Little bit about me first.
I have been a GM guy since day one of driving. I've been into Turbo Buicks since they were new and have raced against tons of Mustangs over the years. Both on the streets and at the track. I have owned 3 Turbo Buicks in the past. The fastest was a consistent 10.ohs @ 135 full weight "86 T-Type that I campaigned in TSE (Turbo Street Eliminator) heads up class in the Buick world for 6 years. So that is where I cut my drag racing teeth. Back in late 2010 while working at Precision Turbo & Engine as a Territory Sales Rep (some of you may know me as I was the Patrick at Precision) anywho, I started hearing reports from my customers about how awesome this new 5.0 Coyote motor was from the guys at JPC. How well they responded to basic mods and how fast they were going. I even heard about them running 10's before it went viral on the web. However, it wasn't until the summer of 2011 that I finally got to drive one. And boy was I impressed. It was almost 100* outside, but this freak of a car was frying the tires all over the hwy in the heat. It literally made my GTO look pathetic, and it was a high 12's car. That was my wake up call. I had seen the light and knew that I would be going to the other dark side and buying a Mustang. Much to the chagrin of my Buick buddies. Back then my plan was to trade my GTO for either a "11 or a "12, but the numbers just weren't right. So I had to be patient.
Fast forward to Feb 9th of this year, I was able to trade my 2005 GTO for a 2011 Sterling Grey Premium GT with auto. Something that I had made a personal goal of mine to accomplish. Everything was perfect, the car was in great shape for being used. It had very few scratches, nicks or dings but definitely needed tires. My mods soon began on week one of ownership. American Muscle Charcoal Grey AMR 18x8 wheels with M/T's new Street Comp tires. JLT pass side oil seperator, drop in K&N filter, tail light, turn signal and rear quarter marker light tint and a prepainted GT500 rear spoiler. Next was window tint. After a month and a few days of new ownership, I was finally getting used to the car and loving it. Even got to take him to the track for his initial shakedown passes. Without knowing how to completely turn off Stabilitrack, I managed a best of 13.00 @ 109. Not too shabby for baseline passes. Then, March 18th 2013 happened. Earlier that morning before leaving for work, the Weather channel and our local new stations, had been forecasting severe tornadic weather with hail. Which I took seriously as weather around here can get pretty bad.
So I was watching radar and weather reports during my break and at lunch, getting ready for the worse as I could feel it coming. When I got back from lunch at around 3pm, I told my supervisor that we had about 45 minutes before the first wave of serious Shhh tuff hit the fan at work. Like clock work, it was as if God himself commanded fire and brim stone to fall from the heavens. It got pitch black out, then the skies turned that tornado greenish black color. The winds picked up and within a short period of about 2 minutes, all hell broke loose. THE MOTHER OF ALL HAIL STORMS HAD BEGUN! And my office building and parking lot were ground zero.
All I could think about was my poor car. I knew it was toast. Trees were flying all over the place, winds averaged 30-60mph gusts and the hail was incredible. Short of war zone real combat footage, I have not witnessed this level of destruction by hail. Tornadoes are another thing, I've witness that destruction many times being from the south, but not this level by hail alone. We literally had softball size hail, we saved a couple of pieces because it was so freakishly large. At the height of the hail storm, it looked like a snow storm out the window. The ground was solid white. It hailed for about 4 minutes straight before slacking up. I knew my poor defenseless Mustang had no chance for survival. :cryying: 30 agonizingly long minutes later, I got to go see the level of devastation first hand. Our parking lot at work holds about 300 cars. At the time the storm hit, the lot was maybe 1/2 full. Every car received damage. I felt like I was walking through a 3rd world country stepping over broken and mangled car parts, broken glass, a truck grille here, a car mirror there. destroyed trees everywhere. It was a chaotic scene of devastation.
30 feet from my car, I could already see the devastation reaped upon it. Passenger side windshield wiper was laying 50 ft from the car, busted in two pieces, broken windshield that took 5 softball size hits but stayed in one piece, although smashed. (Good job Ford) I held my emotions in check and slowly wiped the water off the car to check the damage. It was bad. There were 14 major hits on the top surfaces. Imagine 5" diameter dents that were at least 3" deep. Hood toast, roof toast, trunk toast, drivers side door toast, drivers side front fender toast, drivers side rear qtr toast, even the frickin passenger side c-pillar got two hits. Unbelievably, the GT500 spoiler was damage free and not a spot on it. I have no idea how, but it survived unscathed. Later that night, I counted 48 hits, 5 of them on major body creases and 3 broken paint dents. I was devastated. In all my years of car ownership, I have been very lucky. Never had any hail damage. From the amount of damage, I could tell it was going to be a full body job and replace the hood. Possibly even the trunk.
