More than sixteen years ago GMHTP was founded to serve the enthusiasts of what was then defined as late model muscle cars. The qualifier for this title being the engine was equipped with electronic fuel injection and ignition control. As time progressed the EFI community has grown in both number and ability, but there still remains a good deal of mystery around the concept of calibrating an engine. This is rooted in two distinct but different domains: understanding what an engine wants and how to use the software of the specific engine controller you have.

Congratulations to David Frisk of Rapid City, South Dakota, whose Trans Am photo (shown) was recently selected as the top entry in our GM High Tech Performance/Mantic Performance Clutches Photo Contest. For his efforts, Mr. Frisk will receive a $2,500 check from Mantic.

Many car enthusiasts dream of one day taking their cars to the limit at the historic Bonneville Salt Flats near Wendover, Utah. However, The Flats, the name given to a 45-square mile area of flat barren land coated with a salt crust, are rapidly deteriorating. Located where Lake Bonneville once existed, the salt crust is rapidly depleting and today only about an inch of salt remains. The Bonneville Salt Flats have served as the location for numerous Land Speed records, and are a vital part of the history of American automotive performance. Here's how you can help "Save the Salt!"

What appeared to be, at the outset, an anticlimactic mid-year refresh for the fifth-gen platform, turned out to have a surprising twist. General Motors dropped a figurative bomb at the 2013 New York Auto Show, revealing the 2014 Camaro Z/28. The leaked LS7 engine codes for the 2014 model turned out not to be a hoax when the Z/28 appeared from back stage and was pronounced Chevrolet's 4-passenger king of the track. Recaro seats, 6-piston carbon ceramic brakes, huge tires, weight reduction, and a dry-sump LS7 - what more do you need to say? The Z/28 is a car built for enthusiasts. Congrats GM, it's nice to feel like you are listening.

Almost no other GM model pulls off the aggressive look quite like the fourth-gen Trans Am, and when you modify one like Nathan Turjillo from Las Vegas has, well; you end up with a real showstopper. Starting with the exterior, Nathan took his ’99 Trans Am to the next level with a VFN WS6 hood, a Wings West front lip, and shaved side moldings, which all work with the Eibach Pro-Kit springs to give this Trans Am a menacing look from any angle. And that look is backed up by quite a bit of power, thanks to a Texas Speed Magic Stick 3 camshaft, Hooker long-tube headers, and a full cat-back exhaust system. A Monster Stage 1 clutch sends power to the 17x9-inch Z06 wheels, which quickly turn rubber into smoke out in the Vegas desert.

Kris Collins planned to keep his ’02 Collector Edition Trans Am stock, but we’re betting you already know how well that worked out. After 4 years of holding out, Kris finally cracked under the pressure from his friend, Ron Hurt, and decided that if he was going to do anything, he was going to do it right. What you see before you now sports a Texas Speed 228R camshaft, a set of LS6 heads, long-tube headers, an SLP Loudmouth exhaust, and an SLP lid, along with a couple other minor bolt-ons. That combo is good for 435-rwhp on the dyno, and we’re sure it takes all of the sticky stuck in those Toyo Proxes TQ drag radials to keep this 13,000-mile CETA glued to the Pennsylvania road. And Kris better plan on keeping it shiny side up, this is one CETA for the ages.

Barron Magee of West Monroe, Louisiana may not own a real GNX, but when he lays into the throttle of his nasty ’86 Grand National, it doesn’t bother him one bit. Under the hood, Brandon has worked his GN way past X specs, with a Precision TE44 turbocharger pushing boost through a GNX/TTA intercooler into the bolt-on equipped 6-banger. RJC Racing supplied the piping to and fro, with a 3-inch downpipe expelling spent gasses out the exhaust. Outside, Barron runs a set of OEM GNX fender flares front and rear, that allow him to sport the massive 18x8 and 18x10-inch Boze forged wheels hung over a big set of Baer brakes. But the mods don’t stop there, Barron has also worked over his interior, with custom gauges in a GNX cluster, a AVIC Z3 touchscreen head unit, and black anodized trim to tie the theme all together.

