Project StinkRay Paint

Hey, if you're ready for an eye grabbing show,

we got you covered this time in more ways than one,

whether you're into a quarter mile competition or show cars. Well, you want your ride to look as good as it goes. Right?

Well, that's where Project Supernova comes in

last week, Mike and I took a lot of weight off our race car by bolting on some new fiberglass doors from Harwood,

replacing some of the glass with Lexan,

swapping out the stock fenders and grill for a new fiberglass front end

and adding a new pin on style hood.

Now, would you believe we're gonna give the Nova some new body color and wild graphics right here in the shop when we didn't get a paint booth and we're not gonna fill this place up with fumes either instead of painting it, we're gonna wrap it,

believe it or not. All these wild wicked graphics you see were created without one drop of paint.

You see it's all because of the latest in digital print technology and well, all possible because of a company called Ape Wraps here in Dallas.

Troy Downey heads up this company and challenged us to wrap our nova instead of painting it.

But just as we were getting down to business, a customer showed up in this prized dirt track car and a couple of rear panels that needed recovering after a crash,

that

will be the

panel for

replacement.

Since all the information was stored up in their computer, the artist at Ape could pull it up and print new panels on vinyl. In no time,

we work with a snow white high performance media by Avery graphics.

This material enables us to print anything that we can design.

So now the sky is the limit. Now it's ultimately getting it through the printer and getting it through the Laminator

and then getting it on the car and your shows on the road.

After laminating this plotter cuts the paddle following the contour of the design.

Ben Dean and Robbie just peel away the backing and start the application.

The customer who's a veteran driver was amazed at how quickly he was back in business compared to the old days, we would have had to go and have the car first painted black and then have the graphics put on. Then we have to go sign shop and get the lettering done and did everything in less than two hours. You're ready to go.

We can't make it look like this either. Never get the detail and never, never get it like we've got it. Now.

Now time to check with Dean who's been in contact with our artist Steve Longaker on the Noble project.

We started off with just a photo of the car sitting in the, in the parking lot at the studio

from there. I was able to build a measurement map.

Mm OK.

And using these specified places to measure,

Steve got back with me with actual measurements on the car. OK.

Steve did a great job of sending me a rendering of what he was looking for. The goal of the car to be.

We'll print it out

a full rep like the supernovas requires a professional installer and they've got them all over the country.

But Troy showed me what he did for car builder, Eddie Paul for a lot less time. And money

Edie had called and said, hey, wrap my car. I said, hey, let's not, let's do a partial. So for a fraction of the price I'm able to get as much impact out and maybe if not more

than I would from a full ramp. Wow. Imagine a creative process that happens through email and new digital printing a

big step in graphic technology, a

big step for our project supernova.

Well, now, Rich Troy and I are getting the Novo ready for its transformation and well, prepping is a very important first step, right, Troy,

you bet Joe. Uh what we're gonna do is wipe the entire vehicle down with alcohol that's gonna help promote adhesion of the vinyl. And at that point. We'll be good to go. Ok. Meanwhile, you guys aren't gonna believe what we show you next.

Yeah, this is amazing. Just like it looked on the computer screen and well, literally a show car in a box.

Now, this stuff's all new to me. So

I'm gonna let Troy tell you how to get it from here to the car.

First, we unroll the side graphic beside the car

and hold it in place

when we get it roughly where we want it. We pin it up with strips of media.

Then we check for alignment

and move the graphic around until we get it exactly

where it needs to be.

Next.

We take some measurements to make sure it's level.

And at that point, we secure the panel to the front of the car and start peeling away the backing.

Now this is where it gets interesting.

Yeah, I wanna see it.

Well, you will after the break. So uh stick around.

Welcome back to the supernova wrap up.

Now, in case you just hooked up with us instead of paint, we're going for a more high tech cover up. It's a custom computer designed ape wrap that'll cover the whole car in color and wild graphics.

The huge side panel was first to go on and the biggest challenge of the installation

after pinning it up and tweaking it, it's now time to pull away the backing and reveal the results

pretty cool. Huh?

But there's a lot more to it than this. A

lot of pulling and stretching until the vinyl wrap fits tight against the body.

