Brad aka “Godlike” 1990 GTZ 5-speed Quad 4
I bought my GTZ in 2002 before I knew anyone on this forum and went to work on it right away. The license plates were in reference to a KMFDM (techno industrial group) album cover which at the time I was considering painting on the hood. That’s when I dubbed it Project Godlike.
Working at a body shop at the time the first thing I did was repaint it jet black. The guy who sold me the car was a friend who sprayed some nice ghost flames on his S10. I told him I was interested in trying something similar and he called me one day out of the blue and said lets draw em out. I had the front end wet sanded when he got there and the next morning I drove it to work covered in masking tape and wrapping paper (that’s all I had to cover it) and misted on 2 coats of harlequin chrome illusion and buried it in 4 coats of clear. This was always the outstanding feature of the car. It seems to turn a lot of heads and gets compliments from people who normally would show no interest in a FWD GM car.
Since it only comes out of hiding a few times per year there have been several rumors floating around my home town. Someone was describing the “Godlike GTZ” to one of my best friends in a bar one night, evidently its a 10 second car with close to 400hp! That’s not what my dyno sheet says… There was also some guy with a turbo Integra GSR who was looking for me wanting to line up for a few years. I still don’t know who he is.
I drove the car to Bfest Milwaukee where I met a lot of you for the first time. It went down the drag strip with a dry 50 shot and got me home but the Original Quad was running on borrowed time. A few months later I drove it to a friends shop with a white jet stream of coolant rolling off the back fin. We pulled the motor and took it to Kelly Moss Motorsports in Madison where they tore it down and found a bad head gasket, cracked head and cracked block. Other than that it was fine. But I was ready for the bad news and had money to burn so we basically started from the ground up. Although I didn’t build it myself it was still a grulling process of sourcing parts and relaying measurements back and forth. Mantapart failed to insure an $1800 prepaid order and the flunkies at UPS lost them. And finally with a week to go till Bfest Columbus I frantically put the car back together hoping to have enough time to break it in and when I fired it up for the first time there was no oil pressure! Missing windage tray bolt. common mistake on these… But I didn’t figure it out in time and gave up and bought my Z26 to take to Bfest. The GTZ was basically down for 3 years.
Since then Ive put about 15k/mi on the built Quad including a bunch of autocross runs and quarter mile passes, 3 trips to Bfest and Nitrofest. Its best 1320′ pass was a 13.3 @ 104 with no tuning whatsoever.
This car is not at the top of my project list right now but future plans are to switch to a higher quality damper system, make some interior changes, setup an engine management system and go faster!
GTZ build list
92 GRANDAM low output long block
-new oil pump, water pump, crank/ rod brgs, all new gaskets.
-decked and bored .020 over
-balanced knife edged crank
-Eagle H beam shot peened rods
-Wiseco forged pistons -ceramic coated and teflon sleeved by Polydyne
-Felpro head gasket
90′ 086 head
-Port matched and polished both sides
-3 angle valve grind
-new H.O. springs
-W41 cams
Bolt-ons
-MSD blaster coil
-Taylor 8mm wires
-Denzo iridium spark plugs
-RC peformance 320cc injectors
-Wepon R CAI
-A/C delete -27#
-Unorthodox crank pulley
-A/C delete pulley
-Fidanza flywheel
-Spec stage III clutch
-Holly Powershot wet nitrous kit
Exhaust
-wicked-irocz Ported H.O. exhaust manifold
-2.5″ stainless mandrel downpipe
-Borla XR-1 Bullet oval track muffler
-2.5″ mandrel aluminized cat back
-Borla XS straight through muffler
-Borla angled dual hex afterburner tip
3.61 to getrag 3.94 swap
-Jbody front trans mount added
Brakes
-92+ L body front brake conversion
-BFGoodrich steel braided brake lines
-Wilwood brake fluid
-Hawk Hp pads
-Powerslot cryotreated rotors
Suspension
-Custom rear shocktower brace
-Factory FE7 active front sway bar w/ poly
-Factory Z51 strut tower brace
-Custom strut tower to rad support braces
-Kyb Gr2s / Koni yellows soon
-Eibachs
-3 sets of wheels
-Factory GTZ 16x7s /kumho ASXs
-Katana C5 17x7s /Nankang Ns1s
-Olds Acheva magnesium 14x7s /20″ Mickey Thompson Drag slicks
Extras
92+ head lights with TSX projector retrofit
Clear markers and parking lights
Factory Z04 aero package
Black interior conversion
Tenzo R front seats
custom upholstered rear bench
92+ center counsil
Moroso switch panel for bottle purge-arm-opener-heater
Halon Exstiguisher
Alpine Head unit, 6x9s, 4x6s, 360w amp
Blacked out tails PPG tinted automotive clear
