History

Somehow I knew what a Syclone was. However I couldn't recall the first time I heard about them. I have seen a Typhoon in a 93' German "Auto Catalog" for sure -they came through to Germany as some other GM cars-, and shake my head in disbelieve. 5.X to 100Km/h. It can't be...

* Well, I always wanted something really fast beside my daily driver, but I didn't have any specific in mind till a Syclone parking at an auto trader hit my eyes early 2001. I was driving on a major road in heavy traffic some 200 meters from the truck, but it was a true love at first sight. I checked the truck a few days later. She seemed to have a quite fresh paint, the body and the interior was clean beside a not too bad fresh hit in the back. It had gray cladding without a single stripe around. * You must realize that American cars have no value in Hungary, so the price was really low compared to American prices. Try to get this truck with 55k miles for ~6k there... Anyway, since it was in my range, a few days later we started her up and went to a test drive. Since then I've already find the home page of ISTA and some other sites I couldn't wait to fire her up. It idled quite rough, and the performance was disappointing. It was fast compared to my daily driver (1.6L Ford), but not that fast. It made me thinking nearly two weeks before a I came to my final decision. On a Friday morning 23rd of March, 2001 the deal was made. I drove her home. * The first trip next week took her to the body shop to fix the back. I kept the gray skirt, and the stealth mode, I like it that way. One week later I happened to fly to SoCal, so I could collect some stuff for the truck. I got my Datamaster cable from Andrew (shipped to my hotel, great guy), my documentation from Helm (it's not available any more AFAIK) and some stuff from KB (visited them, they were nice, didn't have a clue about them; I've now). * When I came back first thing was to attach my notebook and go to a test drive with one of my buddy. Well. It was really disappointing. According to DM's built in quoter mile calculator the best 1/8th mile run was around 11. 0-60mph around 8.5. Knocking like hell. That was the point where my mission really started. You can follow the rest of the story under my Performance section and on the rest of the site. * In the meantime I managed to get the history of my beauty a bit detailed. She came through the ocean at the beginning of `94 and I'm the fifth (!) owner in Hungary. According to Carfax she was last seen 08/20/1993 in Orlando, Florida with ~17k miles on the odometer. I've the name of the previous owners here in Hungary, but I've only contacted one of them (the previous one). Maybe someday some of them will contact me. They might tell me some useful information, but hopefully nothing critical. Anyway three of them only owned the truck less than a year. I always wondering on people. They don't even know what kind of car/truck they drive... * Before I move onto my Plans section I'm trying to baseline the modifications of my truck as it's sits now. All of the below mods are described under the appropriate sections. I don't list my non performance related mods here.

• Stock short block, stock turbo, stock tranny and TC, stock rearend
• L35 heads, slightly ported, Comp Camps roller rockers and valve springs, Cran chromemoly pushrods
• Slightly matched lower and upper intakes
• Innovative external WG, Mike Lee's custom 3"downpipe
• PT52 turbo
• Turbonetics pressure regulator to control boost
• Headers, turbine housing, WG housing coated with Black Satin
• 3" custom SS exhaust, with 3" Catco cat and no muffler
• CVS mini starter
• wrapped downpipe
• Stewart Stage 2 alu water pump with 160F thermostat
• Mechanical fan deleted, electric fan from a 95' Ford Taurus 3.8L
• Jabsco (Mercedes) intercooler pump, rerouted IC hoses, aluminium air baffle
• Custom intake, plastic crossover pipe deleted
• TurboSmart BOV
• Ported IC intake
• Replaced turbo to IC hose
• BBK twin 58 mm throttle body
• Shorted IC pump relay, IC pump runs all the time
• Walbro HP fuel pump, KB AFPR
• Racetronix fuel pump hot wire kit
• Conrad cap and rotor
• MSD dual port coil
• MSD Spark Plus Wires, NGK UR6 plugs gapped to 0.032"
• MSD 6A ignition box
• K&N cone filter at the end of the crossover tube
• modified Ultimate 50's v3 chip
• Ultimate II, gauge style, with knock led
• 50 lb/hr injectors
• pressure regulator type boost control
• Aquamist 1s W/A injection, two jets
• Koni shocks
• BFG 245/45 16R rubber (ye, I know, it's small...)
• Brandon's HD front propshaft
• Rear aluminum drums
• 7/8" rear brake cylinders
• Hayden tranny cooler
• Rebuilt transmission, instructed by George Blake, complete list of componenets can be found at my Tranny page.
• PowerMaster 140Amp alternator, Optima RedTop 1050 battery moved into the cab
• Couple of Auto Meter gauges: FP, Boost/Vac, Tranny oil temp, Oil temp, EGT
• oz-diy WB O2 with prepared output for an Auto Meter air/fuel gauge
• deleted cruise control and vacuum ball
• deleted EGR
• deleted heater core
• deleted A/C
• deleted ABS

If I have to I'd specify four different "era" of our shared life with the Sy so far. The first era was from the purchase of the truck till the end of 2002. Over the winter in 2002 the truck received some major bolt-ons, like the L35 heads, PT52 turbo, larger injectors etc. This is the second era. The third era started early 2004 when the truck got his rebuilt transmission and was a very short one. The fourth and current era started at the 3rd of April 2004, when the Sy's stock engine went ballistic and I've started some major work on the Sy. *

Plans

Hopefully the points here will slowly move to the history section. On the other hand the dates here are not carved into stone, so they might change.

• Currently I'm installing Jeff's front suspension kit. Should be finished in a couple of days
• I'm waiting for Ryan to ship out my new Baer front brake kit. As it arrives it will be installed
• The new engine rebild also will start in a couple of days. Stock blcok with four bolts mains, eagle rods, SRP pistons, Comp Cams valve train, Vortecs, stock modified intake. I still have to modify the heads to accomodate the stock modified intake. The intake modification was done by Jeff. All the components are here and all the machine work was done on the block
• I'll upgrade my IC together with my engine rebuild. My new ATR upper is here and I've modified a Skoda radiator to use as front mount heat exchanger.
• Everything is here to do my fuel cell conversion project too. I still have not decided wheter I'll do this parallel with the engine rebuild or not. I've to modify the cell to give it a sump. The Aeromotive A1000 pump, filter, and AN -8 lines and fittings are here.
• Custom CO2 spraying kit, to freez the IC heat exchanger. Could happen this year.
• Engine tie down; played with it, but couldn't get satisfactory results. I've not dropped this project yet.
• I'm thinking on a aluminum front clip. I might try to construct one next winter...
• Beside the above topic, weigth saving is bothering me for some time now. Couple of ideas here, we will see what time will bring.
• Once I've finished the year with the new engine and with all the above upgrade has been done, I'm planning to step up to use a bigger turbo. This will require bigger injectors and the new software as well.

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