I pulled into the gas station yesterday and there were two guys there with this nice looking Trans Am GTA, black of course. We got to talking for a minute and decided to race. He said he was running a 350 that he had just rebuilt himself. I got a quick glance under the hood, and saw he was running the stock TPI setup with some headers. He also hinted that the car was bored out or stroked, but never said exactly what he did with it. Also, the trans am was really LOUD.

I was thinking that this was going to be a close race myself, considering I am almost stock. So we go out to the start of the interstate(straight for 2 miles with nobody coming behind you) and race from a stop. Three horn blows and we are off. I immediatly spun the tires and backed off a little to hook up, and he managed to put his rear bumper even with my front. He kept pulling on me until 60, then I started reeling him in. At 80 we were dead even with my Z28 pulling hard ahead. After that it was no contest, I put 3 carlengths on him when I shut down at 130. I think his stock TPI setup was hurting him because I've heard TPI is all torque with no top end. Anyways we pull over for a second and chat. He says my car is unreal and we both take off on the same backroad, and he manages to lose me in the twistes

 

Yep that sounds about right, most mildly modded TPI 350s will run some low low 14s and high 13s.

 

Yeah thats true a stal on the LS1 cars gives a real 1/2 second plus.