Here is my drag/street car, a rare Astre GT. Before this, I have never seen an Astre, let alone a GT. The Astre has a nicer grille than it's cousin, the Vega. I was never looking for a Vega/Astre (H-bodies). I got a call from my dad 3 years ago about one at an auction from the passing of a salvage yard owner in Maricopa AZ. This car was almost entirely intact, but I was able to buy a parts car when I got this. This car was bought for the grand total of $70. Another $70 bought the complete parts car. These pics are after I did a cleanup of the car, and did the S10 suspension conversion.

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Originally this car had the "H.O." 140 cid 87 horsepower engine. Screw that. Now it has a 355 with Keith Black flattop pistons, Dart aluminum Pro1 heads, which make about 10:1 compression. Along with the Performer RPM intake, Holley 750, and Comp Cams 268H Extreme Energy cam, and full MSD ignition, I should be good for at least 440 horsepower. This combined with a curb weight of about 2800 lbs, this is gonna be one moving car!!!

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Now as far as the rest of the drivetrain, I've got a rebuilt TH350 with a shift kit, and behind that is an S10 10-bolt with a 3.73 posi. Not the strongest setup, but I didn't know I was going to have this much power. Besides, if I blow it, I'll just have to tub it!!!! I've also got Chris Alston's subframe connectors, and I'll add a rollbar to stiffen things up after I pass the needed inspections to get the car legal.

Summer of 05, I decided as a spur of the moment decision to make this thing shine again! This was an original AZ car, so it had the original paint still, with no rust. This was perfect as I needed to trace out the original rare GT stripes to have them reproduced while I was doing the paintwork. After a couple months, I got the bodywork knocked out. Then into the paint booth... or not really. Just my buddy's shop, but I've painted three show cars in there so it does the job. The paint is Porsche Biarritz White, obviously sprayed, then sanded and buffed by yours truly.

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The result is flawless. The stripes are perfect duplicates of the original, except for a slightly modernized "GT" insignia.

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For the hell of it, I'll throw in a picture that was the climax of the "fun" I've had with the car for the past year. I've had a series of problems getting this car on the road since September of 05, but I'm finally on the way to getting them solved, and have started driving it. But here is my car in August of this year. I parked it in the driveway for ONE DAY, then half the tree falls on it. Luckily it's a really stout car, so not much damage was taken. Nothing I can't fix.

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The latest thing I have done to the car was built a completely new core support/radiator setup to solve the cooling problems I've had over the past few months. I ditched the tiny old setup, cut out the entire center section, and moved a MUCH larger aluminum radiator in the core support, and mounted a Taurus dual speed electric fan setup in. It now runs too cold at max cooling, but I have it set up to run at 185*. If I tweak it, the summers "should" be bearable. I'll find out in a few months. If you are building an H-body and are interested in how I did it, contact me and I'll send you the write-up I did.

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Since my last update, the front end now has all new bushings up front, and is perfectly aligned. I relocated the upper balljoints slightly to compensate for the camber/caster issues these cars have. The front end is as good as it can get now for being stock. The only thing I'm gonna have to change is later I'll fit a rack and pinion to improve the steering.

Last January, I was able to pass the salvage inspection with flying colors, and hit the jackpot when my title was changed from a salvage title to a clean title! Being that it wasn't on the road at all, or something like that. I was also able to breeze through emissions once I leaned the carb a little, and bumped the idle up slightly. The car is now legal, and wearing it's original plates from when I pulled it out of the salvage yard!

In August, I hit the dyno just to get an idea of what I'm putting down. The car hasn't been tuned at all, and I managed to put down 293rwhp, and 294 rwtq. Not too bad, but I'll pull more out of it later. 300 will be an easy mark. But traction is next on the agenda. More power means nothing if you can't get it to the ground.

Update: I haven't been on here in a while. It's now the beginning of February, and I've hit the dragstrip 3 times. The first time was with my open rearend. I ran a 14.4, then a 13.8 then got kicked out for not having a helmet and faster than 14 seconds. Second trip, I put a boneyard posi unit in ($60) and upgraded to 28 spline axles. I still had Radial T/A's, but I managed to run a 13.3 spinning halftrack.

Now I've just run my third night with the car. I got 4 runs in, none of which were in the 13's. I managed a new best of 12.5 @ 109. My 60' is now a lot better, 1.9 now. My R/T was 0.098. So I'm getting better at it. Just need to heat the tires up a little better, and launch a little harder.

Also, on my second trip out to the track, I got picked to be on a new "Speed" show. Something like "Name that Test & Tune" or something like that. Unfortunately, they caught me on my first run, and it was colder than hell that night (mid 40's), so I only ran a mid 14. The show is due out in July.

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