Then they squeeze you from the center out to get rid of the wrinkles and air bones.

Now up here, Rich is using some heat to pull the wrap over the fender.

Then it's the same process in the rear, smoothing it out until the cover is really tight to the car's body.

Then he can start cutting away around the wheels and for our application,

he leaves an inch or two that gets tucked under the body.

All right, now comes the hood got all kinds of compound convex curves with that huge scoop. How do you handle that? Well, what we've done, Joe is, we've done three separate pieces to handle those convex and compound areas.

Once we laid the three pieces down, then we'll add, add the sponsor line up and then the ZZ 572 R as an overlay and we'll be good to go.

Now, here's one of the advantages of this process. The design stays on file. So if we should smack the wall at the strip, heaven forbid,

we only have to replace the panel that's damaged and it'll match up with the rest of the rack.

The last panel to go on is for the deck lid and now the supernova is covered with a super cool cover and graphic scheme.

But before we can really say, uh that's a wrap. We've got some overlays to deal with.

Yeah, we're gonna put logos on it as well as the name of the car. Now, the beauty of these things is you can move them around until you're satisfied with their placement or you can swap them out later on.

Of course, this is a whole day's work even for a professional installer,

but it sure is a lot faster than paint

and imagine pulling off an eye popping theme like this any other way,

man, I can't keep my eyes off of it, but now that it's on, how long is it gonna last? Great question, Joe. The material is considered an eight year vinyl, but we put a clear gloss over lament on it. So we're gonna get a five year warranty out of it. So you guys are gonna get many great years of use out of this project.

What about the cost? Well, we discovered a partial wrap could go for a few 100 bucks while a complete wrap with all the overlays like ours gonna set you back 45 to 5500.

Now, in one of our upcoming shows, we're taking the Nova and some of our other project cars for some test and tune.

I bet the Nova is the fastest and best looking car at the strip. Stay tuned. We'll be right back.

Hey, welcome back.

You just saw how our supernova gets its great new looks. Well, this of course is how it makes 700 plus horsepower.

We were the first to install one of these 572 race motors from GEO performance parts and well, since then, we've seen a number of them around the country.

Getting a performance engine that's ready to rumble out of the box is a pretty cool concept.

Right now. We're leaving the shop for a rare look at some crepe motor horse power

in the making

the new turbo fire V8 engine, most compact, most advanced power plant in the industry.

When this baby was born, few people thought about buying the motor without the car. But later in the sixties, things changed when the Camaro went Trans AM racing.

General Motors made a performance parts commitment. That was the beginning of powerful things to come. They created special suspension systems, uh disc breaker axles, a lot of components of that nature.

So they set up a department in the parks group

that would handle all these parts to make sure that we didn't run out.

And so from that, it's kind of evolved to a point where if we're going to make them for the racer, why not make them available to the general public? Soon after that, the trusty Lt 1 350 made the crate motor a household term,

at least for gear heads with many more powerful platforms to follow. One of the challenges of course has been over the years is the power level goes up,

there's higher and higher expectations. So the bar keeps getting set higher.

So nobody's ever come to us and said, would you make an engine with less power?

No way.

And now more than 30 years after G MS first crate motor offering the awesome CZ 572 rules as the ultimate road or race ready big block from a box,

whether it's the high compression 720 horse 572 or the more treatable 620 horse version, you can put it in any street rod. It's got a great crank. It's got a great block. It makes the power you need.

It looks great.

I mean, this is our sexiest crate engine ever.

Now that we've made this trip to Michigan, let's have a quick look at one of these 570 twos in the making.

Yeah,

that was a little too quick. Let's do that again.

Besides, you can't get in too much of a hurry when you're building a motor for long term durability.

Of course, the durability and power have been certified long before this production process. Our name is on the product jam performance parts. We've got to be able to stand,

you know, behind that. So

you can be pretty assured that that we're gonna test it to probably extremes that, you know, the average person on the street wouldn't even dream about.

The new gen six tall deck block is a story in itself. Developed with help from engineers over in the racing side of GM. The engine block is a GM racing produced block. So we provided that to GM performance parts

and worked with their engineers as they did the development of the whole engine in this streamlined assembly process. One thing you

notices how many times they check and recheck each and every component

from the forged 4340 steel crank

to the shock them

H beam connecting rods. Those rods are mated up with forged aluminum pistons with full floating pins.