I contacted my buddy who works for a major body shop in town for his advice. He recommended calling their tow service and getting my car to them immediately as their phones had been blowing up all evening. At 11:57pm that night, my beloved Mustang was driven up on a roll back with 29,612 miles on the clock. 3 weeks passed and I hadn't heard anything from them. So I called my buddy. He told me that my insurance company was dragging their feet. That they have been telling them my car was there at their shop, but they were blowing them off. The excuse from the insurance company was they were swamped with claims and were working on getting to it shortly. (DUH, almost 40k cars in the Jackson area were damaged.) At the 5 week wait point, I was starting to get worried that they might total my car due to the amount of damage. I had even resigned myself to start searching for a replacement, which was going to be next to impossible, it being a Sterling Grey auto with the light grey leather.
Finally at week 6, I got word from my buddy that the estimate ($7,500+) was done and they were going to fix it. I asked him, that if they were going to need to replace the hood, that I wanted to go with a aftermarket hood. Yep, hood needs replacement, order it quick. Work has begun. With that, I immediately ordered a Trufiber 3" cowl hood from American Muscle. Fast forward to this past Monday, I got word that my car might be ready Friday. Might? I was dying over here. So I asked my buddy if he could snap a few body shop progress pics to ease the waiting pains. Then he sent me a teaser pic of the car getting painted. The pains quickly turned to excitement. Then late this past Thursday evening, I got word that on Friday the 3rd , I could come pick up the car, it would be ready. :rockon:
Of course on Friday, it was raining, so the true visual impact of the results could not be seen due to all the water. But the car looked fantastic. The hood was incredible. And the color match was perfect. I was blown away at the job they had done. No fish eyes, no wavy signs of body work and all of the areas that were severely dented in the roof and body seams were perfect again. Incredible. That Trufiber hood is a work of art. Very well made and functional. Not too much cowl to be obnoxious and not to small. Just right. It really sets off the look I was going for. And one last note, mileage when I picked it up was exactly 29,612 so no joy rides were had. :-D My buddy did me right when he said he would treat it like it was his own. He sure did and those guys did an incredible job. Later that night, I installed two bolt ons that had been collecting dust waiting for the car to come home from the hospital. A JLT plastic CAI kit and an SCT SX3 from American Muscle. HUGE difference those two items made. The car is a completely different stallion now. I am very impressed with my Bama tune. So, to wind this book of a story up, I had started to loose hope that I would never see my poor car again, but it definitely paid to be patient.
So now for the big pay off. Here are a few pics that I snapped earlier today of SHADOW's new look.
In my short time of being on this board, I have learned a lot. My plans for the car are as follows.
Get the car into the high 11's NA on 93 octane without compromising street ability. That is the short term goal. The long term goal will be consistent mid to high 10's on 93 octane with forced induction. Being a turbo guy and having first hand experience with both Hellion and JPC and their kits while at PTE, I am leaning heavily toward turbo, however, I really am digging the Paxton 2200 kit as well. I plan on doing this with 18x10 AMR rear wheels and big drag radials, as I want it to maintain a walk softly but carry a sinister look approach, vs bigs and littles RACECAR look. Don't get me wrong, I love the look of black Weld RT-S wheels on these cars, but they are just not in the cards right now. Remember what Tony Montana taught us.
"First you get de money, den you get de powa." In my case, it will be, first you get the look, then you get the power. :coolman: I think I eventually will install rear springs to bring the back end down a tad. Decisions, decisions. And lastly, I am well versed in the pros and cons of both forced induction methods of madness and it "will" be a tough choice, but I think I have finally chosen my path. I'll keep it a secret for now.
I'm definitely glad to be here and thanks to all of you who post your recipes and real world experiences, I appreciate it.
Sorry this was so long and thanks for reading. I look forward to participating more on this board in the future.
