SilverFox

2912 Common Street

Lake Charles, La

337-436-0755

Dealer For Probe Industries Products
CLICK HERE

Welcome to SilverFox MotorSports, the high performance division of Mid-City Auto Service in Lake Charles, La.
Click here for the main Mid-City Auto site www.bustedcar.com
2912 Common Street
Lake Charles, La 70601
337-436-0755
midcityauto@suddenlink.net

This site will be in a constant state of construction and will change frequently, so make sure to bookmark the site and check back often.

First a bit about SilverFox MotorSports.

My name is Tony Naquin and I own and operate Mid-City Auto Service. Mid-City Auto is a general auto repair facility that does all kinds of typical routine automotive services and repair. As far as I know, and from what I've been told by customers, we are the only repair shop in Lake Charles that does any work on hot rods or high performance vehicles.

I have 26 years industry experience and have owned and operated Mid-City Auto for 17 years. Due to our interests in drag racing and high performance vehicles, we have always done a considerable amount more work on hot rods and high performance vehicles than what the typical auto repair facility is capable of. It seems that we have, and continue to gain quite a good reputation when it comes to the quality of our high performance work and the word is rapidly spreading.

The amount of and the depth of our high performance work continues to expand daily. Whereas 10 years ago we may have done the occasional header install or camshaft swap 4 or 5 times a year, we now usually have AT LEAST one high performance project going on at all times, often times 2 or 3. Due to this we have outgrown the space dedicated to performance on the main company website so this is how SilverFox Motorsports was born. You may be wondering how the name came about ... Simple, I own a silver fox body Ford Mustang, hence SilverFox Motorsports.

First off allow me to say this:

There are no HEROS here! We have never claimed to know EVERYTHING and never will!
Nothing could be farther from the truth! We HAVE however had many folks come to us that had been to several different shops, many of them shops that specialize in high performance work. These guys had problems that for whatever reason or another were not resolved to their satisfaction and we were able to satisfy them completely.

What separates us from many is NOT what we know or the equipment we have, but simply our dedication to do our very best for you, not to simply do what it takes to get you out the door.

We do not have the space for the latest and greatest high tech equipment. We are simply a shop that enjoys this type of work and we have always been ethical and brutally honest with guys when we see them following bad advice given to them by some internet forum or magazine article junky.

If you have a particular project and we do not have the equipment to do it, we will tell you so, NOT act like something we are not! For example we do a lot of rear end work...installing gears and such, we do a TON of them and do them RIGHT...We do not however narrow them as we do not have the jigs required to get them perfectly straight, and we do not have the space to keep such equipment.

We do minor mig welding only, such as sub-frame connectors etc, but we do not install roll cages and other major welding projects as we do not have a large enough building for the equipment needed to perfectly level the chassis to do it the RIGHT way, nor do we have ANY interest in doing the body work necessary for many of these installs.

We are more than capable of doing tuning, but do not have our own dyno on premises. I have to make arrangements to use the dyno at the community college where I used to teach automotive technology when we do tuning. This means we can and DO tuning but you will have to be willing to leave your vehicle with us for a couple of days. We are fully insured to protect your investment while it is in our possession. This has not been a big issue for MOST folks, they are happy to do so, and we do it quite frequently.

We do GM LS-1 and VORTEC tuning and some Ford EEC-IV tuning.

Engine Building

We build high performance street, race and bracket race engines. These include the standard small and big block Chevy, Ford, Buick, Pontiac, Olds and Chrysler. We also do the LT-1, LS-1, ZR-1 Vette LT-5's and the 4.6 and 5.4 modular Fords. We do the Sport Compact 4 cyls. as well.

We are NOT what is the TRUE DEFINITION of a professional engine builder and do NOT claim to be.....The following is a quote from David Reher of Reher-Morrison...

"I recognize that not every racer has the resources to buy a complete engine from a professional builder. Even though you may not be able to afford a professionally built motor, it 's still important to think like a pro: You have to select components that will work together as part of a total combination. Think about what you expect the end result to be: the engine's projected horsepower output, its rpm range, and the chassis/powertrain combination. For example, do you plan to use a tight or a loose torque converter? The answer to that question will affect your choice of carburetor, cylinder port volume, and cam profile. There is certainly no lack of information on engines, but not all of the available information is valid. Don't be misled by inaccurate magazine articles and armchair engine builders touting this week's hot tip."

If you accept the above quote and you fall into this category financially, or simply do not have the know how or time to do it yourself, then we are here to serve your engine needs.

We do not do our own engine machining in house, but we are very well versed in proper parts selection/matching and also are experienced in the proper clearances and specs required when setting up high performance naturally aspirated, supercharged, nitrous and turbo engines and we give very specific instructions to our machine shop of choice instead of them dictating to us what these specs will be, and we double/triple check all this upon assembly. This means we are more than capable of building you a very potent and reliable combination.

If you are looking to be competitive in a True 10.5, 10.5 Outlaw or another heads up class then we will refer you to a reputable builder. We can build a reliable package no doubt, but we are not privy to all the top secret technology involved in today's world of 2+ HP per cubic inch heads-up racing engines.

This site is where you will find pictures and narratives of many of our past and ongoing hot rod projects.

If you like what you see and have a project you'd like to discuss feel free to send me an e-mail or give us a call.

These picture are only a very small amount of the high perf work we do.....MOST of the time there is simply no time to take pictures, so do not be offended if your project is not shown here!

We are a nitrous oxide filling station!!

All Pictures Are Click-To-Enlarge

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Here are the beginnings of our latest build. This 2005 Dodge Viper sports a Novi 2000 Supercharger....eventually the stock bottom end gave up. This build will consist of forged pistons, connecting rods and ARP studs at a minimum, and possibly may include a custom grind camshaft and ported heads if customer budget will allow.

Drivers side sill panels removed to access the exhaust for disconnect.....

Passenger side before sill panel removal...

After removed...

Looking for the A/C Accumulator? Here it is...

This is where the exhaust runs through to the manifold...

The business end...

Intake manifold removed...Like the LT-5 in the ZR-1 Vette, the coils are under the intake...

We are going to remove the valve covers as well...

The service manual calls for removal of the cowl panel and wiper mechanism, but we've found if you remove the valve covers and use a rig like this one we created, the engine can be removed without cowl removal...

Well it's out...

We knew this is what we'd find...broken ring land on number 4...

Here's the chamber and spark plug with the smashed gap...The smashed gap was what told us we would find a broken piston...

Here's a shot of the piston out...ARP 2000 rod bolts and powdered metal rods are factory...For 2005 Forged pistons are NOT! Factory forged pistons stopped in 1999 if I remember correctly.

Just like the Modular Fords and the GM LS motors, the 8.3 uses cross bolted main caps...

The 8.3 uses a forged steel crankshaft...

We bag up all the hardware so it won't walk off...here everything is laid out ready for cleaning, inspecting and measuring...

This this has lost power already...it's down to 1 MP....(1 Matthew Power)...Matt is looking for a fastener we dropped and couldn't find...better to find it now than have to hunt for it when we need it...