They never made a fourth-gen Camaro in this color, but looking at it on Brian Wilhelm’s SLP-built ’00 SS really makes you wonder why not. It’s called Velocity Yellow and Brian lifted the hue from a new Corvette, splashing it over his SS along with a slick black Manta stripe, blacked out “Berger panel,” and a smoothed over center mount exhaust valance. The result is truly eye catching and in Weston, Wisconsin, we’re sure it’s the talk of the town. For power, Brian has kept things simple; adding an LS6 intake, a ported throttle body, and a set of Kooks long-tube headers connected to an off-road Y-pipe and a Spintech muffler. Great sounds, modest power, and a one-of-a-kind paint job…. Yeah, we can dig it.

Heat is the enemy. It’s been the enemy since the very first internal combustion engine fired up well over 150 years ago, and will continue to be the enemy for, well, forever. This isn’t an engineering obstacle; it’s a fact of life and, unfortunately, not something a bunch of car guys are going to "fix" just because it would help us run faster at the track. As temperature rises (assuming pressure and volume stay the same, which we are going to do) density drops, which reduces overall power production. Remember, the more air molecules (volume and density) you can stuff in the cylinder, the more fuel you can add and the more power you can produce. If the Ideal Gas Law wasn’t bad enough, hotter air also increases the likelihood of pre-detonation within the combustion chamber (AKA knock), which left unchecked, will turn shiny new pistons into paperweights before you can even lift out of the throttle.

Nothing says hot rodding like dipping into the stock parts bin at GM, mixing and matching OEM components, and coming out the other side with almost 50 extra rear wheel horsepower and OE reliability. This trick, of course, is as old as the internal combustion engine itself, although it’s just recently that a couple hundred dollars worth of GM parts could add this kind of power. Seriously, the package we’re showing off here can be purchased for under 300-bucks if you shop smart (new parts, nothing used) and added 47-rwhp and 20 lb-ft of torque to our bolt-on equipped 2011 Silverado LTZ, through the factory automatic transmission. Besides the healthy power gains, we also drove away with a near stock idle, sublime under-the-curve drivability, long term reliability, and a stop light ready sleeper package that could surprise almost anything you’ll run into on the street. And the best part is, anyone can get this done with a couple hundred bucks and a 6.2-liter LS engine, which means the LS9 camshaft swap will work for a ton of truck guys, and fifth-gen Camaro enthusiasts as well. In fact, AntiVenom recently stuffed a 6.2 in our Ashy Larry project, with the same camshaft, and made over 400-rwhp!

"What happened back there? How did he end up passing you?"

Superchargers are no big secret to making horsepower. In fact, their use on production cars dates all the way back to the 1920s. In today’s market there are many types of superchargers and a multitude of kits for the 2005-2013 Corvette. Clearly the willingness of Corvette owners to modify their cars, combined with the desire to keep up with new Vette models (such as the 7.0L Z06 and the supercharged ZR1) as well as foreign competitors has inspired many to purchase various methods of forced induction. Due to the very tight packaging constraints, many consider positive displacement blowers, such as the Eaton TVS2300 on the ZR1, to be superior on most street cars and others maintain that the compromises are worth it to install a turbo kit. However, yet a third avenue combines the best of both worlds, providing the best thermal efficiency and a high ceiling for producing horsepower – centrifugal superchargers. Yet even in this market, there exist many choices. Ours was ProCharger.

we’ve said it before and we’ll say it again—if you’re a fan of anything and everything LS, you need to attend the Holley LS Fest. Held, yet again, in Bowling Green, Kentucky over the second weekend in September (7-9), the 2012 Holley LS Fest built upon the success of previous years, taking the LS lifestyle to the next level with large crowds, enthusiastic racers, and an action packed schedule that kept fans moving across the gorgeous Beech Bend property all weekend long. Threatened by rain—for the third year in a row—early Friday attendance was again impressive, with the all-LS pits filling up fast as the racers and crew members arrived. And while the drag racing fields still had a little room left in the ladders come Sunday, the street, drift, and autocross crowds managed to take up the slack, filling the circle track with car after car, and packing over 80 cars into the True Street cruise. Along with fantastic head-to-head competition, enthusiasts were treated to an excellent two-day car show, a large and well-arranged manufacturers midway, an exciting engine swap challenge, and open pits filled with friendly racers to check out their favorite rides up close. Whether you were there with us or not, make sure you check out our coverage of this killer event and then head online to the GMHTP YouTube channel to see the exciting video footage. We’ll see you next year!

