Instead of turbocharging the RX-7, he traded it in for a '90 Nissan 300Z and stuffed a turbocharged V-6 Buick Grand National motor in it. "That car, street racing, must've been a 10.80 car at around 133 mph," he says. "I was destroying everything, including Porsches. I remember saying to myself I don't want a Porsche. The shifting on it sucks, and the car's not that fast. It's [only] fast when you get the boost, but it's not fast shifting, so by the time you get the gear on, I'm already finishing the Mile."
That's the Mile with a capital M, a wavy stretch of road on the Westside Highway on the outskirts of New York City, from the Dykeman on-ramp to Exit 14-15 for Riverside Drive/George Washington Bridge/Cross Bronx Expressway, approximately a mile-and-a-half, ending with a slight bend to the left. Since the late '80s, it has been the proving grounds for every make and model of street-race car. With that much room to roam, racers reach speeds upward of 160 mph at the finish. Bets range up to $15,000 per race. "You need to go to the Mile to see who's got it, and who doesn't," says Eric Kozeluh of Performance Factory and former Mile spectator. "If you can't run your sh-- on the Mile, then you better not bother running the quarter-mile."
The Mile is where Bello earned his stripes, first with the 300Z, then later with the Porsche. He beat everything and became an underground legend. "He was untouchable," recalls Kozeluh. "He must've been running a six-speed tranny and going well over 200 mph. That was painfully obvious."
But soon after recording his best track time of 9.30 at the '94 Pan American Nationals, he put the 300Z into a wall at Atco ("I ran a 9.80 sliding through the traps sideways.") and went on the hunt for his fourth project. He gave Porsche another shot and tested a '94-model 911. To his surprise, he liked it. "I couldn't believe how it shifted. It shifted like a Japanese car. The power band was strong. The shifting on it was like driving my Mazda. I said That's it; this is the car I want; this car has got potential."
But there was one bite-sized problem: Prior to buying the 911, Bello had never tuned a Porsche. "I was actually scared of the motor," he admits. "But I knew an engine's an engine when you break it down. So, I just studied the engine a little more. I got a couple of books on it. And got the car to where it is now."
Bello makes it sound so easy--jumping from VW to Mazda to GM to Porsche--but few tuners have done what he's done. So, with his 911 comfortably settled in single digits, he is in uncharted territory. No books can guide him. No person can advise him. The best Porsche tuners in the world aren't making as much horsepower to the wheels. The only source of information for him right now is a blue notebook he keeps on a shelf in his apartment. In it are sketches and diagrams, brainstorms from eclectic sources. "I don't follow Porsche. I've seen what they've done," he says. Indeed, Ruf, the legendary Porsche tuner in Germany, hasn't come close to generating the same level of horsepower (albeit, Ruf doesn't build drag cars). "What guides me the most now are the Formula 1 cars. I know the amount of money that goes into those cars and that's what I follow. Any type of information you want, you go to those cars. They've done it all."
So, that's his equation: one half research and one half common sense. Now, he's relying more on the latter to take him further. But just how much is there left to go on a rear-engine/rear-wheel-drive car with such a short wheelbase?
"I'm just trying to break an 8.50 or an 8.60, and I think the potential ends right there," he says. "So, that's the goal. I don't think there's much more to go after that. If I make more horsepower, I think I'm going to split the crank in half. I'm being realistic. Even right now the car is starting to get real twitchy."