YOU WIN SOME... BUT...

"A Tribute to Jim Wangers' 1964 GTO 'Test Car' built for Car and Driver March 1964"

CHAPTER 6 Greg Raymond

Have you ever had one of those days? The kind where everything is going perfectly… right up until it absolutely isn’t?

Ring Failure & a vacuum leak makes for quite a show!

Dyno Day… and Disaster

With the engine reassembled and the Tri‑Power perched proudly on top, we rolled into JBA’s dyno cell. Spirits were high. We planned to run the engine publicly the next morning at JBA’s monthly Coffee & Cars on the Mesa, so we invited the local Pontiac faithful to witness the maiden pulls. Thankfully, we decided to run it privately the night before.

The engine fired instantly, first rotation of the starter. After a proper warm‑up, we began preliminary pulls. Everything looked right. Everything sounded right. Smiles all around.

Until they weren’t.

What followed was our very own #EngineDynoDisaster. As confirmed during the post‑mortem, the rings in cylinder #6 failed. Blow‑by pressurized the crankcase, launching the dipstick and sending oil onto the Doug’s long‑tube headers. The resulting smoke show looked catastrophic, but the truth was less dramatic: aside from the ring failure and a small vacuum leak, the engine was making 320.6 hp and 336.8 lb‑ft at 5000 rpm—and climbing when we shut it down .

Rolling Up the Sleeves

Moments like this test your resolve. So I rolled up my sleeves and tore the 389 down myself to prep it for a proper rebuild with upgrades. My part was the easy part. The precision work fell to JBA’s engine masters, John Elderhorst and Ethan Moradzadeh, who wasted no time getting us back on track.

The engine went through another full inspection. Aside from the failed rings and some oil contamination, everything checked out. Time to rebuild… again.

If You Have to Do It Twice, Do It Better

JBA’s Performance Engine Program is no joke. Their builds are tailored to specific performance goals and offered in multiple stages. For the Blue Car, we selected their Stage II – High Performance Package, a street‑focused blueprinting and assembly program designed to extract maximum performance from factory components.

The parts list reads like a greatest‑hits album of proven performance:

• ARP fasteners

• DSS forged pistons

• Eagle forged H‑beam rods

• Manley stainless valves

• Fel‑Pro performance gaskets

• Federal‑Mogul bearings

• Schneider hydraulic roller camshaft

• Roller lifters and valvetrain components

  
  

With the engine stripped, Ethan performed a full balance of the rotating assembly, even drilling the crank slightly to achieve a perfect zero balance. Every component was weighed, matched, and verified before John Elderhorst installed the freshly balanced assembly into the newly honed 389 block.

The result? A stronger, cleaner, more precise version of the engine we started with—ready for redemption.