Hood is put back on and the car pushed over to the north shop for storage...

Here it will rest until the engine is ready to reinstall...

Not much time for pictures, but just a summary. We used Ross custom pistons and Carrillo rods. The Carrillo rods clear the factory scraper with room to spare.

Short block assembled.

Long block almost done.

A shot of all the baffling in the pan.

Tray back in the pan.

Heads back on coils bolted down, cam in and getting close to drop in.

Going back in.

Done. This thing needs some serious suspension work. Even with the current boost level, it is nearly impossible to drive, and will kill a novice!

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Here is another V-10 engine build, this time out of an 05 SRT-10 Truck. This is going to be a basic rebuild, however the heads have been sent off for porting. Here's a few shots.

Going back together....

Customer opted to keep the camshaft stock even though ported heads are going on, but as luck would have it the cam is bad....beginning to shed metal and the lifter rollers pitted as well, so an aftermarket cam has been ordered.

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Here's a few shots of head gasket/valve job on a 97 Mustang Cobra....

Engine dropped out the bottom...

Heads off........

A set of long tube headers were installed at this point since it is so easy to do now, no extra labor was charged.....

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No biggy here, just a leaking clutch slave cylinder on a Vette....First the rear suspension is removed. The engine MUST be supported properly on these cars or you WILL break the firewall!!!!!

Just a shot of the ABS motor and diff with the crossmember removed....

Shot of the slave cylinder.....Make sure you lube the input shaft....they are usually really dry and rusty like this one......Inspect the pilot and bearing as well.....this car had a fairly new clutch in it already, but evidently they did not replace the slave....We ALWAYS replace the slave when we do a clutch....too much labor to have to pay to do it all again later like this one....

Shot of the bell housing and clutch....

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Lt-4 going in a 97 Camaro. The LT-1 was ditched in favor of the LT-4 we built. Probe SRS pistons, ported LT-4 heads, 4 bolt LT-4 block, custom grind Comp cam and springs, 36 pound injectors, LT-4 intake, Holley throttle body, ATI balancer. Rotating assembly was balanced.

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Here are a few shots of a Moroso oil pan install on an 05 Lotus Elise.....

Stock pan....

Moroso pan....

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2001-2004 CORVETTE OWNERS....EBCM FAULT CODE C1214 System Relay Contact Coil or Coil Circuit Open

You won't hear this from MOST repair shops, but then again...WE are not the typical shop!

Back in the day, it was typical to replace the EBCM to cure a C1214 fault code. If you are not familiar with the ABS EBCM, it is a has a LIST price of $925 from most GM dealers (list prices are what shops MUST charge to meet overhead). The BAD NEWS is that most likely when the EBCM is replaced it will only need replacement again, often within a years time!

There IS a better and CHEAPER solution to this problem!!!!!!

What we are doing at this time is recommending you to either purchase a unit, or send in your unit for repair to www.absfixer.com. The EBCM you will receive from absfixer will no longer have the infamous relay problem you have been experiencing with the GM units. As a matter of fact if I remember correctly, the units are warranted for as long as you own the car.

Our labor charges to replace the EBCM are $157.80 plus tax. We will also perform a resistance check on your BPMV (pump motor) to make sure it is within spec. If the BPMV motor is shorted to ground it will only result in damage to the new EBCM. The good news is that BPMV failure is VERY RARE. Should the EBCM and the BPMV both need replacement the cost will be the same.

Here are some shots of the EBCM/BPMV assembly. The EBCM is the section that the wire harness connector plugs into. The BPMV is the section that contains the motor.

Here are a few of the EBCM separated from the BPMV.

This is a shot of the BPMV. Those twelve posts sticking up are the pieces that insert into the coils of the EBCM. When the ABS is active, the EBCM will energize the coils creating a magnetic field. This magnetic field pulls an actuator in the posts sticking up on the BPMV...this is how the valves are opened and closed.
THESE are the valves that will stick on Vettes that are seldom driven. THESE types of faults can USUALLY be corrected by clearing the codes and driving the car and hammering the brakes to activae ABS....this will often free the stuck valves. In some cases where the code keeps reoccurring after repeated clearing and ABS activation, the BPMV will need replacement.

Here are the twelve coils in the EBCM that the posts insert into, when these coils energize, that is how the valves are opened and closed in the BPMV.

Here are a few shots of the EBCM disassembled.

To check the BPMV motor, you check resistance between the pump motor case and each of these three pins.

The resistance SHOULD read O.L. like this...O.L. meaning over limit....which means a resistance of infinity....in other words NO CONNECTION whatsoever.

The resistance of this unit on one of the pins was 24.9 MEGA OHMS....This is a VERY high resistance of little significance, but the prudent thing to do would be to replace the BPMV. If this resistance gets LOWER than this, say in the K-OHM range or in the OHM range, EBCM damage will result.

This meter reading is .07 OHMS....this would be a dead short.

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A few shots of a 5.0 build for a Mustang......

Short block together. Probe SRS pistons, Eagle crank and H-beam rods.

Getting ready to degree the cam. Custom grind hydraulic roller from Comp was used....

Changing the valve springs to the springs spec'd out for the cam and setting installed heights.

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Here is a ZR-1 corvette that we are doing some engine mods to. The bore will be increased to 4.125 and crank will be offset ground to achieve a stroke of 3.75 for a new displacement of 402 cubic inches. The heads, injector housings and plenum will be sent out for porting, the secondary throttle blades will be removed, and new intake and exhaust cams will be used. Larger injectors will be used as well.
For those not familiar with the ZR-1 Corvette, the LT-5 engine was a QUAD Overhead Cam, 4 Valve Per Cylinder aluminum head, aluminum block/steel liner engine that was DESIGNED by Lotus and BUILT by Mercury Marine. At the time of it's inception there were no automobile factories in the United States CAPABLE of building such an engine so General Motors enlisted Mercury Marine for the engine! The engines were then transported to the Corvette assembly plant in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Just a few "before" shots of the engine.

Kinda hard to see, but this ZR-1 has less than 16,000 miles on the clock.

This is standard fare for MANY vehicles these days, but it STILL freaks a lot of folks out...the starter is under the intake...

Twin overhead cams...

A shot of the intake ports on the heads...those butterflies you see are the secondary ports...the butterflies only open when you turn the key switch on the console to "full power", otherwise it uses only the smaller primaries. These throttle blades will be removed and the ports CNC ported.

These injector housings mate up with the above head ports...These ports will be larger as well.

This plenum mates to the above injector housings...That square whitish area is where the ignition control module mounts...the module and ignition coils are under the plenum...These ports will be enlarged as well.

A shot of the throttle body...Notice the itty bitty throttle plate...that one open first, then the bigger two begin to open...This will be enlarged as well.

Yup, for those unfamiliar with the LT-5 engine, that is SIXTEEN fuel injectors...

This is the ONLY thing that even REMOTELY resembles a standard small block Chevy...That is IF you don't notice the two secondary timing chains behind this one...

