The Rider
Dane Ferrari Esias is a lifelong motorsports fanatic that was influenced by his grandpa, Thomas, having a collection of Oldsmobiles, going to the Salt Flats with his Grandma and a dad, Dave, with a ’65 Chevy Suburban who took him to swap meets, drag races, and local car meets.
So to say that being a gearhead was in his blood is an understatement. His first car was an ’89 Chevy Camaro with a 5-speed and one of his favorites a Pontiac GTO.
Dane has owned over 20 cars before the age of 27. Continuing that fanatic upbringing, He is the President of SoCal Holden where he plans and attends events drawing Holden fans from all over the country.
His flagship event is HoldenRun in Las Vegas every year, but also on the docket is LS Fest West, South OC Cars and Coffee in San Clemente, CA, and JBA Cars and Coffee in Kearney Mesa, he also attends all the SoCal Chevy SS Club meets and anything that Maverick Man Carbon is sponsoring.
This particular build of his started life as a 2016 Chevy SS but is now so much more. He loves the look and feel of it and “Races the absolute hell out of it!” He takes it to Buttonwillow Raceway Park, Willow Springs, and Chuckwalla Raceway near Joshua Tree, CA.
A track monster for sure, as you will read below, but the SS is also street legal and Dane takes it out for cruises whenever he can. Casual trips up and down the San Diego Coast and the occasional trip to the supermarket allows the ’16 to breathe a little and show off.
The Ride
This is not Dane’s first rodeo and he has built his ’16 SS to the umpteenth degree. Get comfy, this may take a while. Starting in the front of the suspension he has installed lowering springs, solid swaybar and endlinks, strut mounts, and control arms all from Whiteline. In the rear there is a host of Whiteline products as well with a rear subframe, diff, shock mounts, with adjustable trailing arms with spherical bearings, adjustable toe arms with spherical bearings, and lower control arms with spherical bearings all from BMR.
The 429cu LSX iron block is fitted with an aftermarket rotating assembly, custom Cammotion Cam, Brodix BR7 heads that were then ported and installed by West Coast Cylinder Heads, titanium intake valves, stainless exhaust valves, PAC Lift dual valvesprings, custom Manton pushrods, COMP shaft mounted rockers, Johnson short travel axel oiling link-bar lifters all hidden by a set of beautiful LS Holley Tall "LSX" Valve Covers (which eliminates the factory coil-on-cover look) All fed by a VCM OTR Intake.
The COMP double roller timing set keeps everything in sync while topping it off with a MSD Atomic Airforce intake ported by Tony Mamo at Mamo Motorsports in Valencia, CA,
Holley billet fuel rails, Fuel Injector Clinic 850cc injectors, Nick Williams 102mm polished throttle body, VCM over-the-radiator intake, DSX flex fuel sensor, American Racing 2-inch primary headers meeting up with 3-inch cat-less mids grafted to factory bimodal mufflers,
Moroso high volume oil pump ported by Specialty Performance in Alhambra, MSD Two-Step module selector, Setrab oil cooler, AFR500 V2 Wideband, and ARP hardware used throughout to keep it all from busting loose. Got it all? That is just the engine! TruCool 40k tranny cooler, stock 6l80E, FTI Billet triple disk converter, TCI flexplate, BMR driveshaft tunnel brace, factory driveshaft, and 3.42 gearset. The SS is built to perform on the street and on the track but one of Dane’s favorite things to do is to hit the button on his MSD Two-Step and throw three-foot fireballs out the tailpipe!
Keeping all that power in check is a front 6-piston Brembo conversion, with DBA 5000 Series two-piece brake rotors, DBA XP650 track performance brake pads, all routed up with Goodridge stainless steel brake lines.
Outside there is a full exterior Holden conversion including front and rear badges, front chrome blackout pieces, with blackout upper and lower window moldings. Maverick Man Carbon supplied a carbon vented hood, front carbon fiber splitter rear carbon fiber diffuser, carbon fiber fender vents, roof spoiler, ducktail spoiler and Spyder LED tailights.
The roof is painted Phantom Black Metallic to match the other black trim on the car, paint matched door handles, with the headlights DRLs, and tails tinted with dark clearcoat. Inside the cabin there is a holden airbag cover, and some LED interior lights.
That bespoke suit needed a nice set of shoes to match so Dane sourced a set of Vertini VS Forged VS09 Monoblocks in 20x9 and 20x10.5 locked down with awe inspiring KICS Monolith Lug Nuts
shod with Bridgestone RE71R 255/35R20s in the front with 295/30R20s in the rear.
Dane has obviously put his heart and soul into building this ’16 SS. And you, dear reader, have invested some serious seat time just reading about it.
He would like to give as much thanks and recognition as possible to Specialty Performance, SOS Customs, Bells Autosport, mamo Motorsports, HoldenPartsUSA, SuperBrightLEDs.com, and MSD for making this build happen. And a special thanks is needed to Maverick Man Carbon. Dane actually built a GTO and sourced a bunch of parts from Maverick Man Carbon so he was familiar with their range and quality. But their relationship blossomed when Dane met the owner of Maverick Man Carbon some years back and the two had become friends. So when Dane was hosting the 2015 SoCal Holden Quarterly Cruise Irvine, CA, and Maverick Man showed up in a decked out 2014 Chevy SS that was all it took for Dane to make the decision to build this monster. With the help of Maverick Man Carbon, Dane achieved his vision, the proof is right here and we'd say he's come a long way from that 89' Chevy Camaro!
Follow -> @hsv_lsx
Author -> Anthony Soos
Photographer -> @3psmedia