Patrick
I have been a GM guy since day one of driving. I've been into Turbo Buicks since they were new and have raced against tons of Mustangs over the years. Both on the streets and at the track. I have owned 3 Turbo Buicks in the past. The fastest was a consistent 10.ohs @ 135 full weight "86 T-Type that I campaigned in TSE (Turbo Street Eliminator) heads up class in the Buick world for 6 years. So that is where I cut my drag racing teeth. Back in late 2010 while working at Precision Turbo & Engine as a Territory Sales Rep (some of you may know me as I was the Patrick at Precision) anywho, I started hearing reports from my customers about how awesome this new 5.0 Coyote motor was from the guys at JPC. How well they responded to basic mods and how fast they were going. I even heard about them running 10's before it went viral on the web. However, it wasn't until the summer of 2011 that I finally got to drive one. And boy was I impressed. It was almost 100* outside, but this freak of a car was frying the tires all over the hwy in the heat. It literally made my GTO look pathetic, and it was a high 12's car. That was my wake up call. I had seen the light and knew that I would be going to the other dark side and buying a Mustang. Much to the chagrin of my Buick buddies. Back then my plan was to trade my GTO for either a "11 or a "12, but the numbers just weren't right. So I had to be patient.
Fast forward to Feb 9th of this year, I was able to trade my 2005 GTO for a 2011 Sterling Grey Premium GT with auto. Something that I had made a personal goal of mine to accomplish. Everything was perfect, the car was in great shape for being used. It had very few scratches, nicks or dings but definitely needed tires. My mods soon began on week one of ownership. American Muscle Charcoal Grey AMR 18x8 wheels with M/T's new Street Comp tires. JLT pass side oil seperator, drop in K&N filter, tail light, turn signal and rear quarter marker light tint and a prepainted GT500 rear spoiler. Next was window tint. After a month and a few days of new ownership, I was finally getting used to the car and loving it. Even got to take him to the track for his initial shakedown passes. Without knowing how to completely turn off Stabilitrack, I managed a best of 13.00 @ 109. Not too shabby for baseline passes. Then, March 18th 2013 happened. Earlier that morning before leaving for work, the Weather channel and our local new stations, had been forecasting severe tornadic weather with hail. Which I took seriously as weather around here can get pretty bad.
So I was watching radar and weather reports during my break and at lunch, getting ready for the worse as I could feel it coming. When I got back from lunch at around 3pm, I told my supervisor that we had about 45 minutes before the first wave of serious Shhh tuff hit the fan at work. Like clock work, it was as if God himself commanded fire and brim stone to fall from the heavens. It got pitch black out, then the skies turned that tornado greenish black color. The winds picked up and within a short period of about 2 minutes, all hell broke loose. THE MOTHER OF ALL HAIL STORMS HAD BEGUN! And my office building and parking lot were ground zero.
All I could think about was my poor car. I knew it was toast. Trees were flying all over the place, winds averaged 30-60mph gusts and the hail was incredible. Short of war zone real combat footage, I have not witnessed this level of destruction by hail. Tornadoes are another thing, I've witness that destruction many times being from the south, but not this level by hail alone. We literally had softball size hail, we saved a couple of pieces because it was so freakishly large. At the height of the hail storm, it looked like a snow storm out the window. The ground was solid white. It hailed for about 4 minutes straight before slacking up. I knew my poor defenseless Mustang had no chance for survival. :cryying: 30 agonizingly long minutes later, I got to go see the level of devastation first hand. Our parking lot at work holds about 300 cars. At the time the storm hit, the lot was maybe 1/2 full. Every car received damage. I felt like I was walking through a 3rd world country stepping over broken and mangled car parts, broken glass, a truck grille here, a car mirror there. destroyed trees everywhere. It was a chaotic scene of devastation.
30 feet from my car, I could already see the devastation reaped upon it. Passenger side windshield wiper was laying 50 ft from the car, busted in two pieces, broken windshield that took 5 softball size hits but stayed in one piece, although smashed. (Good job Ford) I held my emotions in check and slowly wiped the water off the car to check the damage. It was bad. There were 14 major hits on the top surfaces. Imagine 5" diameter dents that were at least 3" deep. Hood toast, roof toast, trunk toast, drivers side door toast, drivers side front fender toast, drivers side rear qtr toast, even the frickin passenger side c-pillar got two hits. Unbelievably, the GT500 spoiler was damage free and not a spot on it. I have no idea how, but it survived unscathed. Later that night, I counted 48 hits, 5 of them on major body creases and 3 broken paint dents. I was devastated. In all my years of car ownership, I have been very lucky. Never had any hail damage. From the amount of damage, I could tell it was going to be a full body job and replace the hood. Possibly even the trunk.