"Is that rain? It looks like rain… wait, maybe it was just a – nope, nope that’s rain. Oh no, that’s a ton of rain. Everyone get under a cover, here it comes. Damn it." And rain it did, for the better part of an hour, right in the middle of Saturday’s qualifying session at the 6th Annual LSX Shootout held at Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis, Indiana. For a brisk October weekend, a little rain wouldn’t normally be such a big deal – after all, the LSX Shootout doesn’t feel like a race unless we’re up way too late to get it finished – but it wasn’t storm one that had racers bothered, it was the super cell that was behind it, poised to drench Indianapolis and the three major cities around it for all of Sunday and Monday. It was time for the racers, spectators, and NMCA officials to make a tough decision. Do we attempt to dry the track tonight and run the entire race on Saturday or do we gamble it all, call the Saturday portion of the race, and hope that Sunday is better? Hope wasn’t the popular choice, as every radar in the area indicated a massive washout on Sunday, and a Monday morning showdown wasn’t really what anyone wanted.

Those of you longtime readers may remember our good friend and fellow SIM Editor, Mr. Jay Heath, the former owner of our ’99 LS1 Trans Am project that raucously pounced Englishtown Raceway Park with such proficiency using mere bolt-ons until its final days when it received a ProCharger. Jay has owned several Firebirds over the years, and once again decided to return to the Big Chief. But the problem he faced was one that no doubt many of you have, if you were in the market for a fourth-gen recently. He wasn’t willing to pay C5 money for a fourth-gen LS1, and there wasn’t much in that price range that didn’t need significant work (if it was salvageable in the first place). Thus came the nearly regrettable thought of purchasing a V-6 Firebird and using the leftover money to convert it. Now for a gutted racecar, using a V-6 car is a no-brainer. But if you actually want functioning OEM gauges, creature comforts, and reliability suitable for a daily driver—that is going to take time, effort, and some real craftiness.

Every project, no matter how large or small, is inspired by something different. For some of us, builds are inspired by things we see at shows, on the pages of magazines, or online. For others, ideas for projects come from different places. Some draw inspiration from art, others from hobbies, and some from just pure imagination. For Jessy Horton, his latest project drew inspiration from both his job as a firefighter in Abilene, Texas, and from his childhood, where he grew up building a first-generation Camaro with his father.

“With the ProCharger it is so easy. I transbrake it to 2300rpm, off the button, shift, shift… Run 8s.” Yeah, like that’s all there is to this 8-second True Street ’91 Firebird; just get in and run 8s like it’s no big deal. What Justin May is leaving out from that statement is the years of hard work it has taken him to get to this point, years of hard work that started way before Justin could even drive, let alone head to the dragstrip. “Growing up in a family that valued education, my mother offered to pay for half of a new car in trade for me achieving a 4.0 GPA in high school.” And unlike your author who barely maintained enrollment, Justin was actually intelligent enough to make that happen, which meant his parents had to make good on their half of the deal. It would be Justin’s father who located the ’91 Firebird you see before you and “from the day I saw it I knew I loved the Pontiac…” What Justin didn’t know at the time was that his first love would end up being his one and only (well, there were some on the side from time to time…), with the Firebird sticking around for the long haul.

New generations of small-blocks are generally accompanied by fanfare, ticker-tape parades, and claims of the greatest thing since Nutella hit sliced bread. But will some ignore the Gen V release as a simple marketing ploy for an LS engine that just has its fuel injectors in a different place? That would be a poor choice on their part, because not only does the new LT1 differ significantly from all small-blocks before it (and is easily the biggest thing since the LS1), its advancements work together to simultaneously increase fuel efficiency, lower emissions, and bump power potential. And while the Gen 5 is sure to bring new challenges to the aftermarket, so did the LS1… then as now, opportunity knocks for talented folks who are brave enough to blaze new trails.

