A Dream Come True

“I have always wanted a Syclone but missed out on getting my hands on one when they were first released. But I had a friend here in town who bought one. He had it for exactly one week when I offered to trade him my 1995 SVT Mustang Cobra for it. He jumped at the chance!”

The Transformation Begins

Initially, John street raced his little Jimmy, and he did that for about two years. Then one night he seriously wounded the engine. “That’s how this project got started. I’ll be the first to admit that it got a little out of control.”

The Engine Build: A Beast Under the Hood

About four years’ time and an undisclosed sum of cash were required to transform GMC’s most potent production pickup into the corner-carving, tire-smoking, drift monster it has since become. Powering this little brute is an owner-assembled, Madcap-machined, 280ci, GM Performance Parts Gen III Bow-Tie V-6 block featuring a Crower steel billet crankshaft riding on Clevite engine bearings, a set of Carrillo H-beam connecting rods and Total Seal plasma-equipped, 9.5:1 Wiseco forged aluminum pistons. Internally, the small-block V-6 uses ARP engine fasteners, along with a custom-grind Competition Cams flat-tappet cam, Smith Brothers pushrods, Comp Cams lifters, a GM Performance Parts high-volume oil pump, a Steff’s windage tray, and Energy Suspension motor mounts.

Custom Fabrication and Components

Bolted up top you’ll find a set of owner-prepared and -assembled 23-degree GM “experimental” Bow-Tie aluminum cylinder heads, featuring a set of 2.20-inch Ferrea titanium intakes and 1.88-inch Ferrea stainless exhaust valves, along with K-Motion valvesprings and retainers and T&D shaft rocker arms, bolted up to ARP rocker arm studs. Valvetrain protection is handled by a set of sheetmetal custom aluminum valve covers outfitted with K&N breathers. Frey’s machinist profession came in quite handy when building one-off components. For example, he machined all the engine pulleys, and he also fabricated the V-6’s sheetmetal intake manifold and fuel rails, which are equipped with a pair of 96 lb-hr Siemens electronic fuel injectors. Also bolted to Frey’s custom intake is a pair of Turbonetics T60-1 turbochargers (pumping out a whopping 40 psi) using Applied Technologies wastegates and a bed-mounted Griffin radiator/heat exchanger. Also in the bed, you’ll find a Bully Racing eight-gallon fuel tank and Magna Fuel delivery system. Just for the heck of it, Frey also installed a 100hp Nitrous Oxide Systems kit!

Ignition and Cooling Systems

Another one of Frey’s projects was machining his own crank trigger ignition system, which works in conjunction with a CDI8 module, a Honda CBR 900 coil, NGK spark plugs, and Accel wires. Actual engine cooling is handled by a Meziere electric water pump and a Ron Davis four-core aluminum radiator. The exhaust system on Frey’s Syclone consists of a set of owner-fabricated 4-inch headers dumping into side-exit SuperTrapp mufflers.

Chassis and Suspension

The foundation for this little screamer is a mildly modified 1991 GMC Syclone all-wheel-drive chassis. The rear suspension includes a 3.55:1-geared Syclone 12-bolt rear axle (with a Mark Williams driveshaft) using a pair of Penske custom adjustable rear shock absorbers and Flex-A-Form composite fiberglass monoleaf rear springs. At this writing, the rear braking remains stock; however, Frey has a set of Wilwood Engineering rear disc brakes sitting in the box, waiting for installation.

Advanced Front Suspension and Braking

Because this is all-wheel drive, the front suspension is considerably more sophisticated. The centerpiece is, of course, a highly modified GM 700R4 transaxle assembly, which was modified by Aaron Ginn and features a 3,000-stall-speed TCI torque converter, a Superior shift kit, and a Bully Racing custom-fabricated front driveshaft. The actual suspension consists of Penske adjustable custom front struts, a pair of Syclone half shafts, Wilwood Engineering front disc brakes, and Flaming River manual rack-and-pinion steering. The wheels and tires consist of a set of 17×10-inch front and 17×12-1/2-inch rear Kinesis modular wheels rolling on P315/40ZR17-inch front and P275/40ZR17-inch rear BFGoodrich radial T/A rubber.

Exterior and Interior Customizations

Frey elected to leave the exterior of the Syclone stock. After all, it did come from the factory equipped with a pretty nice composite ground effects kit, so why change things? However, he did have local painter Dave Hildebrand tune up the basic black paint scheme by adding House of Kolor checkerboard and flame graphic treatments.

On the inside, Frey fabricated his own dash, outfitting it with Auto Meter instruments and a 12,000-rpm tachometer. Inside you’ll also find a Precision shifter and a custom-engraved Bully Racing leather-wrapped steering wheel.

Dyno Testing: Unleashing the Beast

Last summer, we were fortunate enough to sit in on the actual dyno testing of this little beast at Lakewood, Colorado’s Carz Custom. Racing programmer Don Walker whipped out his trusty laptop and started mapping out a reliable fuel delivery engine management program for the truck. Actual dyno testing was conducted by Carz Custom dyno tech Lucas Guadagni using a Superflow “Autodyne” model all-wheel-drive dyno. With 112 octane race gas in the tank, the initial warmup pull revealed 697 whp at 5,400 rpm and 714 lb-ft of torque at 4,900 rpm. Adjustment of the fuel curve and the addition of a little more timing on the second pull produced 789 whp at 5,700 rpm and 750 lb-ft of torque at 5,600 rpm. Frey’s Syclone was clearly starting to show its true potential. After a few minor adjustments were made to the fuel and timing tables, a third and final pull produced 861 whp and 773 lb-ft of torque at 6,000 rpm.

Pushing the Limits

At this juncture, it was agreed by all that a more aggressive cam profile would produce close to 1,000 whp. However, in its current configuration, Frey’s Syclone is clearly making in the neighborhood of 1,000 hp at the flywheel, and when you take into consideration that this vehicle was being dyno tested at a mile-high altitude, that’s pretty impressive!