Top Sekret Teknology!

[Sweet6]

I remember the Torquemaster. The guy told me my car would pick up 3-5 tenths for $130. I thought it was a good deal at the time. Luckily I never bought one.

 

[SloGN]

how about the switch that got installed in the grill opening. It had a blade on it that so when you get up to speed it turn the radiator fan off to conserve power on the electrical system.


i beleive it was a kenne bell product for way back in the day


another useless thing that i still see from time to time is the good ole TPS TEC

 

[UNDER-PRESSURE]

I remember the Torquemaster. The guy told me my car would pick up 3-5 tenths for $130. I thought it was a good deal at the time. Luckily I never bought one.

My Torquemaster was worth a solid .2 on any day & considering there was nothing available for these cars i was happy with the gain versus cost. It was certainly a better deal than the open plenum spacers that provided 0 gain for the same money.

 

[lazaris]

His name was Scott Parat.

 

[VadersV6]

I thought of making a modified upper intake manifold lid just like that one..almost the same idea, although mine was just going to be a deflector aimed at maybe 45 degrees, and no split through the center of the TB hole. You were wondering about the material used for that spacer...it is phenolic, but not glass based. Its most likely Garolite LE or Garolite XX. Both are basically layers of resin and cotton which are pressed together at very high temperatures. Ive used it countless times for parts that require thermal isolation. Its not very strong for load bearing uses, but for this purpose, its more than strong enough. But the stock comes from the factory with very poor tolerances, and the thickness varies alot from end to end, so its necessary to surface both mating faces in a mill before using. If you want something that can handle high temps better, and will isolate temperature 10 times better, use Garolite G10 or G11. Its layers of glass weave and resin, also pressed together at high temps. FR4 phenolic is very similar, and is used for circuit boards, but more brittle than G10 or G11.

 

[VadersV6]

Check out the pics of the chrome up pipe. The center part has a water jacket around the pipe that is plumbed to a small pump that circulates water (antifreeze) from the washer fluid reservoir. There was a switch in the ashtray that controlled the pump whenever you wanted to circulate the coolant. The idea was to cool the intake pipe like the racers that throw a bag of ice on the manifold between rounds. The setup was on my car when I bought it and it was called a "Cool Tube". Sold by Kenne Bell back in the day. I can say one thing, the chrome is show quality and puts any of the chrome stuff I see nowadays to shame.

My uncle pitched an idea to duttweiler back in the day (1987 or so), of running liquid nitrogen through an aluminum coil that wraps around the IC piping and is sealed up. Something was supposed to come of it, but it never happened.

 

[Brent]

I knew the cool tube would bring some laughs :biggrin: BTW, no I don't still have it on the car, it's in a box. When I bought my car it was a rolling advertisement for Kenne Bell. The spacer I have is some sort of laminated material, not the typical phenolic or billet. I have never seen another like it until you posted the pic of yours, same looking material. You can see a little more of it in this pic....

seems as how your car was a moving tribute to Kenny Bell it might be this

 

[TURBOPOWERED68]

Because of this stuff that you guys are talking about I now don't buy a single part until I see some body get good results on the street and on the track

 

[toofastforyou]

"Turbo Max"...

I don't know if some of you guys will remember this, but in the first years when the GN's came out, there was a gadget called "Turbo Max" on the market which was probably one of the first "performance accessories" made for GN's. Wanting more performance from my car, I bought and installed one . It was a little black box with one male connector at one end and one female connector at the other end and it plugged between the wastegate solenoid wire and the solenoid itself and was supposed give you more boost by delaying the signal to the wastegate solenoid. Then one day I went to the track and after running my car (which was totally stock at the time) several times down the track with the Turbo Max plugged, I decided to unplug it and make a few more passes to see if there was indeed a performance improvement... Guess what?...Of course, there was absolutely NO difference in the car's performance and I decided to take it off permanently. A few days later, the device was still sitting on my workbench and realizing that I got ripped off, I decided to take it apart, (destroying it at the same time, but I didn't care anymore) to see what was inside that mysterious little black box...Guess what??..there was nothing more that two small resistors (the kind you can buy at Radio Shack), one for each wire coming in the box and going out of it on the other side...
I paid about $100. back then for that!!... now I laugh about this, but i was a little mad at the time though...Well...I guess that "TURBOPOWERED68" is right when he says "DON'T BUY A PART UNTIL YOU KNOW IT WORKS! ...:biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin:
Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of it and I don't remember who made it either...

Claude

 

[RUQWKNF]

I guess that makes us old fogies the genie pigs for bolts ons.

What about the Adjustable fuel pressure regulator that you could run the adjuster knob inside the car that Eastern made? It was a nice metal adjuster knob that was connected to plastic tubing that was filled with a saline liquid. I ran one, it worked for a little while.

Plenum spacers, lock up switches, cold boxes, cool tube, tps tech, NOS Nitrous kits, volt boosters (which I still prefer the electric version vs the hobbs switch verison), special plug wires, ATRs original blue Ram Air box that mounted in front of the radiator and down low. Which upgraded to their custom formed plastic housing that completely enclosed the air filter. It originally had a hose attached to it that would connect to a fiberglass front air dam, but eventually was dropped back to just the filter housing. (I always loved that passengers side fiberglass front air dam, someone really needs to step up and have it made in the same heavy plastic material that the one piece one is made of for us stock location guys. Heck, I know I'd buy one.) Come to find out by removing the filter from the housing completely and leaving the filter element open under the hood greatly helped with spool up. Special MAF pipes that had direction vanes inside to supposedly help with spool up. Then there were the special spark plugs, speaking of which, wasn't there a company called Torque Master that made those special round crescent shaped electrode spark plugs? Supposed to dramatically increase spark and help gas mileage.
Good post Jay. Keep 'em coming guys.

Patrick

 

[turbofabricator]

Remember the stock appearing adjustable fuel pressure regulators??? Well, I still have one all tore apart. It had a US dime (ten cents) in it that the adjustment screw rode on. The dime was placed into a furniture cup. The cup was so thin that the adjustment screw would pop right through it. (it was placed into the internal spring) so to "beef-up" the little cup, they placed a dime in it. So, I know it cost them at least a dime to make.

 

[gnxtc2]

I too had a cold box that encapsulated the stock IC. I bought mine from Conley's and he intergrated a 3/8 copper tube with 2-3 turns inside the box that one could plumb the fuel line through it (basically a cool can).

I also have sitting on the garage shelf a 7th injector kit from Quad Air (Red Armstrong's personal one off his car).

Kenne Bell sold little valves that turned off the coolant flow to the throttle body.

I also have up in my attic some Southside Machine Bars.

Billy T.
gnxtc2@aol.com

 

[UNDER-PRESSURE]

Anybody still running a fender dump pipe?

 

[notacarlo]

I figure with everything listed above a GN would be a solid low 13 car.

 

[turbofabricator]

Here's a few more.
7th and 8th injector set-up that I built. 7th came on at 15psi boost and 8th came on in 3rd and 4th gear at 15+psi. Completly adjustable with injector size and turn on point. Worked good.
ATR wastegate.....Need I say more.
Jay Carter 7th injector system. (works good. It was replaced by Razor's Alky system 6 month ago)

 

[turbofabricator]

Few more:
Turbo elbow dump. Built by D. Robertson
Accel DFI (for sale if anyone is interested)
Knock detector and TPS tech Kirban's I think?
Phenolic spacer-open type.

 

[Brent]

Looks like a good place to show off my Kenne Bell Cool Tube....LOL Hey! I think I got one of those crazy plenum spacers in Jay's pics too. It's bleeding funky red stuff?? And check out that billet top adjustable "stock" FPR.

Here the part in the old catalog. its worth 3 mph. and yes I have one of those converter switches still hooked up in my ashtray. I also still have the KB headers installed VERY VERY nice. Im thinking of having them jet hot coated. along with some other stuff some hokey some not. the converter switch was a big scam. Real impressed with the money spent there. Now adays we have these forums. pretty cool the information here. When I first got a computer there was gnttype.org and the email list

 

[turbofabricator]

And even more:
These pics were TOP SECRET many years ago!! (Not kidding)
These are the "pinned deck" development on 8445 castings, to beef up the intake side of the combustion chamber/deck. This was developed by Dale Robertson. (genious) We did this about 16+ years ago when there weren't injectors that would fuel the engines. (I replaced head gaskets like most people change oil.) We thought it was caused by the VERY thin deck in that area. Now, we just dump fuel to them and the gaskets hold fine. It was alot of work to do right. But it DID help the gasket problems significantly. I would pre-load the deck .002" in that area (which is RIGHT were the fire ring on a stock gasket falls) I did this when I was running stock injectors, stock turbo, stock intercooler and went 11.77@112mph back in 1991. Man, those were the days!!:biggrin: Martyrs we were!!! I can recall long conversations with Conley (he said that 112mph on a stock turbo was IMPOSSIBLE. I DID have a GREAT set of heads on the car, though! ) Jay Carter (about 7th injector and alcohol systems....as a matter of fact one of his alcohol systems was JUST removed last month-It was highly modified, but it ran 10.70's on pump gas.) and a host of other Martyrs (Don Kieger, Phil from ATR, Terry Ryan.....and the list goes on and on.......Wouldn't it be fun to take the technology of today, and run a pump gas car into the low tens with a stock block, back 15 years ago?

 

[Roc87]

Kenne Bell

Man, when I first got the GN and came across the Kenne Bell catalog, one of the first things I wanted to buy was the that "Cool Tube"! Even had BFH (Now Mark Hueffman) make me an ashtray console plate, engraved "Water" Had ordered the converter lock up switch, still using those same spade connectors on the ALDL today! I even had those stupid valves they sold for the throttle body coolant . The worst thing was their "Cold air kit", that fiberglass canister with a K&N in it and flexible hose running down to the airdam. I still have the scoop in the airdam, and was even considering putting a 90 degree elbow on it to help direct air at the BigMouth kit. I'll have to go dig out the old catalogs!

 

[GNVYUS 1]

Wow, this has some cool old stuff. Torque Master box sounds like a guy making some $$ while the internet forums were not available to pump out readily available knowledge.

Turbofabricator, your 7th and 8th injector up pipe is killer, you are one creative dude. I bet there are a bunch of import racers that would be all over that idea.

I got a stock adjustable fuel reg first from Bowling Green Customs instead of the half and half reg I got from them after I returned it. It looked so cheap I had them send the one I initially ordered, now I know why they were passing those off, big $$ there for them.