It seems there are a lot of records posted on the internet, many of which can even be a bit absurd. But fastest bolt-on C6 Z06 seems to have some merit, especially when the e.t. dips below 10-seconds. Sure the Z came with the mighty 427 cubic-inch LS7 with its Titanium valves and connecting rods that screams to 7000rpm, but one would think harnessing such ample torque through the independent rear suspension might be a real chore. Particularly when it must be done with a manual trans. There in lie the art and finesse of piloting Gary Hillen’s 2008 Z into the record books.

“The drive is rough. Loud, hard, and uncomfortable. An overall terrible car to drive…” Meet Shane Whalley, the owner, builder, and driver of the rough and tumble ’06 GTO drift car you see before you. It’s Shane Whalley with two l’s for you readers already booting up your laptops or getting out your prison ruled paper to write us angry hate mail about running a drifter in the pages of GMHTP. Or maybe it’s not the sideways glory that’s got you mad, maybe you’re a die-hard GTO enthusiast that can’t stand the idea of Shane ruining a perfectly good GTO to go battle it out with lesser rivals from overseas? Well, in that case, you should know up front that Shane is a real GTO enthusiast too. In fact, this very car was his daily driver for over 4 years before he went and started drifting it competitively. “On a limited budget and time, I said to hell with it, and set my sights on my GTO. A car I bought with 9,000-miles on it and daily drove for 4 years. It was a good car and a hard decision to make, but knowing this was something that I wanted to do, I tore into the project never looking back.”

For the past five years, a diehard group of racers has gotten together for a great time and awesome racing. They call it the LTX Shootout, and we’ve been lucky enough to follow along with each and every event since its inception five years ago. The early days were spent in Kansas City, but the move to Bowling Green, Kentucky offered a great, central location and the parts-killing traction of Beech Bend Raceway Park.

Porting cylinder heads has long been a right of passage for serious hot rodders looking to add power on a modest budget. Armed with the right knowledge, the correct tools, and a couple of nights in the garage, it’s an easy and almost free way to pick up airflow, which results in increased power and decreased e.t.’s at the track. However, with the wrong knowledge, or an overzealous hand, home porting of cylinder heads can literally ruin a set of castings, taking them from a quality off the shelf piece to a set of paperweights in less than a minute. And because of this, it’s pretty difficult to find anyone out there willing to show the ins and outs of a hand-porting job, since it’s easy to put the wrong info into the wrong hands. Well, that, and the fact that cylinder head porting is more akin to a witches’ brew of knowledge and experience than a straightforward bolt-on modification. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t hope for the budding enthusiast looking to modify a pair of heads in their free time and try them out on the engine of their choice.

The Cape
First of all, if you’re sporting a GMHTP banner in your garage, you’re awesome. Secondly, if you’re doing it behind a 10-second ’02 WS6 with less than 35,000-miles on the odometer, you’re going to get in Street Heat. That’s what Nathan Kluesner of Gordonville, MO did and his ultra clean T/A is just perfect for this spot. Under the Ram Air hood, Nathan’s show worthy Trans Am is rocking a stock cube, forged Scoggin Dickey Parts Center LS1, which has been upgraded lightly with a set of ported 241-casting cylinder heads and a Texas Speed Magic Stick 3 camshaft. A healthy dose of nitrous really gets things going, while a—get this—4L60E transmission and stock 10-bolt rear end keep everything moving down track. That’s a combination worth 10.6-second e.t.’s at 130 mph in a street car! Pretty awesome, right?!

Correction

If it seems like every Camaro since the third-gen has come with a woefully inadequate rear end package, it’s because they have. Third and fourth-gen fans knew this pain all too well, with the anemic 10-bolt rear wreaking havoc on ring and pinions since the first models hit the dragstrip way back when. For enthusiasts, it was a frustrating time, with almost no aftermarket options for a true plug-and-play rear end upgrade solution. Today, “old” Camaro owners have almost too many options, with manufacturers building drop in rears for practically every single application. Now, one would have hoped that the fifth-gen Camaro design team would have addressed this issue, but following in the footsteps of its predecessors, GM engineers seemed to have once again taken the “less is less” approach to the rear, with a weak differential, a small ring and pinion, and small axle shafts leaving hardcore drag and street users fearing for the worst every time they drop the hammer out on the track.