After tons of anticipation, the SICC (Sportsman Import Compact Championship) debut was soiled by bad weather on July 10th, 2010. Rain kept the lights off and the gates closed for the kickoff to the series, creating tons of speculation. It was a blow to Nyce1s, but weather can happen. The track officials and owner stood by their decision that while the rain stopped, the lightning and puddles, along with other elements still created a challenge. The track owner did not want to damage any of the equipment or make an unsafe environment by using the lights with the way their electrical system was built. Knowing the Carolinas from living here, or any track around, they are probably just some lights up on poles!  But mother nature had a say in it, with the lightning still present. The owner did not want to put his workers and paid help in the conditions of heavy thunder and lightning, and I do not blame him.

I feel for Nyce1s in this, because in the end, it will come back on them and not the track. Weather issues can happen. There was a rain date planned if it rained, and the event can still take place. With the promotion, it will most certainly be a bigger and better.

When we first arriaved to the track about 1pm, there were cars already sitting at the gate waiting for the 3pm opening time. From then on out, it was a hope game to “hope” that the rain didnt stick us too bad! It was such a nasty hit though, as the rain and wind made for sheets of soaking weather and forced vendors who were already inside to start backing up. There was some food, and 1 vendor with a tent set up, but by the time they got it down it looked like the tent possibly was mangled. We went to the front gate after talking to Craig some, and we waited for a second before telling the 30-40 cars that the event was going to have to be called and gave out free passes to the next event.

More cars showed up, and we turned away more cars. After a few, the rain stopped, and we had a number of cars waiting, so I went out and snapped some shots of some of the crowd that was there throughout the rain.

Overall, I am glad I made the trip. Yes, I lost money in the trip, but what I gained along with a few other people was a chance to see exactly how things can goto hell in 1 second. Yes, bad situation, but I will continue to support Nyce1s and the SICC racing series. And for those who are still wanting an event in North Carolina, round 2 will be held back here at the same track again on Saturday, September 11th, 2010. I hope to see you all there, as Greasyblocks will be in the house.

Word…

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Street Mechanic

I will just call him Jeff, because for those of you who do know him and do business with him, he and you are on a first name basis. When he calls, there is no hello, no hi, or any soft greetings of that nature. Instead, you get the bullshitting tones you hear when you 1st walk into the garage at your local shop, or most of the automotive dealership’s tech bays around the US. This dude gives it up straight. I have no worries that you guys will come to enjoy the stories of him and his time around Greasy Blocks, along with his EK. I hope this thing does well during the season, because he put enough time into it on his kitchen table. Dude seriously needs his own shop, but ill let you guys be the judge of that!

The following posts on Jeff and his buildup of his k24 Ek are straight from his hip, and by that I mean straight from his blackberry. Forget the pics that everyone thinks you should see, these fully edited shots, Jeff is straight up raw from every angle, and you will come to see that when you see pics of Jeff taking blocks out on the ground in snow!

Anyways,  I wont babble much about Jeff and his shit, but you guys will see more of it starting in the next week.

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Digglers 88 GTA goes 9.44@139mph… on a stock LT1 shortblock with a 17 year old nitrous kit!

Every Friday night I usually meet up with some other local domestic guys who are big GM guys and as usual we were talking about how can we squeeze some more power out of a car or how can we make it work better at the track. Well we come up to talking about my buddy Digglers Turd-Gen GTA and how he did this past Thursday at our local 1/8th mile track. The topic was  on how the car was doing fairly well and that they had managed to keep the front end from jumping way up in the air as the car had previously done. Next thing I know we’re talking about taking the car to Darlington to run it in the 1/4 mile and how I need to come get some shots of it. So we figure out a time for me and Russ Ethridge, who himself holds the Bolt-on 6-speed LS1 GTO record and held the bolt-on LT1 record for a number of years in Shon Herron’s car, to show up at Digglers house so we can get the car loaded up and head out.

Most people wouldn’t think too much about a 88 Pontiac Trans-Am GTA at the track but this GTA is one that will surprise you. It’s not your typical “Turd-Gen” F-body.  The first thing you realize is that its got a weird intake on it and that its got a crank trigger. “SoulGlo” is powered by an LT1 which came from the 4th Generation Camaro and Trans-Ams and C4 Vettes. Even more surprising is its no longer plagued by its notorious Optispark nor an OEM ECU. This LT1 has a Single-Plane intake and 4bbl throttle body atop of it and a Megasquirt EMS, that Diggler built himself, along with a single plate kit.

