It has been a while since I have posted on this thread about the FrankenBenz. The journey since I last posted has been pretty torturous. I'll post more of it when I have some time. As it turns out, the Tuned Port motor that I purchased turned out to be a box of rocks. The guy is STILL on eBay selling junk motors. There are 11 cases against him trying to have him brought up on fraud charges, but the police are absolutely uninterested in prosecuting this guy. The shop I had working on the car ultimately built me a whole new motor, which also didn't work. The main problem was finding somebody that knew how to tune a TPI setup. I actually had the guy from GM that was involved in developing the setup and the computer, and not even he could get the motor to run properly. Ultimately I decided to forego the TPI motor and put an LS3 brand new motor into it with a hot cam and some headers. It is rated at 535 h.p. I'll post some photos when I get the time as well as some of the trials and tribulations of getting it all done. The brake system also had to be completely replaced as did the ignition system. I had tried to use Digital Gard Dawg push button ignitions. I went through FIVE of them, before giving up on them and opting for a starter button. The "ignition" switch is my VIPER system. So I turn off the alarm, press a single on/off button to energize the starter and then press a lighted start button. 100% reliable. I have an independent on/off switch for the accessories.
I just got back from the tuning shop yesterday where I had the car dyno tuned as well as road tuned. With a TKO 5 speed transmission, this car made 422 HP to the wheels with 424 ft. lbs of torque. It is a monster. The weight to power ratio on this thing would easily make it a low 10 second car if you can keep it on the road. Not that I have any plans to track it or race it at all. But it is still very impressive.
