As anyone who has ever been to Alabama in the summertime would have known, Day 6 of the HOT ROD Power Tour was a scorcher! A little heat isn’t enough to scare away car enthusiasts though, so they did what any self-respecting gearheads would do – they held an autocross session. With a first place prize of $1,000, you'd better believe a lot of guys and girls tossed their hats into the ring. In total 157 cars but you’d never guess who finished 11 out of the pack.

You may remember Tommy Kiedis, who we met a few days back. He owns a barebones-factory-not even the owner’s manual removed-stock 2006 Cobalt SS Supercharged and has never placed himself or his car on an autocross grid before. As many Cobalt SS owners know, the Cobalt is a true performer and where it lacks in other areas it makes up for in just raw performance ability. With some amateur hotshoe action from Tommy behind the wheel, his Cobalt was able to make its way into the top 10 out of 100. By the time all 157 cars had left their tread on the track, Tommy was able to come away with an 11th place finish! After such a strong finish, GM Engineer Bill Duncan had a heart-to-heart with Tommy and let him know that if he would step up to the LSJ Stage 2 kit and Option B intercooler setup, he could have easily come away with a much higher position. Tempting words for Tommy and advice that we hope he takes right to his dealer so he can see what the rest of the Cobalt community has been clamoring about for the past few years.

Motor Medic report – 25 cars on Day 6 alone! Great job guys!

The final stop is in Mobile, AL. The 2010 HOT ROD Power Tour is coming to a close so let’s see what awaits at the close of this seven day madhouse of hot rodder heaven!

Pictures of the Day 6 are below so check them out.

Back in August we reached out to all of you to submit the questions you’d like to have answered by the infamous John Heinricy. We got with John to get answers to your questions and posted the entire Q&A as a special treat to you, the GMTunerSource.com fan. Well after that feature was over and John had spent a little more seat time in the Stage 1-equipped Cobalt SS Turbo, we received some more questions from all of you and followed up with John to see what his long-term opinions and observations were of the kit. Mr. Heinricy was kind enough to give us his take, which we have exclusively after the break. 

If you’ve been looking for an excuse to upgrade your Cobalt SS Turbo up to Stage 1 status then this is it! For a limited time only CrateEngineDepot.com is holding a sale on the much ballyhooed Cobalt SS Turbo Stage 1 kit. Tom over at CED is letting these kits goes for only $498 and no pennies! That price also includes shipping to anywhere in the contiguous US of A however if you live somewhere else, don’t fret, Tom will make sure he can get your kit to your doorstep in a jiffy. If the price isn’t enough to get you going, check out these comments by owners whose only complaint about the kit is that they’ll need new tires very soon.

There has been a lot of coverage of the Cobalt SS Turbo Stage kits on GMTS lately and for good reason - it's kind of big deal. However, even with all the coverage of the kit, the talk around town from all of you has all been "I want to drive it!" Not ones to let anyone down, GMTS and Bill Duncan, Design System Engineer at GM HPVO, teamed up to get some enthusiasts some seat time in a Stage 1 equipped 2010 Cobalt SS Turbo. Bill was actually so excited to see what fans and current SS Turbo owners would think of the kit, that he went out this past weekend to several stops in Southern Michigan to see fans reactions and answer questions firsthand.

The Cobalt Stage 1 Kit is well along its way to being available at a dealer near you. As such, we hear more details weekly that we can then pass on to you, the Cobalt SS Turbo owner and fan. If you are the lucky owner one of these turbocharged monsters, you’ll be able to run out and buy the new Stage 1 kit from a GMPP dealer and instantly add 20hp and 60lb.-ft of torque to your Cobalt and keep your full factory warranty intact. In addition to the added power, the kit serves as the gateway mod for the Cobalt and will disable the “learn down feature” of the stock PCM. This nifty feature allows your Cobalt to fully utilize any other modifications (intake, header, exhaust, downpipe, etc) that you’ve may have or wish to add in the future – making your dream 350hp Cobalt a very close reality.

Two weeks ago we had GM HPVO Design Systems Engineer Bill Duncan on GTMS to answer some questions that folks had posted across the various LNF Upgrade Update Posts We received some great response from all you guys out there about having a GM Engineer on here giving you some feedback on all your questions and concerns so we are lucky enough to welcome Bill back to the site to answer some more questions from the Cobalt SS Turbo owner community. 

It's all Cobalt all the time here lately at GMTS! Well we just received a small update and in our true form of releasing info as soon as we get it in, here we go. It comes direct from deep inside as we now have confirmation that there is a Cobalt LNF running around town with the infamous stage 1 kit on it. We just got a call from a friend that was driving the car and pulled over on the side of the road and he seemed a little out of breath.

In GMTS's effort to keep a constant vigil surrounding any and all news we receive about the upcoming LNF Turbo Upgrade Kit, we bring you a small update with some timelines of production plans. While no official release date has announced for the Cobalt SS Turbo Stage 1 Kit because of CARB certification timeliness, we can begin to speculate that date with the help of the following information.

There has been a lot of excitement from everyone about the Cobalt LNF Upgrade Kit and for good reason; it will add some serious kick to your Cobalt. Like with anything this popular though, there are a good amount of questions. We found some great questions among the comments in our last LNF Update post on July 20th and Design Systems Engineer Bill Duncan at GM HPVO was kind enough to take the time to answer a couple of them. Everyone over there and everyone over here wants to make sure that owners are armed with every last bit of information about this kit that they need to be able to step up to the parts counter with confidence when the time comes. That being said, take a look at the two Q&A topics below:

The voice of the Cobalt community is being heard inside GM! The team in charge of the Cobalt LNF Turbo Upgrade has seen the comments left on the Petition post and have been working tirelessly to deliver a kit that will meet all the demands and expectations left by all of the owners there. We’ve been doing our fair share of hootin’ and hollerin’ over here saying that this kit will let you dominate the streets, make mince meat out of your competition, etc and we’re just glad that the folks at GM aren’t going to make us eat our words.