I contacted my buddy who works for a major body shop in town for his advice. He recommended calling their tow service and getting my car to them immediately as their phones had been blowing up all evening. At 11:57pm that night, my beloved Mustang was driven up on a roll back with 29,612 miles on the clock. 3 weeks passed and I hadn't heard anything from them. So I called my buddy. He told me that my insurance company was dragging their feet. That they have been telling them my car was there at their shop, but they were blowing them off. The excuse from the insurance company was they were swamped with claims and were working on getting to it shortly. (DUH, almost 40k cars in the Jackson area were damaged.) At the 5 week wait point, I was starting to get worried that they might total my car due to the amount of damage. I had even resigned myself to start searching for a replacement, which was going to be next to impossible, it being a Sterling Grey auto with the light grey leather.
Finally at week 6, I got word from my buddy that the estimate ($7,500+) was done and they were going to fix it. I asked him, that if they were going to need to replace the hood, that I wanted to go with a aftermarket hood. Yep, hood needs replacement, order it quick. Work has begun. With that, I immediately ordered a Trufiber 3" cowl hood from American Muscle. Fast forward to this past Monday, I got word that my car might be ready Friday. Might? I was dying over here. So I asked my buddy if he could snap a few body shop progress pics to ease the waiting pains. Then he sent me a teaser pic of the car getting painted. The pains quickly turned to excitement. Then late this past Thursday evening, I got word that on Friday the 3rd , I could come pick up the car, it would be ready. :rockon:
Of course on Friday, it was raining, so the true visual impact of the results could not be seen due to all the water. But the car looked fantastic. The hood was incredible. And the color match was perfect. I was blown away at the job they had done. No fish eyes, no wavy signs of body work and all of the areas that were severely dented in the roof and body seams were perfect again. Incredible. That Trufiber hood is a work of art. Very well made and functional. Not too much cowl to be obnoxious and not to small. Just right. It really sets off the look I was going for. And one last note, mileage when I picked it up was exactly 29,612 so no joy rides were had. :-D My buddy did me right when he said he would treat it like it was his own. He sure did and those guys did an incredible job. Later that night, I installed two bolt ons that had been collecting dust waiting for the car to come home from the hospital. A JLT plastic CAI kit and an SCT SX3 from American Muscle. HUGE difference those two items made. The car is a completely different stallion now. I am very impressed with my Bama tune. So, to wind this book of a story up, I had started to loose hope that I would never see my poor car again, but it definitely paid to be patient.
So now for the big pay off. Here are a few pics that I snapped earlier today of SHADOW's new look.
In my short time of being on this board, I have learned a lot. My plans for the car are as follows.
Get the car into the high 11's NA on 93 octane without compromising street ability. That is the short term goal. The long term goal will be consistent mid to high 10's on 93 octane with forced induction. Being a turbo guy and having first hand experience with both Hellion and JPC and their kits while at PTE, I am leaning heavily toward turbo, however, I really am digging the Paxton 2200 kit as well. I plan on doing this with 18x10 AMR rear wheels and big drag radials, as I want it to maintain a walk softly but carry a sinister look approach, vs bigs and littles RACECAR look. Don't get me wrong, I love the look of black Weld RT-S wheels on these cars, but they are just not in the cards right now. Remember what Tony Montana taught us.
"First you get de money, den you get de powa." In my case, it will be, first you get the look, then you get the power. :coolman: I think I eventually will install rear springs to bring the back end down a tad. Decisions, decisions. And lastly, I am well versed in the pros and cons of both forced induction methods of madness and it "will" be a tough choice, but I think I have finally chosen my path. I'll keep it a secret for now.
I'm definitely glad to be here and thanks to all of you who post your recipes and real world experiences, I appreciate it.
Sorry this was so long and thanks for reading. I look forward to participating more on this board in the future.
Patrick
