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Old 09-29-2009, 10:35 AM   #1
Crowley
Okie doke
 
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Drives: 2012 GT500
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: McKinney Texas
Posts: 3,568
The first 4 months of owning my car - pics / vids included

Thoughts on my car after having it for almost 4 months.

I ordered my car back on October 13th 2008 from Classic Chevy in Grapevine Texas. A lot of the other local dealers were charger 5k over MSRP or wouldn’t say what they would be selling for, but it would be at Market Value for when it comes out. Classic told me straight up MSRP and I signed the paperwork.

I picked the car up on June 6th 2009 from Classic. I drove her home and couldn’t wait to detail her and get back in the drivers seat. Coming from a BMW 135i, I couldn’t help but notice the weight of the car, but it handled pretty good for its weight. The car was put together really well and the only problems I could see was that the trunk wouldn’t close correctly and the paint quality wasn’t really that great. The trunk issue was an easy fix by adjusting the stops, the paint issue; I’d have to live with as I was enjoying the car to much.

After I had about 1000 miles on her, I decided it was time to do some upgrades. I contacted Andy at ADM Performance and had him install the ARH Catted system and tune the car. Andy was great and I knew that for any additional work on the car, I was going to have him do the work. He did a stock dyno and then the install. When he was done I had about 400rwhp and 400rwtq.



With the newfound power and sound, I enjoyed driving the car even more, however I needed more power and decided to reach out to ADM Performance again and see what he could do for me.

After the car had about 2000 miles on her, I gave the keys to Andy once again. This time he was going to install a Magnacharger 2300, ADM Blower cam, KB BAP, 160* Thermostat, and his Street intake. I also decided to go with his boost gauge. ADM tried a few different pulleys and since this was my daily driver and I wanted nice and safe, we decided on the stock 3.8 pulley. The results were outstanding, 553rwhp and 508rwtq. I get comments all the time that people can’t tell if it came from the factory like this or not. This is a testament to the work Andy does. It looks very neat and professional. Gas mileage has not suffered much at all (as long as I can keep the peddle from hitting the floor). Drivability is excellent for a daily driver and when I do put the peddle to the floor; it takes off like a bat out of hell.

Below is the stock 3.8 pulley. This is what I went with since this is my daily driver. The tune is very conservative and this is what I will run for a while.



Below is the comparision between the 3.6 and 3.4 pullys: With the 3.4 pulley we had belt slip up top or we would have made well over 600rwhp .. look at the TQ curve for both of these ... really nice I'd like to maybe try the 3.6 eventually since we had no slip with that ... but again .. for my daily driver we want safe



Below is the 3.4 with belt slip (see post above ). This is compared to my stock dyno and my dyno with the ARH catted system and tune.



The sound of the car with the ARH system and the stock axel back was ok, but a little too high and slightly raspy for my taste. Enter ADM again. They took the Magnaflow 3” system and matted it to the ARH system and utilized the Magnaflow xpipe. The sound was incredible. During normal driving it is pretty tame, but you know you have done something. When you get on the gas, you are rewarded with a nice deep growl (that seems to scare children).

Start up and rev to 4.5k from outside the car.



Start-up and a short drive – windows up



Getting on it a little through a few gears – windows up















This is the current state of the car. I have gone to 2 cars and coffee events here in Dallas and the car in general seems to gather a crowd (which I would expect of a good looking, highly anticipated car). Comments include how good of a job GM did inside and out to surprises on how much power the car puts down with 6.5 lbs of boost. I am enjoying this car very much and look forward to my future plans which will include suspension work and new wheels/tires or some sort of upgrade for wider meats. Traction is a definite issue right now, but sort of a fun issue to have.


To sum it all up, I think GM did a pretty good job with the camaro. They stayed pretty true to the concept. The car gets a lot of looks and currently you almost get celeberty status . It has it's weaknesses, but you have to remember everything you are getting for the current pricetag !

I look forward to seeing my car progressing and watching what others do with their cars.

Crowley
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