The camshaft is a hydraulic roller with a 632 lift to actuate the stainless steel valves.

The aluminum heads use a redesigned rectangular port to yield a pump, gas friendly 9.6 to 1 compression ratio

to

it should go without saying you couldn't buy the block, buy the parts and then assemble the motor with this kind of attention to the tails for the same money.

Plus, there's all the testing like this coal test operation before the motor can leave the facility.

We're verifying torque to turn compression ratio

leak down. We're making sure that oil pressure is where it needs to be.

Now from here, our 572 is on its way to one of 7000 GM dealers and oh, most importantly,

this other lucky gear head who's ready for some horsepower right out of the box,

ok.

We just showed you the making of a popular present day crate motor. Well, now it's time for the future.

In fact, this is a TV, first a behind the scenes build up of. Well, this baby the 500 horse Ls seven,

it's the largest most powerful production small block GM has ever produced standard equipment in the new Ze Six Corvette also available as the newest geo performance parts crate motor.

This performance build center is almost as innovative as the new V8 itself. A place where one team member builds one engine at a time start to finish.

It's a concept along with futuristic technology that ensures exact precision,

a unique concept to the industry. And I'm glad that I'm able to get into this on the ground floor

and be able to put myself in a situation where I can build

a high quality product. And I know everybody that I work with here has the same pride

in the product that they put together themselves. And it's a wonderful place to be.

Each engine is pushed through about 15 sub assembly stations where only the components for each task are at hand

tools like this electric torque wrench give repeatable accuracy for precise tolerances

while the eyes of specially trained team members ensure it all comes together.

The Ls seven was developed thanks to data brought together from the fact sponsored Corvette C five R racing program

and the result is an all aluminum block that accommodates large cylinders and its 4 125 bores.

Now, the other components are lightweight to boost horsepower and RPMs

using technology and materials that until recently were considered race only

everything from uh a dry sump oiling system, titanium connecting rods. I mean that is pure race stuff. Uh

very, very short skirt, lightweight pistons, thin ring race rings,

uh fully machine

CNC cylinder heads. These are things that we

high end race only

options. Just a couple of years ago. Those new heads, by the way feature 70 cc combustion chambers fed by 56 millimeter titanium intake valves.

They use straight tunnel like intake runners that are huge by production standards

like other GEN four engines. The LS seven uses a composite intake manifold with passages that are tuned to increase air flow

and for exhaust, it comes with race style hydro formed headers

that may be the end of the line for this LS seven but not the end of the day here at the Bills Center.

The final phase is a thorough engine hot test for 20 minutes to ensure complete balance.

Well, quite a long way from the first GE of small block V8 that powered the 55 bel air.

The barrow in high performance keeps getting higher

and we're doing a better job listening and we're doing a better job funneling that back into the vehicle development process. We're doing a better job

integrating that into our marketing activities.

Uh We want to be an attractive, you know, partner, we want people to aspire to our

uh uh products. We want them to be proud of their purchases.

And uh we got a lot of fun right around the corner.

How would you like to get 60% more spark at the flick of a switch? Well, now you can with this after burner switch,

street strip ignition from Excel. This thing features a built in coil. It allows you to quickly switch from street to high output

without a separate coil or box. Even in the normal mode, you get increased durability and decreased wear on your cap rotors, plugs and wires. Are you wired up to get one of these things? Well, you'll have to switch about 250 bucks from your bank account

if you're looking to dress up your engine compartment without spending an arm and a leg check out the finish on Edelbrock and Dura

Shine and Perms star with its gorgeous deep tone, not only like chrome or aluminum, these won't oxidize or fade and they clean up super easy. Now, they use a two stage vapor deposition process with the

your coat to protect the gloss for a shine that lasts. Also available in these finishes are their water pumps and accessories to match for prices. Get your lazy butt up off the couch and contact your local ow

Brock dealer. Well, let's tell them,

I guess it's time for us to get our lazy butts out of here and work on next week's show, gonna see you then.