More pilfering of junkyard vehicles followed when Brian added a '95 GT electric fan with a fuel pump relay from an '89 F-150 to activate the fan. He installed a 130-amp alternator to handle the extra load the fan would place on the charging system. As a result, the electric fan knocked off a tenth and the car gained a mph in the quarter. With the car running 13.10s, Brian wanted 12s real bad, but he drove what he called the "Cookie-Cutter Special" with this setup for a while. "I called it that since everyone had heads, a Cobra intake, 24-lb/hr injectors, a 65mm throttle body, etc."
Brian eventually added a set of Cobra R wheels and gathered enough money to add Cobra brakes, including a '93 Cobra master cylinder and brake booster. "I did some other things like add Tokico adjustable shocks and struts, a QA1 tubular K-member, an oil and power steering cooler, and coilovers," he says. He was having a blast with the car, but he still couldn't bust out a 12-second pass. The closest was a 13.008 at 106 mph. "Of course, all my racing buddies wanted me to put slicks on it, pull the sway bar-all the usual drag racing tricks. But I always wanted to see what the car would do the way it ran on the street."
Brian's quest for speed hit high gear when he purchased a used Vortech B-Trim, to which he added 42-lb/hr injectors, a Kenne-Bell Boost-a-Pump, a 255-lph in-tank pump, an Edelbrock intake, and a 70mm throttle body. "To tune the car I bought an EEC Tuner," Brian says. "I put it all together and-boy-did that wake up the car." On his first pass with the new setup, he skipped right past the 12s and into the 11s with an 11.77 at 124 mph. "It scared the hell out of me," Brian says. "When I was coming up on the finish line, I didn't know whether to shift into Fifth or not. I remember thinking When is the win light going to come on so I can let off the gas?"
The following spring, Brian continued with a string of 11-second passes at 120 mph, which got the attention of track officials who told him either the car needed a rollbar or he needed to slow down. "This was a big decision," he says. "Rollbars are for race cars. I always said I had a street car that I ran at the track for fun." After talking it over with a lot of people-including his wife, Sande-Brian decided to take the rollbar plunge and have Rhodes Custom Auto Works weld in an eight-point rollcage with swing-out door bars to keep the car street-friendly, along with adding a Baer bumpsteer kit.
Once back at home, Brian added a blowproof bellhousing and a five-point harness. That fall, he made a trip up to LaRocca's Performance for a dyno tune. Even with the B-Trim still on the car, it made 480 hp and 463 lb-ft of torque. "I was pleased," Brian says. "Of course, after all this good fortune, something bad was bound to happen." It did. On a Friday-afternoon street blast down his tuning road, Brian's T5Z gave up Third gear. "Half the teeth were stripped off both the main shaft and Third gear." Brian replaced the T5Z with a TTC-Tremec 3550 and shortly thereafter installed a used Vortech S-Trim.
With the newfound power came a learning curve to find the right tune-up. "With the S-Trim, people could just look at the car funny and it would blow a head gasket," Brian says. The trials continued in the fall of 2002 when Brian burnt up his clutch at the Fall Superstallions race at Cecil County Raceway. "Since I always wanted to try an aluminum flywheel, I figured this would be a good time to do it." He installed a Fidanza aluminum flywheel along with an FRPP King Cobra clutch.