For those of us who have been into the W-Body/3800 world for a while, you most likely recognize the name Intense-Racing. Based on a message recently found on their web site, it appears they have decided to close up shop.

Some other names I remember was WBodyStore.com, 3800performance.com and a few others (who have been gone so long, I don't remember them). One less option out there for modding and maintaining these cars.

 

Definitely mixed feelings on that one...

It is a bit sad remembering the long past - the back and forth war year after year between them and ZZP to push these cars quicker and quicker. I certainly think that rivalry helped spark innovation in the 3800 community. I really don't think we'd be where we are today without that as none of the other 3800 related vendors had any kind of shop car even close to contending.


But that's about where the good ends. Back in the Cook days they did an awful lot of shady crap. How many people lost engines and transmissions from their "production" parts that weren't actually fully vetted? They used their customers as the test bed without warning / advance compensation. A few of the most notable examples:

VSR on the heads / having to run fuel additive to keep the heads from eating themselves alive

Roller rockers eating themselves from incorrect pedestal geometry

"LSD" diffs pumping the transmission full of glitter, releasing a new gen and it doing the same thing, etc

L32 tunes chunking pistons

the list goes on. Then they shun Big Jeff and Chris Green for bringing issues to public light.


Once Scott sold it in ~2010, the place flat lined for 3800 development, but at least still kept the shelves stocked. Lately though it sounds like things have really been falling off the rails - they were heading down the Milzy route of taking money with obscene delivery times.

Probably for the best that they cut things off before things got too bad.


I will admit though, I do run and enjoy their IS3 blower cam.

 

I will admit, you know a history I did not know. Even though I loved the 97+ Grand Prix, I was a Grand Am owner (at this point I think 4-5 Grand Ams) for years. When I decided to get into the W-Body, I chose a Monte Carlo and that was in Summer of 2008. I got into the platform and I think the first mod was added in 2009 and even at that, I was keeping the mods a little at a time (as my Monte was originally planned to be a daily driver once the 1994 Grand Am gave up; but I managed to keep the Monte a summer car). So I missed the big hay-day of the vendors pioneering new ideas for the platform. By the time I was looking at mods, vendors were still out there, but most the dust settled on the "bad stuff".

Sad to hear ANY vendor turns customers into test subjects without the customer's knowledge.

I am happy to see ZZP is still out there and still doing new stuff with the platform! But I also see ZZP has worked on other modern platforms, which is a SMART business move (avoids being a one trick pony and helps to keep moving with the market).

I have not installed them yet, but I have a set of ZZP and Intense poly radiator and dog bone bushings. I plan to put the Intense ones on the blue Monte and the ZZP ones on the Black Monte. I like the Intense ones a bit better. The blue Monte still has WBodystore bushings (which are still great, but faded from red to pink).

 

Intense did too, but IMO they went the wrong direction. ZZP tended to keep more with the niche market stuff that were otherwise under-served, so it kept them a relevant player the places they went. Intense put most of their eggs in the LS bucket and it's hard to seriously play in that pool with all of the juggernaut companies out there already - especially by the 00s. Hard to stand out as a goldfish in the ocean.

To be fair, they were setting model specific records at first when the G8 platform came out so they were still getting their name out there. But frankly the records they were making were nothing earth shattering for an LS vehicle in general, and I suspect Scott's shift to poker tanked his interest in continuing to pursue such a tough market.