JATO Chevy (NAC) was: MORE POWER

[BenediktRochow at oaktech.com]

Brett Dikeman <quattro at brettd.dsl.speakeasy.net>::
>At 10:05 AM -0500 2/5/01, RyanWeath at aol.com wrote:
>>Ok since we're so far off Audi content, what the heck. . .
>>
>>Maybe it was chases like this that inspired the creation of the JATO
Chevy
>>story. . check out the police chase involving a '95 Chevy Impala SS (LT-1
>>corvette engine powered)
>
>Except the LT-1 in the Impala is not the same engine as in the
>corvette.  The Impala SS has about the same HP as a 200q20v, which
>basically makes the Impala just a quick family sedan; these days, a
>car that size with that much HP from that large a V8 is considered,
>well, slow.

Not quite. The SS has a cheapened version of the Camaro/Firebird LT1
which is in turn a cheapened version of the Corvette LT1, ending
up with 260 hp. The engine may be large considering the power
(but then, it wasn't designed to fit taxation-by-displacement laws),
but the car weighs just above 4000lbs (A6 territory, no?), and
is, well, quite fast. Or so they say. I've never driven/ridden in one,
though I've got a '95 Caprice with a yet-weaker version of the same engine;
downsized to 4.3l (from 5.7 for the versions above) it makes 200 hp,
a tad less than a 200q20v. The remainder of the car is functionally
the same as an SS but for shocks and springs and taller final gearing
that reduces acceleration somewhat. Even so, a quite quick family
sedan, which would make the Impala a really quite quick family sedan.

-gbr