Featured Car - Jeff Callahan's 1987 Grand National


Another example of the GSCA slogan "Fast with Class"

Jeff is a fresh graduate of Vilanova (Finanace Major) and now owns this beauty to replace his Saturn SC2. Jeff says that the Satrun was fun and he's tweaked to look good and handle, but it just wasn't the same as the rocket like thrust of Buick. Jeff has always been drawn to the mysterious black cars that I he saw occaisonally at the track or at cruises. He spent time learning more about them and had to have one. Jeff learned the "secret" of these cars ... if you get a decent stock GN, add one of the Recipes for minimal additional dollars, you could go faster than the crate motor big block Camaro. Hey, he majored in Finance and did the numbers!

So, Jeff set his heart on finding a GN, it must have been fate, because there was one for sale in the classifieds of the newspaper as soon as he started looking. He called and it sounded like just what would fill the bill. Jeff had decided that he wasn't up to a $10K low mileage exampe, but he wasn't about to start with a car that might be really cheap, but had been beat to death. This one had a few miles on it, but was well taken care of and fit the medium price range. The car was a one owner car with a straight body, no accidents, and the paint was in OK condition. Obviously, it "followed Jeff home".

The car is loaded with T-tops, power everything, posi, twilight sentinel, etc, and a decent sound system (leaving more cash for go fast goodies!) . The car has 154,000 miles on it, but the engine had been freshened up at 100K miles with some goodies added. The transmission had also been rebuilt. Jeff took it to the track and it ran some disappointing 14 flats, so he took to Dave Hentz to see what might be wrong. Dave wwnt through the car and redid the combination, with the result being a respectable 12.7s on unleaded pump gas!

Since then, Jeff has had the car repainted, so now it's fast and good looking!

Motor

  • 0.030" over stock block
  • Mild cam
  • 009 injectors
  • ATR 3" exhaust
  • Red Armstrong XP fuel pump (hotwired)
  • Terry Houston Downpipe
  • High flow catalytic converter
  • TE-60 turbocharger
  • Jay Carter 93 and 100 octane chips
  • ATR Ram Air
  • Ported and polished heads
  • Adjustable fuel pressure regulator
  • ScanMaster

TransmissionRear End/Suspension

  • GM Hydromatic 200 4R
  • Shift kit
  • Transmission cooler

Interior

  • Sony X-plode front speakers
  • Infinity rear speakers
  • Kenwood amplifier

Performance

  • 12.7s through the catalytic converter with unleaded pump gas
Jeff Callahan
jeffrey.callahan@villanova.edu


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