Chain for the driver side head

Chain for the passenger side head

Hard to believe that dished piston yields 11:1 compression...

But that is not a lot of chamber volume....

Look at the length of that head bolt.....

A shot with the pan off....Notice how the block is a two piece design...The main caps are incorporated into an "intermediate" girdle assembly...MANY engine use this technology NOW but was rare in 1990.

Check out the plugs in the crank....This is a center oiled crank...Instead of the oil pump pressurizing passages in the block then sending oil to the crank through those passages, this LT-5 has the oil pump driven by the front of the crank and oil is sent to the crank FIRST, then to the passages in the block.

There are cup plugs in the crank centerline as well....

Here is the main girdle assembly....

Oil pan has a built in windage tray........

Oil pump pulls oil from the pan through this o-ringed port....

Mahle pistons and SPS rod bolts were used from the factory....

Here are some pictures of the very beginning of the port work of the heads.....

Here is a before shot of the head intake ports.......

Here is a shot of the secondary throttle plates removed and the ports have the rough cut first step of enlargement done.....

Here is a shot of the enlarged throttle body...

Shots of the Stainless Works headers we will use...

A shot of one of the RC Racing fuel injectors we will use....

Injector housings BEFORE porting...

Injector Housings AFTER porting...

Close up of an injector housing

Plenum BEFORE porting...

Plenum AFTER porting...

Well, the parts are back from powder coat. We will do the lettering in black.....Here's the cam covers...Notice the final porting on the injector housing at right...

Here's the plenum and timing cover...

Here's a shot of the 4.125 liners...

The next step for the block is a good cleaning and painting...

We'll be using these Carrillo rods and JE pistons...

Crank in...

Arp Studs used in the mains....Intermediate main girdle on and torqued.

Pistons and rods ready to go in.

Pistons in and pan going on....

Cylinder heads on & torqued and injector housings laid on to check port alignment.

Next will be the time consuming procedure of degreeing the 4 camshafts.

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Here we are doing an engine build on a clean Ford Bronco. This will be converted to fuel injection as well....

This truck is in excellent condition...

The interior...

Even though this is pretty much a stock build, we still degree every cam we install...

A shot of the long block complete...We are using a fuel injection conversion from Mass-Flow...Looks like a real sweet set up...

Back in the truck. The EFI setup from Mass-Flow work out sweet. It's a very clean install, and fired right up and ran great with no glitches. Just required setting the fuel pressure regulator, base idle airflow, and timing.

The customer wanted to go with side pipes....Your wish is our command...

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Here's a few of a low budget 350 Chevy for a front engine nostalgia dragster. This sports a stock block and GM steel crank and some unported AFR heads with a little compression and a custom cam grind....

With just a few passes, hitting the wheelie bar too hard and taking a hard right it went an 8.43 in the quarter......This was turning it 7200 RPM.....on the dyno it was turned only 7,000 RPM. It was gaining 10 HP every 200 RPM.....peak power should be at 7600......with a little weight on the front and little tweaking it should run consistent 8.30's

Here's a shot

Update. With Hilborn stack injectors on alcohol 7.97@169 MPH

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Here are a few shots of a Ford Lightning truck we did....It now has forged pistons and rods, ported heads and we installed twin 255lph pumps in the tank. A DynoJet air fuel ratio meter was installed as well as a fuel pressure gauge.

Well THERE'S your problem!!!!!!

I'm thinking there's a better way to oil a K&N air filter....it weighed about 10 pounds!!!!

Now THERE'S your REAL problem!!!!!

Whadda you know....#4.....the one that killed all the plugs......some others weren't far behind!

Here is a shot of the combustion chamber...notice the boss around the spark plug is melted away...this happens often on the mod motors the kill pistons...

Shot of the stock combustion chamber....

Shot of the chamber on the CNC ported heads we used...

Shot of the stock intake port...

Shot of the CNC ported intake port...

Shot of the stock exhaust port...

Shot of the CNC ported exhaust port...

ARP head studs in and heads going on...

Followers and cams going together....Stock cams were used on this build by customer choice?????!!!!!!!!

Getting all set up to do the cam timing....

You gotta watch them Fords....They'll BITE a Chevy man!!!

Looking through my files, it looks like this is the last picture I got of this project....Imagine a cat trying to bury his poop on a hot tin roof....THAT'S busy....Well we were THAT busy at this time of year and just had no time to get a lot of pics. The truck is completed and running great...As soon as it has a few break in miles on it we will get it to the chassis dyno and post up some RWHP numbers......If the customer is okay with that.....If he's not then we are done here...

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Here is one you won't see us working on every day......A 41 Ford Flathead V8. This one came in with distributor problems and between the customer and I, we decided that the prudent thing to do was to just install and aftermarket electronic distributor and be done with the points forever.

Believe it or not MSD makes a Pro Billet distributor to fit these direct cam driven front mounted early Flathead V8's. It took a while to GET it here, but they have one.....

Boy this brought back memories for a LOT of my customers!

The bed.....

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Here are a series of shots of another 355 cubic inch Chevy build.

Block has been rough cleaned by us...then cleaned again by the machine shop, then bored then we clean it AGAIN when we get it back. Here trial assembly beginning...

All pistons in to check deck height

This deck bridge is used to find TDC then check deck height. Piston rock has to be factored in....The reason for this is to determine whether the block will be decked or a custom piston will be used to get the quench distance where we want it for the specific build or if simply using a specific head gasket thickness will get it where we want to be.

The customer supplied his own cam and heads. The heads came supplied with the valve springs installed. These springs may or MAY NOT be ideal for proper valve control with his chosen cam USUALLY NOT for serious engines! Here I am checking the installed height with this height micrometer or "mike"

Then the spring seat pressure is checked....

These are 180# seat pressure

Then the open pressure is checked.....

I use my machine shop of choice for balancing because they do it REAL....they don't just the advertised piston and rod weight for the bob weight....They weigh EVERY rod, ring pack, rod bearing and piston...

All the pistons and rods are weighed.

Setting up the bob weights.....

Here you can see that the front was almost 30 grams out......Now listen up........
I've said this before and now here is the PROOF.....If you buy a rotating assy. and they CLAIM it is already balanced, that is okay for a 350-400 horse motor....BUT for a 400+ HP motor you BETTER GET IT BALANCED.....
Here is the deal...as you see above, to truly balance a motor you MUST weigh every piston, rod, ring, bearing and spiroloc!!! When you buy a balanced rotating assembly they simply look at the piston part number and the rod part number and use the ADVERTISED SUPPOSED weight and add a bit for the weight of the rings & bearings and use this figure for the bob weight, whoever does their balancing does not even HAVE the pistons and rods there to weigh them!!!!
THIS WAS A "BALANCED" assembly and three of the pistons had to be lightened and the assy was almost 30 grams out!!!!
The ONLY WAY you have purchased a REAL balanced rotating assy. is if they HAVE all the parts, weigh them, then balance it and sell you the pistons, rods, rings, AND bearings all together....AND the flywheel & balancer if it is an external balance setup!

