I bought this car in the fall of 1999 with 42,000 miles on the odometer. The car is a 6sp and loaded with t-tops, leather interior, power DS seat, no traction control (thank god). :)
After owning the car for a short time, I immediately started modding the car with free mods, a Moroso CAI and 4.10 rearend gears. This cut my stock baseline 1/4 mile times from 14.12@100mph to spinning my way to a 13.68@103.5mph. It didn't take long to want more, so I bought a set of used cylinder heads and proceded to port them myself. I learned a ton from that experience and ended up with a decent set of ported heads that flowed 265/190 int/exh with the stock valves. I then installed some 2.00/1.56 Manley valves which raised the flow numbers to 272/195 int/exh resepectively. After installing the the heads/cam, exhaust and a few other bolt-ons the car ran a best of 12.39@114mph. The next year I put the car on the dyno for the first time and it baselined at 360rwhp/352rwtq. After some tweaking with LT1_Edit and 7 dyno pulls, I achieved 372rwhp/360rwtq at the rear wheels. It's worth noting that these numbers were achieved with the stock (unported) throttle body, stock injectors (that were maxing out according to Datamaster), stock water pump and through the muffler.
Picture taken a couple years ago but it's appearance is bascially unchanged.
I custom made a Carbon Fiber fan shroud/radiator support. It's super strong and much lighter than the factory piece, plus it looks a little better too. If you look closely, the Holley throttle body has a Carbon Fiber throttle plate on it (shown in a pic below).
Another angle of the engine compartment.
A shot of the Carbon Fiber throttle plate on top of the 52mm Holley.
Custom fabricated carbon fiber fan shroud/radiator support
More History
From the Summer of 2000 when I installed the heads/cam, I drove the car as my daily driver until fall 2003. I put over 60,000 miles on it during this time without a problem at all. In the fall of 2003 I had my first real mishap with the car (other than the sheared pinion gear w/4.10's), the car blew a head gasket. At that time I was getting bored with the car being it was the longest I'd ever owned a car. I finally decided to pull the heads, refresh the valvetrain and fix the head gasket. I also decided it was time to add a Meziere water pump, and larger throttle body. After getting the car back up and running, I drove the car for a couple months during the summer, and recently lost 2nd gear with the T56 tranny. The car is in serious need of a clutch by this time, so tearing into the T56 to replace a gear is not really that big of an issue to me. So, the car is now sitting on jackstands in the garage, waiting for the surgery. :)
**** 02-06-06 Update ****
The Z28 is going under the knife. This time is reconstructive surgery in the form of an LS1 Transplant. Link to new page coming soon.....
