2008 Ford Shelby GT500 - Crossover Vehicle
The Shelby That Brought Greg Kordis Across From The Brand C Camp
Horse Sense:Credit must go to Ford's drivetrain engineers for fitting the Shelby with a clutch, transmission, and rearend that will live up to 9-second strip passes in a two-ton car.
As sometimes happens with young siblings, there was polarizing disagreement within the Kordis household. Growing up, Greg's brother was a staunch Ford guy, while Greg Kordis himself had a strong allegiance for cross-town rival, Chevrolet (though we assume he was otherwise normal). Even the hormonal wisdom that accompanies puberty didn't improve the brand stand-off. In fact, no matter how much time passed, the Kordis brothers just couldn't see eye-to-eye. "He had his notchbacks and GTs," Greg says of his brother, "And I had my Camaros, and later on as I got older, Corvettes ..."
His list of Corvettes has included a Z06 and a couple older ZR-1s. He's also owned a Viper. OK-there was one previous Mustang, an '86 SVO, in Greg's vehicular portfolio, but it sounds like he bought that one mostly just to tick off his brother, who apparently wanted the red turbo hatchback badly. Greg simply beat him to the showroom and bought it first. Chevy guys have no heart.
But for Greg, the heartbeat began changing with the advent of the S197, particularly the factory-blown GT500, which appealed to the drag racer in him. So without even driving one, he ordered this white '08 Shelby, and soon headed for the track for some baseline passes. "I went a 12-oh at 116 with it, bone-stock with a set of drag radials," says Greg, with a note of satisfaction. Sometime prior, he had met Dan Millen, so wanting an immediate, initial round of mods, he called Dan's Livernois Motorsports. Dan sent him a pulley, a cold-air kit, and the accompanying calibration, to which the Shelby responded brilliantly with an 11.20 pass at 126 mph. "I was amazed the way the car responded to a simple pulley, tune, and filter," Greg admits. So naturally, he wanted more.
This time the GT500 went to the Livernois Motorsports shops for installation of a Whipple twin-screw blower, some headers, a few suspension mods, wheels, and a KR-style hood. "Dan was warning me about the short-block in the car," Greg tells us, "but pushing the limits like usual, I pushed it a little too far and we lost the original motor in the car-broke a couple rods." That was at 815 rwhp, so it's no wonder Mr. Millen was cautionary about the factory reciprocating hardware.
It's not that Greg ignored Dan's warning, but this was at the end of the race season, and he simply wanted to enter a shootout at Englishtown. The rods let go on the first pass. Greg was philosophical, saying "We were gonna build another motor anyway..."