I have guys ask all the time why not just buy a crate engine due to the lower cost....Well there is a good reason crate engines have a lower cost. I have had the opportunity to examine a few crate engines and their clearances and assembly is downright SCARY in some cases! SOME of them were easy to examine....the parts supposed to be inside the engine were OUTSIDE the engine...or could be seen easily through the big hole in side of the block!

Here is an example of a crate engine that dropped a valve... This can be caused by MANY things...from too high exhaust temp from excessive timing retard or maybe insufficient piston-to-valve clearance depending on if it is an intake or exhaust valve (among many other causes)....But on a mass assembled crate engine it's most likely cause is due to improper valve geometry or not enough valve spring pressure.....
Many think that high spring pressures are hard on valves, but valves that bounce excessively upon closing due to too WEAK of valve spring pressure is MUCH harder on the valves...THIS above picture is usually the result...Believe me, a crate engine will NOT save you money...matter of fact they will COST you MORE in the long run if used for anything more than a car show cruiser.....Crate engines are usually assembled with cheap overseas parts and are assembled with a pre-determined part number valve springs etc...which may be the right part number for a cruiser that sees only 4 or 5 drags a year, but is nowhere NEAR the right part for the guy that will go to the track every other weekend and/or "race by himself" on the street every chance he gets turning the sucker 8,000 RPM with no load on the engine due to tire spin!! Yea ya'll know who ya'll are!

After decking the block I re-chamfer all the bolt holes....

Like so...to remove the sharp edge....if not they will be subject to cracking around the bolt holes...

Here I'm chasing all the bolt hole threads with a bottom tap...

Here the block has been cleaned AGAIN...

Here it is trail assembled AGAIN to check deck height after decking....next comes the cc-ing process to determine the TRUE static compression ratio in order to spec out the proper camshaft selection....

Here I'm cc'ing the head chambers. I use a class A buret and the plate has been lapped to assure it is perfectly flat to achieve utmost accuracy. These Dart Pro 1 heads are ADVERTISED as 64cc but that NEVER happens!

Here I'm getting ready to check the piston dome volume, head gasket volume and the deck volume....But first I have to check the volume of the plate...this volume changes with temperature so it must be checked every time.

Here I have the piston at TRUE TDC and have filled the plate....The head had already been installed and torqued to compress the head gasket.... Then I subtract the amount from the amount of volume the plate holds.

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Here is a Ford 347 Stroker going together. This one is going to be a low buck street cruiser, so there was no need to go for the high end stuff.....HOWEVER just as in the above engine, the rotating assembly was balanced and ALL specs were painstakingly checked, double and triple checked! First before any final machining or cleaning is done the block has to be clearanced for the longer stroke. Here it is easy to see that the rod bolts will not clear the oil pump boss nor the bottom of the cylinder.

Here I have clearanced this cylinder...this is repeated for every rod...It is time consuming and requires patience...BUT if not done correctly.......WELL you can imagine!!!!

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Here we have a Doge Neon that the guy bought a $4800 crate motor for. He then installed a 5-6 psi Turbo kit. As you can see there was something WAAAAY wrong here. There is no way that 5-6 psi boost should have killed a JE forged piston.

This thing either had way too much timing or not nearly enough fuel supply...

Here is a close up of the piston...

Another shot...

It's a shame this deal went sour, it looks like it would have made a decent little combo....here you can see some of the head port work that was done...

Here is a shot of the business end of the deal...

This guy wants us to get the tune straightened out and then he's talking about upping the boost in the future so we are going to lower the compression a bit. The comp was at 8.8:1 with the pistons the builder used. We will be lowering the comp to 7.5:1 when we go back together with it. This requires a custom piston...At the time of this posting it looks like Ross will be able to help us out with a one of a kind never before made .030 over 7.5:1 piston.....It will be 5-6 weeks before we even see the pistons though!

Checking rod bolt stretch on the ARP 2000 bolts.....

Short block together....

For fuel enrichment we will ditch the FMU for this Hahn port fueler. The port fueler bolts between the cylinder head and the intake manifold and provides for the addition of 4 more fuel injectors. These injectors are ONLY active when boost is attained.

Here is the control module for the port fueler. The fuel map is tuned with a laptop....

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Here is a little combo we put together for this super clean Chevy Short Bed. This is pretty much a little above stock deal. The guy had a motor built for it somewhere, (I didn't ask) and the Edelbrock Performer carb he had was waay to rich and it killed the rings and the bore causing this thing to start using oil and smoking in just a few thousand miles....this motor was like a year old.

We prettied it up for him too....

The block was painted a dark metallic blue and the tins were powder coated a light blue...Not a very good looking package you think, but there was a method to the madness! The intake was powder coated as well. We upped the compression to 10:1, set it up with a real tight quench and installed a mild hydraulic cam.

The intent was to match the colors of the truck!

This actually worked out and looked really good as it turned out!

Once the engine was running we installed a bung for the wide-band and re-calibrated the carb, now the guy has what will be a lasting and good looking engine combo that runs and looks a lot better than what he had before.

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This dude pulled out the carbureted 302 from this Bronco and dropped in a 460 equipped with the Ford factory fuel injection. It is here for us to get it running.....None of the wiring harness companies offer a computer harness for a 460 Ford with EFI so we had to modify.....Well BASICALLY build a harness for it!

This is just one pile of wire we removed from the original harness of the vehicle the 460 came from......

Here is the part of the harness that lays over the engine...It has the injector connectors, TPS, Coolant temp and IAC connectors. The ACT sensor, distributor and coil wiring and MAP sensor wiring are not in this harness on a 460......If this was a 5.0 Mustang harness this would be a 15 minute job...The 5.0's have a harness DEDICATED to the EFI system....The trucks have all the circuits for the whole vehicle routed TOGETHER in one harness....This one will probably consume 3 or 4 hours minimum!

Here is the ECU end that I have to wire to all the sensors, injectors, powers, grounds, coil and distributor just to name a few....

...By cutting the original harness into about 4 pieces and stripping out any unneeded wiring then using this factory wiring diagram to hook everything back up but in the style of a 5.0 harness.....BOY I sure wish this would have been a 5.0 deal!!!! I could have used a 5.0 harness but it would have had to be the first design harness used before they went to a MAF sensor as the 460 is a speed density system.....I opted to make my own harness as the old style 5.0 harnesses are probably hard to find as everyone always converts to MAF. I could have also used a 5.0 harness and a A9L or similar Mustang ECU with a TwEECer tuner and converted the 460 to MAF...That is how I'd have liked to do it but the cost was not in the customer's budget to do that.

Fuel supply will be handled by this 255LPH Walbro inline pump.....

Fuel lines will be steel braid and we'll use this inline filter with a cleanable screen.....

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This is a 1971 Pontiac GTO Judge. This customer had an engine built in New Jersey and had nothing but problems with it from day one. He enlisted us to get this thing straight once and for all. We found NUMEROUS problems. Some with the engine being assembled incorrectly (to be nice about it), some with the engine installation (again this is an understatement), and some with the poor selection of, and mismatching of parts, but mostly a TOTAL lack of attention to detail. Here are some shots....click to enlarge.

These are shots of the car before we began

We are converting this 455 to electronic fuel injection. I selected the FAST engine management system and this Edelbrock EFI intake. This combo will be naturally aspirated and will be limited to a bit less than 500 hp so I selected 36 lb/hr injectors

On a vehicle that is not driven a lot, bare aluminum and chrome is NOT the way to go. I had the intake manifold powder coated as well as all of the accessories and valve covers. We are not satisfied with the looks of the valve covers and will be doing those over, but you get the idea...

We will be using this Accufab 1000 cfm throttle body...

Some assembly shots. Keith Black hyperutectic pistons and file fit rings were used. On the Keith Black stuff make SURE you look at their specs for ring gap.....Those pistons require a considerable amount more ring gap than a traditional cast or forged piston.... That is a Comp Cams hydraulic roller shaft. I speced out and set up the springs to match. Those are unported Performer RPM heads.

Here are some shots of degreeing the cam.

Checking piston-to-valve clearance...

This is just one example of the attention to detail I was talking about....These are ARP head bolts....great bolts no doubt, but they rust....We paint them to keep them looking good longer, they will still eventually rust but it will take WAAAAAY longer....

Valley cover going on...

The valve covers from above being redone. We used the actual paint code of the car body color for the Pontiac lettering...

Pictures can't capture how good this looks!

James reinstalling the powder coated brackets on the power steering pump

Deciding what to do with the nasty engine compartment...

A bit more progress on the engine....

Getting ready to install the fuel system...

We removed the fuel tank and installed this AN fitting...

Plumbed to this inline pump...

Here is the wiring harness as supplied from FAST

The coil of wire to the right is the battery power....As supplied it was designed for a trunk mounted battery, for this project the battery will remain in it's stock location so I had to modify the harness.

Here's the grommet where the harness will pass through the firewall.

I had to remove all the covering and route the battery power from the inside-the-car side of the harness to the outside-the-car side.

Here the harness mods are done.

Now the battery power is on the outside section of the harness as it needs to be.

These Weather Pack connectors are the best thing ever invented....We have been using these for years on all our custom wiring....The FAST harness uses these as well. I will be using these to wire up the fuel pump, cooling fans, etc on this project....I just placed an order to replenish our supply...That is the biggest factor on a project like this....Hurry up and wait......BUT that is what it takes to do it right....Better to miss a targeted ready date than to half-ass some areas.....

Motor going in....

A shot of the factory return line that we will use for the EFI return line. We simply flared the end and used an Aeroquip tube nut and collar and a 6AN to 4AN adapter. The pressure line is 6AN steel braid from the tank to pump and pump to the fuel rail.

Just a shot of the fuel pump power wire going through a grommeted hole in the trunk. Most guys would simply run this wiring along the frame under the car.....We removed the back seat and carpet in order to run it with the factory wiring going to the rear of the car. Stuff like this may double the time it takes to do an install versus just simply just getting it all hooked up.....The latter is the way this engine was installed before....We are finding unexpected things DAILY that we are having to redo...It adds a lot of unexpected time, but so be it....We are not going to just overlook something just to save a little time.

A couple of front shots of the motor dropped in....YES we WILL be doing away with those ugly red heater hoses!

In order to facilitate hook-up of the Lokar throttle cable the accelerator pedal rod had to be modified. About 2" had to be cut from the length, then the rod had to be heated red hot in order to re-flatten the end where the cable hooks to the rod....

Then the hole was re-drilled and the pedal assembly reinstalled in the car and the Lokar cable installed and adjusted. It is unexpected things like this that make it IMPOSSIBLE to give an accurate completion date...

Here is our Weather Pack connector kit replenished.....

Here we have installed a connector on the MSD distributor pickup leads....This will plug into the FAST harness. That is a composite distributor gear from BOP Engineering for use with the roller camshaft. The crank reference angle was set to 50* in the FAST tune. The centrifugal advance was locked out as well. The distributor was installed at 50* BTDC and the trigger reluctor aligned with the pickup.......

Here I have begun the sensor calibration procedure in the FAST tuning program.

Here the fuel pump relay is installed and wired in.....

I even put a weather pack connector on the center relay terminal for use as a "fuel pressure test connector" just like what is on some factory GM vehicles....

Well there it is all put back together....

The College where I used to teach was closed at the time I was ready for tuning, so the final tuning on this deal was done by Earl Schexnayder on his Chassis dyno. Earl's shop is in Arnaudville, La. I highly recommend Earl for dyno tuning FAST systems, GM and Fords.

Well it's been several months, a few road trips and some in town cruising and the GTO is doing great with a very satisfied owner....He came by the other day just to say hello....Here are a couple of shots....

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For all you folks with the Ford Lightning and Harley trucks that are a few psi over stock boost levels I recommend swapping out the stock fuel pumps.....Ford got the idea for these twin pumps from drag racers just like us.....I've had twin pumps in my Mustang for years now......Mine ain't as pretty as this but it has been working just fine!
This is a picture of the twin 255LPH pumps. We've done a few of these.

If you are quite a bit over stock, we can install a fitting in the bottom of the tank like in the above GTO shots and plumb an Aeromotive in line pump for you......

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This is a fuel pump modular assembly from a 2003 GMC Denali. The customer installed a Procharger supercharger and has been having fuel delivery problems....He brought us this module to install for him....

He tried to install twin 255lph pumps in an attempt to duplicate what hotrodders have done for a few years now with the 5.0 Mustang and the LS1 Camaro. Ford is doing this now on the Supercharged pickups.

It was a valiant effort on his part, but it just wasn't gonna happen....see that tab on the module in the left picture....it has to line up with that slot on the tank in the center picture....Well when you did that the arm for the fuel gauge was aimed at the side of the tank as shown in the right picture....With the orientation of fittings he used the module upper and lower half could only go together one way.....And that way was clocked wrong for the gauge arm to work....His assembly would not fit in the tank, it was THAT simple....Long story short we had to start from scratch and just do it as if he would have taken it to us first to do it the way we do them here....

This is the conglomeration of fittings we found when we opened it up....

Here was another issue that we didn't see at first, but realized when we did it our way....The tank is 8 5/8 deep....

Notice the springs on the stock unit....they have to be there to allow the unit to "grow"....

See the fuel tank is plastic....as you fill the tank, it stretches and gets "deeper"......When these units are modified with twin pumps you have to put them back at a "fixed" length.....When you do this you have to use the measurement of the tank when empty....Their unit measured the same as the stock unit, but they matched the uncompressed overall length.....There is no way their unit would have fit in the tank anyway.....

Our design more closely matches the Ford design....We were completely out of nylon Y's we usually use for this, but I scrounged up this brass T and used it so the dude could have his truck back...It would have been 2 weeks before I would have received the Y's as this was done the Friday before Christmas...

We set the depth at 8 1/2" to keep the pumps off the bottom of the tank even at low fuel levels....When the tank is full the pumps will be even farther from the bottom of the tank but this has to be this way too keep from starving the pumps due to being too close to the bottom of the tank at low levels when the tank is "shallow" Here we are trial fitting everything...

We used screws to attach the outer shell the gauge mounts on to the rods coming out of the upper half....

Here it is all ready to put back in the tank....The only drawback to this is that with the fixed length now, the fuel tank capacity will be the same BUT the "usable" amount of fuel will be approximately 3-4 gallons less...

This is the business end of the truck.....

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Here are a few shots of the Denali from above. The 2003's did not come factory with the electric fans, so the guy bought the blades, motors, and shroud from GM for the later model truck and had us create a setup that works just like the factory late model fans in every way!

First off, the factory computer has the ability to control the fans, but the strategy is not "turned on" from the factory and the wires for fan control are not present in the factory 2003 harness. So the strategy was programmed to enable fan control in the PCM....

Then I removed the pins and wire from and old connector I had laying around....I even used the factory wire color!

Then I installed the pins into the proper cavities in the PCM harness connectors....One wire is the high speed fan control and the other is the low speed fan control.

There is no harness available from GM for the factory fans at the time I did this, (that would have been waaay to easy!), so I had to build the harness per the factory wiring diagram using 3 Bosch 30 amp relays.
The way this is wired when the low speed fan control turns on it runs both fans in series....this causes a voltage drop which runs the fans slow.....when the high speed fan control is active it switches the current path to a parallel circuit providing full battery voltage to the fans and they run at high speed. The fans run at low speed as well any time the A/C compressor is on. This duplicates the operation of the late models that come factory with electric fans perfectly. The only difference is that the on and off temperature values were changed in the PCM strategy and the fans come on at a lower temp! That is sexy right there......So if you have a late model truck or SUV and have done engine mods, we can hook you up with a factory operational electric fan system!

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Here is a supercharged 1998 Cobra we work on.....

This car came to us the first time with a complaint of "the rubber exhaust hose keeps blowing out since the long tube headers were put on." Now knowing there is no such thing as an "exhaust hose" I told the guy I would have to look at that in order to give him a recommendation. When I looked at it all I could say is "well no wonder it keeps on blowing out, it ain't supposed to BE THERE!!!
As it turned out, some yo-yo's had installed headers for him and had screwed up the air injection pipe to the left header....

We have never looked at the long tube headers for the 98 and the 99 Cobra side-by-side, BUT they ARE different part numbers...EVIDENTLY what happened is some yo-yo's installed the wrong headers....By doing so the nipple for the air injection pipe was in the wrong location and the pipe could not be hooked up.....

At this point they had three choices:
1. Remove the headers and install the CORRECT ones....
2. Rectify the situation in a PROFESSIONAL manner......
3. Do some kinda rigging just to get the car out of the shop....
Well they chose number THREE! They cut the pipe and spliced it back together with rubber hose!!!!! THIS WILL NOT AND CANNOT WORK....So this guys nice Cobra sounds like a piece of crap!

Now I know what you are thinking....It must have been some individual that did this in his driveway, or some shop that has little experience in these matters......NOPE this was done at a specialty performance shop in Houston, TX.....

Here is the nipple that is in the wrong place....

Here we have cut the nipple off, leaving enough material to cap off the old location...

Here is the nipple...

Unfortunately the nipple needs to go where the BBK logo tag is welded on...

Here we have removed the tag...

Here we have welded a plug in the old location and welded on the nipple in the RIGHT location...

Here is a shot of the nipple in the new location...

Here we have welded the BBK logo tag back on in a different spot and sprayed on a little aluminum paint...

Now folks this repair may not be pretty, BUT it is one hell of a lot better END RESULT than the crap that the so called "specialists" charged the guy good money for!

Folks, for your sake do not make the mistake of judging the capabilities of a facility by how big the place is or by whether it is cluttered or messy or not...Just because a facility has a really nice building with all the latest high dollar equipment, it does NOT mean that they are going to be the most ethical or the most qualified....It may simply mean they owe the bank the most money!!!

EFFORT and DEDICATION to do a good job beats the other stuff every time....and the ethics part means that if they are not equipped to do something they will TELL YOU SO like we do!

This Cobra is a prime example of this.....The guy took his car to a big name shop to have this work done thinking it would insure the best possible job....then he had to bring it to us, a small time local shop and pay all over again to have it done right.

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Below is a series of shots of an LS-1 rebuild. The oil was not changed often enough in this car leading to oil pressure issues....

   That's James standing by the car above as it comes up, and also behind the engine. That's me sitting on the stool under the car shifting gears and pretending to drive the engine... Click to see full size.

    There is a shot of the bare engine block to give you an idea of how cruddy this thing was. Click to see full size.
Here are a couple of the subframe and body with the powertrain gone...Click to see full size.
      It just amazed me how many people asked if this was a NEW block as I was putting it back together.....This is NOT a new block....I just painstakingly CLEANED the old block! Again, we do this type of work every day so it is second nature to us, but I guess MOST folks have absolutely NO CLUE how clean an engine has to be to be assembled the RIGHT WAY.
Here the bottom end is all together. This is a bulletproof bottom end, but if you are looking to build 700 or more horsepower, I'd seriously consider the 6.0L iron block.
Most engines have these cylinder head alignment dowels...these must be here! These are bad about falling out at the machine shop...Like these did when I was cleaning the block...

Some of you LS1 guys may know you have to remove the heads to access the lifters....You may also have heard that you can do a cam swap without pulling the heads due to lifter retainers...Well here they are.

You may ALSO have heard that you should go ahead and pull the heads because the retainers won't hold and halfway through the job a lifter will fall and you will only have to pull the heads anyway....Well, I put the lifters in each of these and held them upright and TRIED to make a lifter fall out and they stayed in! Keep in mind all the crud and 120,000 miles on this engine....If you have a clean low wear engine, I would be really confident that the retainers would indeed hold the lifters up....Just keep the jolts and vibration to a minimum while the cam is out and you should be okay (don't slam the hood or doors!).

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The following are a few shots of my 1990 Ford Mustang that I'm working on in the evenings and weekends. First the engine was removed and torn down, then I removed everything from the firewall and fenders to prepare for painting....stay tuned as things progress...Click to see full size.



The following are some shots of the engine build...Click to see full size...

The Ross custom built pistons that can handle up to 20 psi boost
I'll be using this 67mm turbo
And this intercooler
Gapping the rings
Setting the ring gap......Once the engine is together it is pretty much set in stone...all the specs in an engine are set for a specific purpose...things are done one way for normally aspirated, another way for turbo or superchargers, and yet another way for nitrous oxide...once the engine is assembled you have to pretty much stick to the original plan...I know how I am....I will at some point decide to up the boost a considerable amount more than what I decided on, so I have to make sure the engine is set up to handle whatever I throw at it, this is why such a large ring gap...better to live with a little blow-by now than to butt a ring together later on! I am going to be limiting this setup to 500-550 horsepower for the time being. The reason is the stock 5.0 Ford block will start to pull the main webbing apart or split in the intake valley at these levels. As soon as the engine is set up in the car and all the transmission and suspension is done and the engine is tuned, and all the gremlins worked out, I will take all this apart and reinstall it all into a Dart block. At that point I'll be good for 700-780 horsepower which will be about all I can do without a turbo and intercooler upgrade.
After filing the rings make sure you de-bur the ends....file only towards the inside....I'm using a file but a whetstone is the actual method preferred.

Here I am tapping all the main bearing cap bolt holes in the block with a bottom tap to make sure all threads are clean...I'm using the tap in a drill to speed thing up a bit, but Do NOT attempt this unless you have done it hundreds of times by hand first...If you don't have a lot of experience with this, it is VERY easy to break off the tap in the block or ruin the threads!
Cleaning the head bolt holes...
In goes the Eagle forged crank...
I had this crank internally balanced....
You should get a balance sheet like this when you have an engine balanced
Here is the thrust bearing...I checked the crankshaft end-play and it was about .001-.002, nowhere NEAR enough...this is below factory spec, so it would surely result in disaster for a high winding turbo motor.
Here I have zip-strapped the two halves together in the position they are in when installed...
Then I measure the bearing in several spots to get an average width...
Then I measure each side separately...
Then take off EQUAL AMOUNTS from each side...
Periodically measure overall thickness to get it down to the thickness you want to give you the desired end-play...Make sure you measure the individual thickness of EACH SIDE as well so you take off the same amount from each!
Then reinstall the crank and check the end-play again...Now I've got exactly what I wanted. Crankshaft end-play is probably one of the MOST OVERLOOKED specs there is in engine assembly. Years ago, before custom aftermarket crankshafts were affordable like they are now, a really common combo was to machine down the main journals on a 400 crankshaft and put it into a 350 block giving you a 383 cubic inch engine with a .030 overbore....This combination had the reputation of being a "thrust-killer"...Many guys would begin having problems in just a couple thousand miles or less in some cases...They would pull the engine apart and the thrust surface on the crank and the thrust bearing would be trashed....So the reputation started.....The REAL STORY is that most of these home garage engine building guys had no clue what "checking end-play" MEANT, let alone know HOW to CHECK IT, and these engines were being put together with little or NO end-play....THAT is what was REALLY "killing the thrust". Another possibility is a balance or should I say out of balance issue, that can kill a thrust as well and it is safe to say none of these guys were getting these engines balanced!

Here are the connecting rods...
I used H-beam rods...
You probably can't see this, but these rod bearings must be chamfered to clear the radius on the Eagle forged crank...Unlike a stock engine these bearings have an upper and lower designation and great care must be taken to make sure they are installed facing the correct direction.
Here you can see the chamfer on the rod...the rods MUST be installed on the pistons in such a way that the chamfer is facing the radius on the crankshaft AND the chamfer on the bearing AND the piston facing the correct direction in the block all at the same time....I've seen so many guys screw this all up and turn a bunch of decent parts into a pile of useless scrap in only 4 or 5 quarter mile passes or less! And guess WHAT? Yup, they had EVERY excuse in the book why it scattered the motor.....even though THEY assembled it!
This is probably the best thing ever invented...It is a tapered sleeve used for piston installation...It compresses the rings as the piston is installed making it an all one motion process...
Here all the pistons are installed and the main support girdle is going on...ARP main studs were used...These main girdles will not really make these weak 5.0 blocks any STRONGER, BUT hopefully if there IS a block failure the girdle will hold everything together so no parts get scattered on the racetrack. It ain't no fun slinging parts out of the bottom of an engine and then driving through your own oil.
Then the windage tray goes on...
I used ARP studs for the cylinder heads as well...
These SCE head gaskets are supposed to be the ticket for heavily boosted engines....supposedly better than grooving and o-ringing.....I hope they are right!
SCE gaskets in place...
Then on go the Twisted Wedge heads....I'm just re-using these, I've been running them on the car for about 4-5 years....just had them freshened up....
Here I have just trial fitted the turbo and exhaust plumbing...
Close up of the turbo...
The left side...
From the back side...

A few more of the motor...

Here is a shot of the motor in the chassis just for checking clearances etc. I'll be pulling it back out for engine bay painting....

A couple of shots of the engine bay after painting....

Update 10/15/07

Things are pretty much the same...two years now and the engine is still sitting on the stand....just too busy with customer stuff.

I get guys come in all the time..."when is your Mustang gonna be running?" These are the SAME guys that are here to see when THEIR project will be ready.....all I can tell them is "you are here wanting to see how YOUR car is doing....now what would you think if you drove up and I was working on MY car?" All they can say is "oh yea". Hopefully one day soon I'll get around to it!!!!!!!!

Well, the Silver Fox is still sitting torn down.....I'm chomping at the bit to play with SOMETHING, so I recently acquired another fox body....a white 91 model. Since this is a running/driving car in decent shape, I can get it going pretty quick with my turbo stuff.....

Here the engine has been removed from the white fox...

Getting ready to pressure wash the nasty engine bay....

C4 Trans on the tear down bench....nasty C4

Nasty C4 case....

Converter, manual VB, hardened input shaft, HD drums, and shifter from Dynamic Racing Transmission.....

Getting ready to go in....

A few shots of the engine/turbo install....

As the trans was going in I ran into a problem. There are two different bell housing sizes on the C4 trans.....I wound up with the big bell, and needing a small bell housing....after rounding up a bell housing, I can continue......

Shifter Installed....

I use the TwEECeR for tuning.

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No big deal here...Just a clutch upgrade and long tube header install on an LS-1 Camaro. We did a ring & pinion change also.

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James Augustine, who works here, sold his 23 T Altered and is building a dragster. Here are some shots of the rear housing.

Here is the housing again but after powder coating....

Here are the front and rear motor plate powder coated...They look blue in the pics but they are actually a beautiful purple...

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These are some old shots from a 4.6 I rebuilt for a guy in a Mustang SEVERAL YEARS back. At that time only very few professional engine builders fooled with the modular motors No one in this area had successfully built one that lived. As a matter of fact I used a very prominent machine shop in Texas for the machine work and this was the FIRST modular motor even THEY had dealt with!

This thing had a centrifugal supercharger thrown on it by some internet/magazine expert. (this is a person that reads high perf magazine articles and spends countless hours on the net and thinks this makes them an expert tech!! They usually think they know it ALL even though they have never had a project that ran right....there is always some pop or miss or hiccup that they ALWAYS have some BS excuse as to why it ain't their fault!) This supercharger was installed without much consideration for anything else, and with a really bad computer tune it had managed to kill itself. There was a melted piston, a detonation damaged piston, and some burned valves as well.