With this fairly “mild” setup most people don’t expect much, but we proved those in attendance at Darlington International Raceway wrong. After warming the car up and doing a quick check of the car Diggler pulled the car into the staging lanes. Nothing had changed since the car was at Greer on Thursday night. We were expecting the car to pull the front tires maybe 6-8″ and carry the car out and set back down smooth as usual. The track decided we were wrong. I’ll let the photos do the talking.

Yes, that is the HOOD of the car you see from behind, Diggler tried to pedal it and keep the car from slamming down but some times you just cant react fast enough. The car slammed down and put a slight dent in one of the header primaries and knocked the car out of alignment and I’m sure emptied Digglers bowels. All three of us were not all that happy with what just happened and we were just hoping that our day didn’t end as soon as it started.

After some looking around we decided to try to eyeball the drivers side suspension back into spec. Out comes the tape measure and some desperation to fix the alignment and a wrench to shorten up the travel limiters in hopes that we can keep the front end down this time.  We all agree that the car needs to run again and hope that it doesn’t blow up on the top end, considering the 200 shot on a stock shortblock.

You might not believe this but with our parking lot alignment quick limiter adjustment and some KILLER air, the DA was 97 feet, Diggler managed to bust off a 9.65@137mph which took the fastest stock shortblock LT1 record but as with anyone who races we knew there was more in it as we had brought an .082 jet with us for the plate as a “this is going to get us the record or blow it up” last grasp… we’re hitting it with 210hp now once fully progressed… Here is where we screwed up tho, we started fiddling with the FJO trying to keep it at the same ~175hp hit that we had on the previous pills and during this they announce that the track will only be running for another 15 minutes or so and we get in a hurry. Next thing we know we’ve stupidly added a 3 tenths of a second delay before the progressed hit even began. Even with that screw up the car lazily went down the track to a 9.44@139mph… on a stock LT1 shortblock with a 17 year old nitrous kit!

-Cone

Specs:

• 1988 Pontiac Trans-Am GTA
• Stock LT1 shortblock
• Off the shelf 236/248 Comp cam
• TH400 Transmission
• Nitrous Converter
• 9″ rear-end
• 28×10.5×15 Hoosier slicks
• 17 year old nitrous kit
• Megasquirt EMS

Check out more of Digglers car here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/roadconetuning/sets/72157622854489572/

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Yo I got a call last night saying that Stage 2 was still prepping for the Shootout, but I didnt expect what I saw when I signed on and got the email. 352 at a little over 8500rpm! Props to Albert and the guys over at Stage 2 in their efforts to make this years shootout exciting. I really need to get in touch wtih those guys on some questions! Keep it locked for more info as it comes.
Shot out to Nyce1s.com as well. I bet my phone will be ringing shortly for one of those late night tuning calls!

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Julian hit me up with a new video he put out today. Shot outs to Albert and the guys at Stage 2 for possibly being ready to ride for the event!

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Yesterday, after getting a number of emails and texts about my post about the All Motor Shootout, I was sitting here on Youtube just looking at the responses from some of the videos that I posted hyping up the Shootout and also the Outlaw race. The urge came to get contact a few who are racing in the event and to ask them a few questions.

The 1st person I decided to contact was Jerry Guzman aka the Infamous “JerryBuilt”  to ask him a few questions and clear up some of these posts that I am seeing on several forums. I sent an email out over Youtube to Daniel Alaniz to possibly get in touch with Jerry, so that Greasyblocks could set peoples minds right, instead of just talk smack. Within 30 minutes I already had an email back and a phone number.

…Here is the video I was watching BTW. This will show you guys more about who Jerry is, and what JerryBuilt is about:

…Big ups to Daniel Alaniz for all of your help, the hookup on the phone numbers, and the video!!

Last night, I sat down and had the conversation with Jerry over the phone instead of through email. Some things are just meant to be talked about directly, and this was the best way in the situation. Here are the questions straight up that I asked Jerry, along with his responses.

GB: What made you turn the yard into a “shop”

Jerry:  Back when I got my 1st car in 93-94, I worked at Atomic Performance with Dr. Charles.  I was fucking around with cars, building engines, and learning more and more along the way. After Atomic, I worked over at Import Builders for a bit til I just got tired of working for everyone else. I said fuck it, I know what I’m doing, why don’t I do this for myself. So that’s why the backyard is the shop now. I do everything from home. I work on everything too, me and my brother. We do it all.

