Craig Anderson's 1966 GTO
This fall I called in and Jim Butler answered the phone. I talked to him for some time, maybe half and hour or more, and found him to be a fine gentleman. We talked about my project and he made some suggestions on what to use. This did not feel in any way like a sales call! I wanted to use a new stroker rotateing kit in a 400 Pontiac block. He suggested going with the 4.5 stroke crank because it would drop right in without clearance issues. He also suggested a custom grind Comp Cams hydro roller cam which was larger than anything in the CC catalog. I gave him my Edelbrock head CC specs and told him I wanted a 10.5 to 1 pump gas friendly engine. I placed the order for a Victor intake, the rotating assembly, the cam, lifters and rockers. I let Butler Performance work out the details. Jim told me I could expect about 600 ponies, and honestly, I took that with several grains of salt. I was adding 54 cubic inches, a little compression bump and a larger cam in this short block project, and I expected an honest 1.1 HP per cubic inch for the increase. My machinist, Tom at Northern Cylinder Heads in Andover, MN and I expected a realistic 535 HP on the dyno.
We carted the new engine over to Wheeler Dyno Service in Anoka County Mn this morning and broke her in. This is the same Wheeler Dyno that gets written up in Pontiac Mag from time to time. The first run at 34 Degrees timing and lean jetting we got 579 HP and around 600 ft lbs of torque. I thought it can't get any better than this. Moving up to 37 degrees and up several jet sizes, we ended the session at 590 HP and 610 Ft Lbs. It was running 550 Lbs torque at 3000 rpm, for gods sake and it still had 535 Ft Lbs when it reached the end of its run at 5800 RPM. The HP stayed flat at 587 to 590 from 5400 to 5800 RPM's. The worked over Speed Demon 750 with an estimated actual flow of 850 was played out, driving the vacuum to -1.1, so we could have kept searching for more with a larger carb, but this is the way it's going into the car. This was done on Clear 91 octain pump gas which I brought along in a 5 gallon can.
Our old short block was a stock rod and piston 428 with the same E heads. It pushed our 66 Goat to 12.6's at around 108 to110. We clearly picked up more than 100 HP with this new build, and this could/should mean we will be in the 11's in 2010. We will be delighted with this, as this is our street legal driver with no cage. It is my wifes car and she is the driver at the track. I believe it will make her the quickest woman at any Brainerd International street legal or muscle car event where mufflers and DOT tires are required.
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