mudbone64

Saturday I went to the chassis dyno with one of my hot-rod buddies to test his '67 GTO. Pretty sharp huh? This car is armed with a 462 c.u.i. pontiac with Kauffman racing heads, hydraulic roller and other pricey engine inerds.

Well to cut to the chase my friend was expecting about 450 rear wheel horsepower and he was to say the least let down when the first pull (of about 15) revealed approximately 390 r.w.h.p. What a bummer, a paultry 390 r.w.h.p. So he began to re-jet the carb as the dyno revealed a rich condition and he also began advancing the timing somewhat. At the end of the nearly 3 hour long chassis dyno session the final number was a little over 450 r.w.h.p. and over 400 ft-lbs. of torque. Not too shabby, eh?

This car has already been in the 12.50s and my friend is hoping to get a high eleven second pass.

After wathcing this car go pull after pull up to 6,000 r.p.m.s I can tell you it's very exciting but I wouldn't recommend it if your not secure with your engine and if you don't have a good cardiologist.

Later in the day my friend finally allowed me to drive his car, and let me tell ya, it's a loaded gun! Very docile until you drop the hammer and the five speed Tremec makes the car a pleasure to go cruising down the interstate (18 mpg).

Just thought I'd share a good story!

Gene

Kensmith

Nice car, always like the goats!

kenmo

Awesome GTO....

Tampa Jerry

You got to love those A Bodies. I had a 65 GTO and I miss it. Jerry

MICK3

Nice!

bigearl56

Gene, Thanks for posting, always liked GTO's better than Chevelle's. A cut above IMO. Tried to buy a new '64 but at that time all the budget would allow was a '55 Chevy!. O well maybe someday?

Earl

CaveCreekChump

Here is my beloved GTO, which I drove from Illinois to its new home in Arizona last fall.




Its only a 400 with a TH-400 (the spousal unit's request) and no hot rod inerds, but one thing sort of confuses me.

The GTO gets tons more attention than the '65 roadster wherever it goes. There were a lot more GTOs built than Corvettes in those years, so I just don't get it.

Gimme1MoreC1

Great ride, gotta love 462 C.I., no replacement for lots of displacement. Funny thing about the GTO, mention it to anyone over 40, and you will get a story that starts out....I once knew a guy that had a GTO, and......

goldengoat2

Heres mine, 65 tripower conv. tiger gold ( For sale)

C2Driver

Three cool GTO's!!! The 66's and 67's were always my favorite years.

Sean Dunshee

The GTO gets tons more attention than the '65 roadster wherever it goes. There were a lot more GTOs built than Corvettes in those years, so I just don't get it.


I notice the same thing..maybe its AZ people. There is a show every Saturday night over at 83rd Ave and South of Deer Valley and if I bring my 65 coupe...ya it draws some attention....I bring my 66 Nova SS and I can't leave the place there are so many people around it. I also have a 1960 Cadillac Coupe De Ville (not restored, but a decent looking original)...same thing. They BOTH get more attention than my 65 which is a gorgeous car. I think a lot of the people think that Corvette people are snobby...not sure if thats it or not. Or maybe more people relate to themselves or friends having these other cars when they were younger.

Tom/99

Very nice!

RoadKing96

Now that's a nicea Goat.

My very first car was a brand new '69 GTO. I learned a lot of things in that car.....

Thanks for posting it and tell your friend to keep those front wheels on the ground next run at the drags.

mudbone64

Well, for some reason my forum connection was so slow yesterday that I couldn't even post in my own thread. All seems to be okay now.

My friends motto is "if there's something attached to my car that doesn't make it go faster then I don't want it on there". He may violate his own motto as he is considering vintage air because he likes to drive his car so much. A quick trip from Somerset Kentucky to Pigeon Forge Tennessee is nothing for this guy and it wouldn't bother me to get in his car today and take off to Florida. His car performs rock solid in the performance department and the reliability department as well.

I suppose one of the things that makes this car so cool is the fact that it's mostly all Pontiac (except for the connecting rods). This guy is definately an adrenaline junky, so he could've just put a big block Chevy in the car but chose to stay with the Poncho based engine. I can't over state how streetable this car is and there's nothing like a bigger cube engine to give you that kick in the rear differential.

Alex (my firends name) and I are something of a contradiction. He's all about horsepower and speed where I am more of a matching numbers type guy. I love the matching numbers game but he's got me thinking about an "LS" engine and five speed tranny for my '64 project. The "driveability" that modern engine and drivetrain components offers gets harder to resist every time I ride in his car. My '72 big block coupe tachs at about 2,400 r.p.ms. at 60 m.p.h. and his car tachs at about 1,800 r.p.m.s at 70 m.p.h. Hard to resist indeed.

Thanks to all for the complements and I'll be e-mailing Alex a link to this thread to show him the appreciation as well.

P.S.

CaveCreekChump & goldengoat2, them sure are some purdy Ponchos. They kinda make me want an A body.

Have a good weekend
Gene

Pop Chevy

Just goes to show ya what the value of some good dyno time is !! That was a huge improvement over a garage tune. When I was drag racing my Harley, I spent a lot of time on the dyno. And I beat a LOT of much bigger bikes w my little 87 incher ! The tune is critical if ya wanna go fast !
Pops

Frankie the Fink

I passed up on a white '67 all original GTO hardtop with his/her shifter about 10 years ago. It sat on the side of Rt 5. in Frederick, Md. with a For Sale sign for a month with no takers. Only had 67,000 miles and the guy wanted $12,500. I stopped and looked it over twice and still grit my teeth because I didn't move on it back then. I mean this car was like factory new -- oh well.

sub006

As they aged, GTOs became just another used car that high schoolers would buy, thrash, crash and junk.

C2 Corvettes, like '55-'57 T-Birds, were recognized as classics within five years after production stopped, prices started going up and many first or second owners decided to hang on to them. This kept them out of the hands of the street racers.

Out of production of around 50,000 per year, there are so few GTOs surviving that there's a busy market in converting Le Mans coupes and convertibles into GTO clones. Corvette survival rate is around 50%, so there may be as many 'Vettes from '63-'67 as GTOs from '64 through '67.

Harps

Yeah, what Dave said.... I think.

Jack60

I go to a few shows and you don't see alot of GTO's, just like my 60 gets more looks then a C2.

65air_coupe

My second favorite car! Cool story, thanks for sharing.