Talk about hard acts to follow. Launched in 1964, the
original GTO was a can’t-miss proposition - a stripped-down, muscled-up
exemplar of American exceptional ism that out dueled Ferrari in the buff books
and outperformed sales expectations on the dealer lots. As domestic performance
auto mobiles go, it was, to borrow a quote, “a big [blank]-ing deal.
So perhaps it was inevitable that when GM chose to revive
the GTO as a lightly made-over Holden Monaro 40 years later, public response
would fall somewhere on the chilly side of tepid. The problem wasn’t the
hardware—after all, this was a powerful, rear-drive coupe that was both quicker
and vastly more polished than the recently departed V-8 Firebird. Rather, Goat
2.0 was hobbled from the very start by fundamental questions about its identity
and historical fidelity.
What late-model
Pontiac doesn’t look smashing with ROH wheels? Cadena’s features the Aussie
firm’s Drift R rollers, sized 18x8 inches up front and 18x9.5 inches in the
rear.
Fortunately for the committed corps of enthusiasts who own
these vehicles today, some of the very items that earned demerits in the eyes
of muscle-car traditionalists—the corporate LS engine, the independent rear
suspension, the thoroughly refined driving experience—make the new-gen GTO an
exceptional all-around performer. Just ask Jaime Cadena, who served a stint in
one of those authentic muscle machines and became all too familiar with some of
its less praiseworthy qualities.
Faux-carbon trim
bits and a color-keyed shift knob help spiff up the cabin. On the practical
side, Auto Meter Cobalt boost and wide-band air/fuel gauges allow for real-time
monitoring of the engine vitals.
“I drove a ’95 Camaro Z28 for two years,” says the
25-year-old automotive technician. “The car was a burden—always broken and hard
to work on.”
Fortunately for Cadena, serendipity eventually intervened in
the form of a Brazen Orange Metallic ’06 GTO, which had been traded in at the
Corpus Christi (Texas) Ford dealership where he worked. While Cadena had seen
no small number of vehicles come and go during his time there, there was one
aspect of the Pontiac coupe that proved too alluring to ignore. “I just loved
the color … it really stood out.”
With the car slated for the auction block, Cadena quickly
purchased it (“for a steal,” he notes with some pride) and set about augmenting
its already formidable performance. Since the car was a later edition, it came
armed with the 400hp LS2 engine, rather than the 350hp LS1 used in the
first-year models. While even the brawnier LS2 is equipped with cast internals,
these motors have served as the basis of countless forced-induction builds over
the years. With that in mind, Cadena chose a cog-driven Magnuson TVS1900 blower
to serve as the center piece of his power train upgrade.
As the smaller sibling of the TVS2300 unit used on the
’09-’13 Corvette ZR1 supercar, the Twin Vortices Supercharger 1900 is fully
capable of pushing an otherwise stock LS2 car well over the 500-rwhp mark with
only minor supporting upgrades.
Under the hood, a
Magnuson TVS1900 supercharger rams 10 psi of boost down the LS2’s aluminum
gullet. Ruben Mata from Volatile Performance in Corpus Christi, Texas, handled
the tuning.
Cadena decided to aim higher, however, installing a
custom-ground Comp hydraulic-roller camshaft to liberate even more horses from
the 364-cube engine. High-volume pumps for the fuel and oiling systems ( from
Walbro and Melling, respectively), 55-lb/hr injectors, and Brian Tooley
titanium valve springs (rated to a stratospheric 0.660-inchlift) impart an
extra dose of Tesilience—a welcome addition at 10 psi of boost. As critical as
free-flowing exhaust components are to unlocking the potential of a naturally
aspirated engine combo, their importance is only heightened when a heavily
compressed intake charge is added to the mix. The pipes on Cadena’s Goat were
thoroughly upsized from stem to stern, starting with 1.875-inch Kooks long tube
headers and continuing downstream to a Spintech 3-inch system comprised of an
X-style crossover and mandrel-bent tubing.
