The car chirped the 1-2 shift, so you can see how much the transimission tune helped. It was almost too good a tune for the launch. I'll be adding drag radials next week.

On the way to the track, I got 22mpg. On the way back with the stock tune reinstalled, I got 21mpg (250+ mile round trip, all highway).

I really like the quality of the Fastlane Pipeline 4" CAI. I've used a down-and-out intake on my GTO, and I feel that and the 4" really make a difference.



First video:


Same run, from the inside with my Ipod:


Lots of fun!

One thousand miles on the Odo.

2011 SS Camaro: First Day Racing in Steele, AL

So what does a pastor do when he takes the morning services and his associate takes the afternoon? Why go drag racing, of course. My first visit to Steele, AL - Alabama International Dragway - since April of 2009. A beautiful February day, 68*F. Great place to race, and I ran into some old racing buddies and met some new ones.


Out of the box, full weight+, stock street tires, only mod is the Borla Touring cat-back exhaust, I ran:

Sixty-foot: 2.057
1/8th mile: 8.828 @ 81.87
1/4 mile: 13.523 @ 105.10





I made several other runs and improved a little, trying different lauch techniques.

Then I met a fellow in a 2009 Ford Shelby GT500, a supercharged car with more than 550 HP to the wheels (mine is maybe 350). His mods are a cold-air intake, a pulley on the supercharger, and a cat-back exhaust. I challenged him to a heads-up race, promising to get it on video. Here we go with my handheld IPod video:



I ran a 2.031 60', 13.447@105.74 and he beat me handily with a 2.051 60', 11.781@122.88. And fun was had by all. Since he was on street tires, his sixty could have been better, so technically I took him on the launch, but all I saw was tail lights after that. Nice race, Neal!

After some cool-down time chatting with other racers, I decided for one last run. Turned out to be my personal best (of 7 runs):

Sixty-foot: 1.982
1/8th mile: 8.613 @ 83.77
1/4 mile: 13.224 @ 106.76

Good lane choice, a bit cooler (64*F and <190*f on the coolant), and a decent burnout (smoking the stock street tires) seemed to do the trick.


When I left, the car had 444 miles on the clock and was getting 4.9 mpg.

2011 2SS/RS Camaro exhaust clips

This is a brief clip of the stock exhaust note on the 2SS. I am using this as a baseline to compare with future mods. My Borla Touring cat-back exhaust is already here, and I am waiting on the JBA Shorty Headers and the JBA high-flow catted midpipes. Those should add ~30hp and more muscle to the exhaust note.



And as I'm installing the Borla, here's a clip of the post-cats removed, no muffler:



And here's the Borla installed:



Lots of fun!

2011 Chevrolet Camaro 2SS/RS

Here's the new racing project (click for photo album):

The Best of the GTO Videos, Part I

Here are a few videos illustrating exactly what my old 2004 Pontiac GTO could do. I started off with a heads/cam package, but blew that LS1 motor within the year. I then built a beast of a bottom end with an LQ9 (iron LS1) block, bored, stroked and forged to 408 cid (6.7L). By the end, it was putting down a solid 460 hp to the wheels and ran 11.5's at 117's with 1.5x 60-foot times.

Here's an early favorite video of the GTO racing in Dallas Georgia's 1/8th mile strip. This was what a head/cam motor could do in the early summer of 2004, when modded GTO's were just beginning to hit the strip:



Here's the GTO by the time of the King of the Hill Shootout as part of the Georgia vs. Florida III event in March of 2006. This was a great event that brought together GTO racers from the South together in Valdosta once or twice a year. This is a quarterfinal race. I'll post the next rounds later.



Finally, the GTO in all her glory. High Performance Pontiac Magazine called this my "Burnout Clinic" at the Pavement Pounder's Shootout as part of a magazine shoot held in conjunction with the GTOAA National Meet in Lousiville, Kentucky in July of 2006.

1987 Pontiac Fiero GT

This is my other Pontiac hobby car: a 1987 Pontiac Fiero GT. With a rear-engine 2.8L V6, the Fiero has become a popular hobby car. I bought mine from a show car enthusiast who bought it off of a collector. So mine was driveable and looked great when I bought it with less than 60,000 miles. It is a fun drive, very high safety rating for its time, and the old myth about them catching fire only applied to the early '84 models.


What to do? Engine swaps are very popular, with early '90's Cadillac Northstar V8's a popular choice. Also a good choice are the Pontiac 3800 SC's. I prefer to go with my LS heritage, so I am considering a LS4/4T65E transplant from a mid 2000's FWD Impala SS or Grand Prix. That will change the tame 145hp 2.8L V6 to a 300hp V8 sleeper that can swap parts and times with a Vette.

Here's a photo album with a bunch of pictures so you can see what great shape this little 1980's is in: