The TPS blog has been silent lately but in the shop we have been running full tilt. Business has been booming, we are fortunate to have a great set of customers dedicated to making their vehicles perform to perfection at every driving condition.
Let me walk you through just a handful of the cars we’ve been involved with over the last few weeks.
BJ’s S197 – Yeah it’s fast
BJ brought his 2005 S197 Mustang to us with some driveability issues and in need of an automatic swap, some fuel system upgrades and a good once-over on the suspension. Benjy fabbed up a custom 3″ mandrel bent X-pipe exhaust system with magnapacks to help get the air moving. This sucker is LOUD. No muffler video.
The combination BJ has is problematic for some shops to tune with the large 4″ MAF/inlet, an aftermarket throttlebody, cams and hard hitting automatic. We put a great emphasis on making the car drive as close to stock as possible. After all, what good is a beast of a car if it stalls, idles wierd and is otherwise a pain to drive.
With the automatic swapped and fuel system upgraded, we spun the rollers past the 600rwhp mark.
Like any TPS car, dyno numbers are just a precursor to showing what the car and driver have at the track. A day later the shakedown runs for the combo were done at NPR. Track conditions, abundant torque and ET Street radials combined to make for some awesome spin and short shifting off the lines but the car put down a 10.3 @ 137 with a 1.8 60ft. Not bad for the first go at it and from what BJ tells me it is the 2nd fastest recorded time for a KenneBell 2.6H on this particular combo. There is much more left with real tires (where we can use the transbrake and not launch off idle and shortshift to 2nd). This is one sick street car.
Show Truck – Lightning Powered
This truck was a pleasure to work with. There was not a spot of dirt on the entire thing. The underside of the truck is painted and clearcoated. It is that sick. Powered by a Lightning motor, this sucker has show AND go.
Nitrous Charger – Pumpkins can go fast too
Another good looking Mopar, this one has a 125 shot of the juice and modifications. Great looking color. A custom tune zeroed in on the VE tables and allowed for safe use of the nitrous and maximum power.
Boley’s S197 – Has downforce
Congrats also to David Boley on his 12.4 with his bolton and cammed S197. He managed to pretzel up an unwelded lower control arm relocation bracket on his first pass but Benjy came to the rescue and swapped his control arms back to the stock location at the track to allow him to run his new best. Boley now has brackets that are welded, look for even stouter times!
Beau’s S197 – Turbo power!
If you know Beau then you know he is a nutcase. Beau is one of those guys you love having around because he will keep you in stitches the whole time. We did some basic suspension/rearend work and an initial shakedown tune on about 14psi that made 560rwhp and proved to be quite a handful at the track. Driver mod on order… then more power muhaha.
Gerrard’s F150 – Sleeper truck
I love working with trucks, especially show trucks that look slow but pack a punch. Gerrard had been having drivability and detonation issues so he brought the truck to me to work out all the kinks. We redid the tune and left it on the safe side. His visit at the track last weekend showed a 13.6 ET on his STREET tires. This was much faster than his previous best of 13.9. Wait till he has some traction! This truck moves and looks great doing it.
Jimmy’s Fox – Purpose built
We’ve been working with Jimmy over the last couple weeks getting all those little items in that come up in a new build squared away. We first tried to tune the motor with a Saleen blower that had the smallest pulley I have ever seen. This beast of a motor proved to ingest more air that the poor little blower could provide, netting us about 1psi at WOT.
Fast forward… Jimmy ditched the Saleen blower and stepped it up to a Procharger F1A. This is not any F1A however, it has been modified with a higher step up ratio. Tuning will be happening soon, this car will be ridiculous.
Gabe’s Cobra
Gabe brought us his Cobra to add a pulley that would increase the amount of boost the blower produced. With the pulley comes mods to the fuel system and mass air system to support the added boost. This Cobra is a great example of why the terminator platform is so popular, simple mods create excellent power!
William’s Cobra – Super clean, super fast
William has an extremely clean Cobra. He brought it to us to work through some charging issues he had and work with the tuning in the car. Exhaust mods are planned to help get boost from the KenneBell out of there in a hurry.
Benjy’s S197 Stick to Auto Swap – I can shift it, I really can!
This past weekend Benjy undertook swapping a 5R55S transmission into our 2005 shop turbo car. This car has very basic mods, 3.90 gears, a 9psi turbo kit, aluminum driveshaft. Stock suspension and catalytic converters still remain. With the auto swapped and the car retuned it put down 435rwhp. A track visit is pending for some shakedown runs, stay tuned!
Dev’s Saleen – The Texan with style!
Dev drove in from Dallas to drop off his FINE authentic blown Saleen. He had some belt alignment issues and also some issues with the hood latching properly and finally needing dyno tuning. I emailed him a tune to let him make the trip over to us and work began immediately. Dev had put some very nice touches on his car to make it uniquely his own. This one has been a pleasure to work with.
Emile’s Fox – Super fine fox
Emile picked up a Fox that had undergone a restoration into a show car. The motor had some smoke under throttle so we performed a compression and leakdown test which showed a tired 5.0. We will be pulling the engine, having it freshened up and then dyno tuning it to allow it to have perfect driveability that fits the amazing restoration. While the engine is out we will send off parts to be powdercoated to round out this beautiful car.
Stay tuned for part 2…
I was told everything I had to post was too long so I’ll break it up into a two part post… stay tuned (a pun!) for more of what we have been doing in a week or so.