This shot is TYPICAL of MANY different things we see ALL THE TIME when working on something that a self proclaimed high performance know-it-all has worked on before.....They claim to be ace engine builders, ace tuners, and the best driver on the track but the REAL truth is MOST of them can't even do spark plugs right! This is a short-reach spark plug installed in this engine that uses long-reach spark plugs.
I taught automotive technology and I would always ask each student why they signed up......More than half of them had a car or truck that they wanted to hot rod, but this was the biggest obstacle to overcome with new students... none of them realized that you MUST KNOW ALL THE BASICS before you can move on to the high tech stuff, if you do not, disaster ALWAYS result!
Piston damage...
Another...
One of them out of the engine.
This is one of the pistons I used....Back when I did this job, this company was one of the only 1 or 2 companies that even made pistons for these modular engines!
This is the forged steel crankshaft used...
I used file fit piston rings...
Checking ring gap....the rings are gapped in the cylinder they will be installed in...
The pistons go into specific cylinders so they are marked, then the rings are installed on the piston for the cylinder they were gapped for....
For any major job we box up the parts in these containers so they do not wander off or get damaged...
ARP studs were used to assemble the bottom end...
This is the tool used to torque connecting rod bolts the RIGHT way...I'm "cycling" the bolts here.....
Checking crankshaft end-play....
Rod side clearance has to be checked....These are Manley connecting rods....the stock rods will NOT hold up to much abuse. If you have a 5.4 Lightning truck and are playing around with serious boost, you need to have the engine gone through and at LEAST go back with a good connecting rod and piston....
Once the engine is assembled, I always like to check to see how much torque it takes to turn the rotating assembly....If it is too tight, you BETTER disassemble it to find out WHY!!!!
This one is okay....
ARP studs were used for the heads as well...I've seen guys take vise grips and tighten these studs down into the block.....BIG mistake.....If you don't know why then keep your hands in your pocket, don't mess with it! If you can't screw them in all the way BY HAND the engine is NOT clean enough and is NOT ready to be assembled yet!
Here the timing chains are going on...Sean Hyland Motorsports tensioners were used...They perform much better at high RPM than the factory tensioners....
Well here it is ready to go back in........
This engine made good rear wheel horsepower on a chassis dyno (493 if memory serves) Yea, that is PEANUTS by today's standards for sure, but way back then it was not that common! We had just a few dyno pulls on it and had not even reached anywhere NEAR full potential nor had we upped the boost from the initial 6psi yet when the guy decided he needed to get rid of the car to get married! He received a phone call some time later from some guy in North Carolina (I think) that had wound up with the car and had found his name in the car. Supposedly all they did was up the boost a bit and the car went some low 10's. (supposedly)

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This is a sweet little ride of one of our customers. This Mach is daily driven as you can see from the rain! Is this piece immaculate or what?

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Here are a few pictures of setting up a ring & pinion in a bolt in replacement Dana 44 rear on an F-body Camaro.

As you see in the pics to the left, this Camaro was set up using Spohn Suspension components. These work very well on F-bodies!

Unlike the diffs that have the pinion shim under the rear pinion bearing, the 44 is behind the rear pinion race.
We set up our diffs by using the manufacturers recommended depth etched on the pinion head. Here is the tool used to set pinion depth.
We used this cover to increase the strength of the unit even more.

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Here are just a few personal pictures........

Me at a Skills USA competition when I taught Automotive Technology.

Vinny from OCC at Skills USA

James helping me remove the windshield from my old Camaro when we did the roll cage...(yea I know I said we don't do cages....But this was for my OWN car so it didn't matter that it took twice as long as if we were fully equipped to do them!!!)

These next few are some really old photos that were scanned....the quality is not real good as the pictures were pretty faded...

My 1978 Camaro back in 1982 or 1983...

This was back in 83...The guy's name is Jimmy Martin...We were in the same Electronics Technology class...That was a 455 Stage Two Buick motor....It was no match for my ole Camaro though!

The first or second engine I ever built...I think it was 1982. It was a flat top piston, small chamber headed, Crane Fireball cammed deal...Considering it had too low compression, too much duration, not enough lift and too tight of a converter it ran pretty good with a 3.73 gear....Good enough to smoke that Stage Two 455! When I give engine advice it usually comes from experience...I may not be an expert and always know what WORKS....BUT, when I say that a certain combo is not right it is usually because I've been there and done it and it was a dog!

This was back in 1982 I think....It was taken at my buddy Scott's....I don't remember the DETAILS of this photo, BUT you can pretty much bet that it was a LEARNING EXPERIENCE also!

The old Camaro smokin' the tarz somewhere at Chennault, waaaay back when there was still a drag strip here...The good ole days!!!!

Putting a home grown paint job on my old Chevy pickup. I'm not real sure what year this was, but right after the paint job I built a small block 400 for it. We called it a "long rod" 400 back then. That was back when we just began to play around with rod/stroke ratio...
It was a 400 block, a 400 (3.75") crank and a 5.7" long connecting rod from a 350 and used a custom piston.
I was the first one around HERE to build this combo.....I remember when I ordered the pistons I was only the 216th person in the US to order these pistons...I can't remember for sure, but I think Speed Pro was the first to make them. That was also my first time to experiment with decking a block to get a tighter quench. I think that tight quench is one reason that combo was even able to live on pump gas....That motor made a buttload of torque. It would smoke those 33X12.50 tires WHILE PULLING a 25ft travel trailer! That motor saw trailer duty for about 5 years then I pulled it out and freshened it up and used a set of out-of-the-box (unported) GM Bowtie cast iron heads with a Lunati solid flat tappet shaft and it ran a best of 11.66 in a 4000+ pound GMC long wheel base pickup. That is laughable TODAY, but it was very rarely done in 1990 or so...Well in Lake Charles anyway!!!!! I had no money to waste on Dyno time back then, and only the rich folks could afford roller cams and aluminum heads back then.....Now days with a bit more compression, a 260-270 duraton @ .050" with .700+" lift roller cam and a set of the many choices available for heads that are commonplace TODAY, that is an easy 700HP.
The biggest accomplishment however was not the power it made but the fact that it lasted for 5 grueling years towing a trailer, then made WELL OVER 200 1/4 mile passes and was still street driven. It wasn't until I had the bright idea to try to make my own two stage nitrous setup by stacking two plates on top of each other.....Take my word for it....that is NOT the correct way to make a 400HP nitrous kit!!! I think I still had that souvenir piston up until about 5 years ago!

My buddy Scott's 69 Camaro on the Dyno I mentioned.....I doubt he'd appreciate me giving out any power figures, but I CAN say that before tuning it went a best of 9.45 @ 145 MPH and AFTER tuning it went a best of 9.18 @ 147 MPH....This is with only a 200HP plate kit. The second stage has yet to have it's trigger pulled. This is with a VERY safe tune......Scott is all about SAFE.....Me I'm more of a throw all your bullets in the fire and stand there kind of guy!

This was taken at the Pinks All Out race at Houston Raceway Park in Baytown Tx. That is Me and James on the right end.....I'm the one holding the drink...AGAIN

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