GB: How long have you been laying it down? (drag racing cars)

Jerry:  Back when I got that Accord in 93-94, I was out right then. Since then I have been doing it. It will never stop either, I will always be a drag racer. In 2003, I got the hatchback and ran with a built B-Series until I got the K-Series in 2005. I had many problems with it at 1st with hardly any help. The trannies were trash, but the dogbox quickly fixed that problem. Then it was on to the tentioners and those were a little more work, but after I figured that out it was on to the electronic issues and we started getting better runs in.

GB: Do you feel drag racing will make a come back to the feeling it had years ago, now that the cars are much faster?

Jerry: Its always been the same for us. Since like the mid 90s we have been running on the track and on the street. But when fast and furious came out, it kinda killed it. See, so many people that saw it on the screen came out and blew up the spot. Before that movie, cops could stop us and really didn’t know what they were looking at. We didn’t have to worry as much. At the races, we could stay at a spot for hours and not have to worry about getting busted. But, after that movie came out, we had to cut back. So many people were coming out, being idiots, and now everyone with a body kit thought they were a racer. It really hurt street racing as a whole. It will never get as big as it was, but possibly we might see more people coming back who will actually race, now that the K-Series is easier to build.

GB:  On record, since there seems to be talk on forums from the east, DID SKUNK2 give you that motor?

Jerry:  NO they didn’t give me that motor. But they did let me borrow, not give me, the throttle body setup on the car. They also supplied me with some Skunk2 cams and a good bit of dyno time. Charles stayed on the dyno countless hours helping over the last week or 2. Oscar Jackson helped us out big time with an alignment too. And who wouldn’t want Oscar working on their car? The man has history. Dr. Charles too, being one of the fathers of import drag racing. I was happy to have their help.

GB:  What was the initial thought that made you and the fellas come together and say “lets make this trip to the east coast”

Jerry: Tim Grey aka TGR! (this response was hella quick, too!) Tim Came to Cali and won one event and claimed to be the King of Cali. To be the king, you have to do a sweep. I won 3 times back to back at Irwindale. I have been to tracks all over Cali. That would be like me going to this event and winning then claiming I am the king of the east coast. Its not possible. You gotta sweep. I also have never been out of Cali, travel or anything, so its going to be a new experience for me, a big experience at that.

GB: Do you want to see any other events like this? (east coasters on the west coast perhaps?!)

Jerry: Do I? How about every month man! I love this shit, and like I have said over and over this is what we do. It will never die for us. If the events are closer (mid states perhaps) more Cali guys and more racers can possibly attend. I think that this should go down next year, it would really help the sport.

Jerry and I spoke a little bit more after the questions and here are few things that he let me in on that i would like to share:

Jerry on;
-the trip funding: We didn’t have the money to just bounce to the north east like that. We collected money from whomever wanted to see the car run out there. We hit up a bunch of shops, the homeboys chipped in, everyone helped. Some shops and people gave me a few hundred here and there, but there was no big money given out.  I worked on the car places to get it done in time, it was a big effort and I thank everyone for the help. Thanks to all who helped BTW.
-what he wants to do at the race: I don’t know anyone out there. I am excited to meet people. I want to compete, but like everyone, my main goal for this trip, going there racing, and anything of the type is to win. Whenever people come out to the west we try to show them a home away from home and help where it is needed. I hope we see the same. (I am a witness to this help and respect given when out in Cali from the east coast at events.)

That interview with Jerry helped me out get to know one of the biggest names in street racing on the video sites. There are so many memorable videos to watch.  DJM productions, Daniel Alaniz and his Street Dreams video, Sonics channel, zendejs all of these guys are strong with video content from the Cali spots. Tune in!

Big ups to you Jerry and crew. I know that I said im pulling for the east coast while we were on the phone but I swear, if you win, I will plaster that news and some major props all over Greasyblocks for you! Make it a good event man!

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It’s Fall Nationals time, and just in case you didn’t know it’s a pretty big race going down in Jersey this weekend (Oct. 3-4) and there looks to be drama in the All Motor Shootout!

