The Red Devil was supposed to be my economical build that I did after I had to sell Camaro X. I had a plan and was working to it. Your basic nice Pro-Touring �69 with DSE chassis and an LS7 engine. I was able to piece most of it together at a reasonable cost. I almost had all the pieces together and then I went to SEMA last year. After I drove Jack Ass at Optima and saw the reaction of people to that car I knew I needed more power than an LS7. I called engine builder Brian Thomson and asked him about an LS9. He said he had done a 427 LS9 for a customer and asked me if I wanted to drive it. Well like the dealers say in Detroit the first one is free�.. I was hooked. I needed a 427 LS9. I asked Brian build me one.

So the car was already at paint at Paul VanNus, so I went to Kalamazoo and got my radiator support and my complete subframe. I got a mock up block and started modifying the sub-frame and the radiator support to install the bigger power plant.

All the parts went back to Paul after they were modified and he finished the paint. Paul and Joe did a killer job on the paint and body. They were able to retain all the stock sheet metal on the car except for the hood which we swapped for an aluminum cowl hood.

Meanwhile while the VanNuses were finishing up the body, Brian was finalizing the engine. It was awesome to swing by and look at it going together. I had learned a lot on Jack Ass on things to look out for so the 2nd time around with a LS9 based engine was a bit easier.

I got the car back from Joe in March and we started to thrash the car together hoping to make the May1st race at Road America with DSE. My buddy Ryan Kuhlenbeck was a huge help with all the wiring and mechanical work. He even took personal vacation time to help me with the car. I would have never gotten the car done without his help.

Then in the middle of all this fun I had to do some real work for GM. I had to go to Korea 3 times this spring and Ryan was trying to launch the Volt. Needless to say we were a bit busy.

We missed the two early events this spring that I really wanted to do. So, now we focused on the Motorstate Challenge June 19 � 20. We lost a lot of time due to travel and small setbacks. I used a week of vacation prior to the Motor State Challenge. We were going to make it! On the Thursday June 17, I drop the car off jack stands and drove it for the first time straight to the alignment shop. I had it aligned and fixed the coolant leak at Belle Tire. Well, I made it to Belle Tire, let�s see if we can make it Brian Thomson�s shop. I jumped in the car and away we went. I was about 1 mile form Brian�s shop when the engine when to a limp mode. I limped it to Brian�s shop. Luckily Dave Mikels was there and he sorted out a throttle miss match problem.

OK off to Joe Borschke�s shop (Stenod Performance) to strap it to the chassis dyno to check the calibration and break in the diff. We drove over to Joe�s and did about 2 hours of light to part throttle calibration work on the car to break it in and look for leaks. Everything looked good on the dyno so back to my place to finish putting the car together. I was up until 1:00 AM getting the interior put into the car. I got up at 7 and when back to work. I worked on finishing the car right up to the point we had to put it into the trailer to go to Gingerman. We left my house and hauled to Lane Automotive. We got there just in time for the drivers meeting.

After the drivers meeting we headed out for the cruise. The first time I had to relax in a week. Things were great! The car was running good and we were having a great time. We showed up at the park right on Lake MI. We weren't out of the car for 3 minutes and Charley Lillard said �I just talked to Scott and HAIL is on its way�. We all jumped in our cars and headed out. I was following Charley at 80 mph on the hiway in pouring down rain. Darn I forgot the wipers! We got to the hotel put the car in the trailer then it really came down. We went in and had a beer with the gang. When it stopped we pulled the car out to see how it ran. We finally had 200 miles on the diff and we could stand on it. Mikels and I tore up and down the hiway a few times and thought it was good enough.

The next morning we went to the track. We qualified number one and won the road course portion of the Motorstate Challenge.

Of all the car stuff I�ve done in my life this is one of my best achievements! To take a basically brand new build to the track and do well and do nothing more than tighten one bolt made me very happy.

Since Motorstate we have taken it to Waterford race track and towed down to a race at VIR. (Virginia Intl Raceway) Unfortunately we lost power steering the 3rd lap around VIR.


Specs on the car:

Thomson Automotive built 427 CID LS9 based engine

D&D Performace T-56 six speed

Griffin custom dual pass radiator

Currie Ford 9" with 3.25 gears

Full Detroit Speed front sub-frame and quadra link rear suspension

Brembo brakes from a Z06 application

C-6 Corvette ABS system

18X10 Forgeline wheels with BFG 275/30R18 KDW tires

18X12.5 Forgeline whhels with BFG 335/35R18 KDW tires

DSE Dash

Autometer Sport Comp II gauges

Recaro Style seats

Paint and Body work by Paul and Joe VanNus

VW Salsa Red.

Early Performance #

0-60 mph 3.29 seconds

0-100 mph 7.26 seconds

1/4 mile 11.19 sec. @ 129.84 mph all corrected values
(should go in the 10s next time out)

Braking
best 60-0 107.4' & 2.5 sec
0-60-0 with 1 ft rollout best 6.84 with overshoot to 61mph

40 foot slalom
Slalom best 48.34 mph

Skid pad 1.03 G.