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Welcome back to our Stage 2 of our 2006 GT project car known as Project Grabber Boost.
I'm back in the car for the first time since our run at the track, and I've got to be honest
with you, time has not been kind to our car. If we want the car to be a consistent performer,
go round the track and compete with the 14 GT, we've got to do something about that.
Before, we told you we were going to handle that issue, I want to get everybody up to
speed and give you a recap what we've done so far. In stage 1, we outfitted our 06 GT
with a ton of cool styling parts from MMD, and updated our lighting with help from Raxiom.
The biggest impact on styling came courtesy of the 19" silver AMR wheels, wrapped in Mickey
Thompson street comp tires. Performance wise, we made our 3 valve breathe a little easier
with the help of SR Performance's cold air intake, and 62m throttle body, with Magnaflow's
axle back exhaust, and of course we wrapped everything up with a custom tune from the
guys over at Bama performance. On the dyno, we had 292 horsepower and 307 ft/lbs of torque,
and at the track, we knocked our baseline 14.0 down a half second to 13.5. So our 06
GT has been a long time member of the AM fleet, it's been a workhorse for us, it might look
great as it does, but the ride quality shows it's got a 6-7 year old suspension in it that's
been used. So the goal for my team and I, we're going to do a complete suspension overhaul,
with some popular parts on the site, and input from the team. We're going to get back to
AM, and get to work. SR is playing a huge role in our overhaul, giving us 4 different
items each one as important as the next, we've decided to start with SR's adjustable upper
and lower control arms, I think we all agree these are the right parts to start with just
to get rid of some of the sloppiness we're kicking around on the back roads. Andy: I
totally agree Dave, I mean these control arms are really to help control the rear axle,
these are going to help out with the street and strip getting better launches, and better
traction. Dave: Definitely. Steph: Exactly what Andy said, going along with that, these
control arms are really going to help us get a hold of the back, and we're also going to
notice a big difference on the street coming out of the corners, it's going to be a lot
smoother and we're going to stick to the road a little bit better. One of the keys to the
control arm is actually this Whiteline relocation bracket right here, it gives us the correct
angle on our control arms so we can really control the axle.Dave: I got a feeling too
with this whole package together it's just going to feel tighter back here. Steph: Definitely,
much better than the stock setup we had before, every time we hit a bump in the road it's
not going to feel as sloppy, we're not going to have the same messiness in the rear end
it's going to be much more solid. Dave: We just wrapped up one of the last parts from
SR we're putting on, it's the adjustable panhard bar, this guy might be a little tough to see
tucked up here, but it works in conjunction with the rear lower control arm, and it's
funny, most people don't know how or even why you replace it, but it's a vital part.
Steph: Exactly, basically our control arm setup takes care of our up and down and rotational
movement in the axle, the panhard bar here is going to take care of our side to side
movement. So when you're launching on the track or even on the street, what you really
want is to stabilise your rear so it's here, you don't want it to move, you don't want
side to side, you don't want up and down, you want to hook up, so you want it here and
you want to go.Dave: The final piece of the puzzle to tie everything together is our SR
Performance front and rear sway bars, and we just got them bolted on and I'm really
excited about this, it is going to make a huge difference in the handling of this car,
when we eventually get back to those windy back roads. Steph: body roll... no more. Dave:
Exactly. Since this car has been part of the AM fleet for a while, it picked up a set of
Eibach's lowering springs somewhere along the line, we figured why mess with a good
thing, so we stuck with Eibach and put on a set of Pro-damper shocks and struts. Since
we had the wheels off for the suspension anyway we figured now's the time to give project
Grabber Boost a little extra stopping power because in the later stages it's going to
need it. Mike: If you have deep pockets a really fancy big brake kit is great if you
really need it, but if you don't you get the same performance by building your own kit,
and that's exactly what we did here on the project car. Dave: Mike and I are working
right now on the 06, I'm putting the slotted DBA rotors on and the Hawk ceramic pads. Mike:
The slotted rotors and the hawk ceramic pads are definitely going to give us the bite we
need. The ceramic pads are going to bite in but not create too much brake dust, help keep
the wheels cleaner, and the slotted rotors are going to help with cooling, so we won't
get so much brake fade. While we're in there, I also threw in a set of J&M brake lines which
is one of your choices. Dave: We're just about done the brakes and then we're going to go
ahead and throw a Whiteline strut tower brace on just to finish things up. Then we're going
to take it back out on the back roads and see how it performs compared to the beginning
of the stage. We're out on the back roads here just getting a feel for the car, a little
bit of spirited driving, nothing crazy, it's tight and it feels like it's gripping the
road much better, I've got consistent pedal feel in the breaks, I've got almost no body
roll, having a lot to do with the new sway bars we put on. The car was already lowered,
so we had to go with that, but lowering a car and putting on some good shocks and struts,
can change the ride and make it stocklike or better, that's exactly what I'm getting
here, the ride is phenomenal, but it's super tight and super easy in the turns, these new
sway bars you can see here, as I take this hard left hand turn, there's virtually no
body roll, it's fantastic. Well that wraps up stage 2 of project grabber boost, but stick
with us because we're going to ramp this up big time in the next couple of stages and
get this car ready for its showdown with the 14 GT. I'm going to head back to AM and we're
going to get this thing started, stick with us for stage 3 of project Grabber Boost.