I am seeing a lot of talk about the big race in Jersey this weekend. My man Julian from Nyce1s.com (you will all get to know nyce1s around these areas really well BTW!) has hit me up all weekend about this, and we have been anticipating it more than guys looking for a peep show from Meagan Fox! We have both come to the conclusion that it will be one of the best races in the last few years. The talk as went to the tube and turned into basically a video call-out march with some of the most known names being dead in the middle of the stirring pot!

$5,o0o All Motor Shootout!

This is where the most talk has come from. The east coast guys were calling guys from the threads on numerous forums to get out here. While it looked like none would show, yet there was still talk in the threads, JerryBuilt and Skunk2 made the walk to finish up on Jerry’s race car and get out here. Big ups for even doing it instead of talking a bunch of trash in the threads like some we don’t need to name.

I saw a lot of talk about how Skunk2 gave Jerry a motor. I have picture proof that Jerry had his own monster motor in that car for quite some time. Its kinda sad some of the talk I saw from some people on there, but even worse from some Skunk2 supporters.

Picture Proofs!

Also, there is some Tri-State battles boiling to a head!

This Race should be an Interesting tale for sure! I am heavily affiliated with Skunk2 but I am an east coaster and my money is on NYC! I Want to see the east coast take this, and since Greasyblocks is an east coast oriented publication, you guys our pull. But I will tell you guys that when Jerry comes to a race, it is all or noting. I sure know you North eastern boys have some strong stuff! The JerryBuilt logo is not for just looks like much of the west coast stuff talked about, there is power behind every JerryBuilt logo.

More to come about the Fall Nationals this week…

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The late 60’s Camaro rivals the iconic presence of any muscle car on the planet if you ask me. The body lines are some of the best ever created. Add a 388-stroker and you have yourself a red light terror machine, option tag of “get in my car girl” is available!

What can you say about a spotless 1968 Camaro on the street? The 1st thing I always say is that its good to see a piece of history on the street. But whats even better is to see the “resto-mods” which the industry labels these oldies when they have anything late model on the car. Wheels, or anything. I know them as Hot Rods, and the older they get, the more they mean to us all!

When I first found out Jake had this car, it was a goal of mine to shoot it. I never go around to it, and the car itself got better and better over time. When the Weld wheels were added, it was a for sure thing! Jake has had the car since 2007, but the mods have been flowing from day one. It had a stock 350 in the bay when he got it, but soon after was replaced with this Dyer Racing Engines built 388-Stroker that you will see in the mods list! This beast can get out of dodge!

I have already mentioned that here on Greasy Blocks we are nuts over drag racing! See, down here in the southern states we have a few things that make this very clear; a ton of drag strips, very loose emission standards, more domestics being used than anywhere else in the united states, home of NASCAR (meaning tons of machine and chassis work) and possibly some of the best weather for year-round driving in the states.

When it all comes down to it, I may just be obsessed with the year and make of what Jake’s car is, or it could be one more factor. Since the motor is a low compression motor, it can be driven anywhere! I mean, long distance, jagged and beat up roads, on the crappiest of pump gas out there. We all know those bum-ass filling stations here and there that get crap gas. Sometimes you need those, no matter what you are behind the wheel of.

I could blab you on and on with some feature, but Jake’s Camaro does more in pictures than I could do. Plus, that’s one of the goals of Greasy Blocks, not to just blab you on! With a car that passes the 8th mile traps in 7.4sec at over 94mph, there is no blab needed! More coming on this car in a few weeks.

• 1968 Chevrolet Camaro SS
• 388ci stroker 4 bolt built by “dyer race engines”
• Eagle 4340 Forged Crank and
• Eagle Connecting Rods
• Mahle Forged Pistons
• Hellfire Nitrous Rings
• Dart PRO 1 Platinum Aluminum Heads (ported)
• Edlebrock Victor jr Intake (ported)
• 1.6 Roller Rockers
• Heavy Duty Dual Valve Springs
• Solid Roller custom Erson cam
• Holley HP 750cfm Double Pumper Carb
• MSD digital 6, PRO Billet Distributor
• MSD Plug Wires
• MSD coil
• Weiand Aluminum Water Pump
• Autometer Gauges w/custom console cluster
• March Aluminum Performance Pullys
• TCI T350
• Yank SS3600 Converter
• 12 bolt rear with 373 gear
• Greg Weld wheels w/Mickey Thompson 275 ET streets rears, sportsman fronts

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