From the Forums: GMC Sonoma Sets Stock-Bottom-End Record at 7.16 Seconds!

Canadian team knocks together a turbo 5.3 combination in just three weeks to run low 7s with an old Pro Stock truck.

Wow. We can’t think of much else to say. We’re just flattened by this Canadian team’s record-stomping run at the 2017 Street Car Super Nationals in Las Vegas: 7.16 seconds at 190 miles per hour on a stock bottom-end 5.3-liter truck engine.

The Team North crew entered the Vegas event in Pro Mod specifically to make quarter-mile passes and chase the stock bottom-end record. And boy, did John Cuglietta ever drive Pro Stock 1998 GMC Sonoma like that record meant everything. Several LS1Tech members were chatting about the big-time run when one of the crew, turbo fabricator ls1_chevelle, dropped in to fill in some blanks.

“We put this truck together in 3 weeks after hours as we work day jobs,” he wrote. “It was extremely low budget.”

That included a $200 5.3-liter block from a wrecked truck, leftover mild-steel piping, a four-inch exhaust pipe from a tractor-trailer, and “799 heads that were on an 8 second street car that destroyed a piston so we welded and repaired the head(no port work), stock valves.”

Impressed yet? They used the stock crankshaft, rods, pistons, rings, and cylinders heads to make it a true stock bottom end. The Garrett GT55 91-millimeter turbo fed in boost at more than 34 psi on all the runs in Vegas. For the first record they set — 7.26 seconds at 186 mph — that meant 22 pounds of boost off the line. The tune ramped that up to 37 psi by the finish line.

They kicked it up another three pounds to 40 psi for the final run in eliminations to get that magic number. Running in Pro Mod against 5-second cars, Cuglietta didn’t stand a chance and with only that run to make it count, he didn’t disappoint.

Cuglietta bought the retired Pro Stock chassis from Kentucky and it’s no featherweight. With a steel cab and bedsides, it weighs more than 2,500 pounds. You can see more on this truck on the Team North Facebook page right here.

We can expect a more detailed video of it soon from Free Life Films, but you can enjoy a chat with owner John Cuglietta from Las Vegas in the meantime.

[Photos: Team North on Facebook]