The Starting Line: Classic Drag T-Bird Is Powered By A Special Y-Block Ford, Plus A Wild Supercharged Geo Tracker!

What is your reason for pursuing the sport of drag racing? Is it the accomplishment of quicker time slips, the satisfaction of winning, or possibly the technical pursuit of perfection? Whatever trips your trigger, don't let anyone put you down for your passion.

We can sit here all day and pass judgement on hitting little white balls around a grassy field or spending endless day sitting in a boat staring at a bobber. Whatever you find joy in, whatever your reason, never put down others' passions and always follow yours.

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As a fan of all things Ford, Southern California's Joe Sabi created this unique steel body 1956 Thunderbird with an equally rare powerplant. Between the front fenders is a 292 cubic-inch Ford Y-block featuring a set of aftermarket aluminum Mummert cylinder heads and a special Mummert tunnel ram intake manifold.

Accounting for the amount of 'rip" the Y-block puts on the track, the engine was developed and dynoed at over 600-naturally aspirated horsepower.

Sabi's partner on the car, Joe Cebe, turned to his friend and fellow Ford guy, Todd Ferguson, to develop a very unique and historical batch of components to build this Y-block. The guys claim they use the Y-block because they are a little stronger than the 312 blocks. The engine's most notable feature is a set of aftermarket aluminum Mummert cylinder heads, and a special Mummert tunnel ram intake manifold, of which there were reportedly only 10 ever produced.

The body is original Thunderbird iron, except for the hood, trunk lid, and doors. Cebe originally constructed the chassis and roll cage, but increasing power levels demanded suspension improvements. Cebe tapped RJ Shimrock to convert the rear suspension from a ladder bar to a four-link design.

"The Ford Y-blocks were produced from 1954 to 1964 with some of the strongest truck blocks created in the later years of that era," Ferguson explained. "They were Ford's front-line engine designs equipped with mushroom lifters. These lifters must be installed before the cam."

The package made 609 horsepower on the dyno, and has propelled the T-Bird to a best elapsed time of 5.95 seconds in the 1/8-mile.

The guys are currently building a Pro Modified-style race car, and they will also set it up with a forced induction Y-block and see what results they can achieve compared to their normally aspirated T-bird.

See the story and interview video here.

Air Flow Research's Black Hawk Mopar Gen III Hemi Cylinder Heads offer Hemi owners two new versions of a new clean-sheet design. Manufactured from A356 aluminum using permanent-mold technology, the AFR Blackhawk Hemi heads can meet the boost and power demands of today's performance and racing engines.

"The team at AFR designed them for use with hydraulic roller camshafts up to .650 inches of lift," explains AFR's Alex George. "These Blackhawk Hemi heads will be available from AFR in three different versions."

The first AFR Hemi head is the CNC-machined design with a 224cc intake runner 2.165-inch valve. These are offered with steel retainers, PAC racing springs, plus their traditional .750-inch deck. "This particular head will take all the boost that you want to throw at it, plus this particular head flows 390 cfm at .700-inches of lift," says George.

The second Hemi head design offers similarities to the first, with the exception of a 212cc runner with a 2.125-inch valve that offers just a touch over 370 cfm on the intake at .650-inch of valve lift.

AFR also offers an as-cast version with a smaller runner. The specs for this model Hemi head include a 185cc runner with a 2.050 valve, plus the same PAC racing springs good for .600-inch lift steel retainers with three-quarter inch deck thickness.

"AFR also improved the water jacketing for enhanced cooling while retaining a minimum of .200-inch port to water jacket thickness," claims George. "Both of these CNC-finished heads are going to be very aggressive, and we are super excited to get them out on some Hemis and the general market. They are designed for use with hydraulic roller camshafts up to .650" of lift, in both the CNC-finished or the as-cast head designs."

“Big things come in small packages,” or “build ‘em light and wind ‘em tight.” There are scores of cliché sayings out there that fit with what Lex Barbone has achieved with her 1995 Geo Tracker.

Barbone’s first experience with racing was with her uncle at local dirt tracks. Though her enthusiasm turned towards drag racing after meeting her husband, Vinny, she always held the racing spirit.

“My husband wanted me to try racing at the track, and I fell in love with it. There’s just something about going to the track and racing that’s a lot of fun for me,” Lex says.

Her top goal when Barbone decided to construct her own race car was to build something different from anything else at the track. While clicking around a Geo Tracker message board, she found her project. She purchased her project in 2015, and the build began.

Under the Tracker hood:

A 355 cubic inch small-block Chevy
Edelbrock aluminum heads
Speed Pro pistons, Comp Cams valvetrain
Roots blower
Rossler-built TH350 transmission
Perfect Converter Company torque converter

With an 8.50-certified roll cage and custom front suspension that uses shocks from QA1, you quickly learn that there are little or no “off the shelf” components for a Tracker. A full Fox body Mustang rear suspension works with a 9-inch differential that uses parts from Strange Engineering. The Tracker rolls on a full set of Race Star Industry wheels and Mickey Thompson tires.

The Tracker had run a best of 8.92 at 158 when it used nitrous as a power adder and has been 10.50s while dialing in the new supercharged engine. Traditional hot rodding doesn’t have a template. There’s something ultra-cool about a build like this that shies away from the norm.

Barbone tells us, “The best thing about the Tracker is that kids just love it. It’s awesome to see the smiles it puts on kids’ faces. People are surprised when I tell them how smoothly it drives on the track and the street. We built it to be a driver and plan on going to more drag-and-drive events, plus a few index races in the future.”

Click here for the complete article.

An old adage says a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and the same could be said about the automobile drivetrain. One of the drivetrain's most critical and overlooked parts is often the driveshaft.

Like the engine, transmission, and rearend, the driveshaft is only as strong as its weakest part. Strange Engineering driveshafts are custom-made using the finest tubing, weld ends, transmission yokes, and universal joints. All these components are carefully constructed and balanced—holding each Strange Engineering driveshaft to within eight-thousandths of an inch of runout.

Strange Engineering is highly regarded for its racing differential products. Still, just forward of its rearends, their craftsmen also manufacture another piece of critical racecar hardware: the seamless chrome-moly driveshaft.

The driveshaft lines from Strange are available exclusively in seamless chrome-moly in thicknesses of 3-inch or 3.5-inch (outside diameter.) Strange driveshafts are sold with or without transmission or pinion yokes, but transmission yokes are required for balancing.

The pinion yoke options include Strange chrome-moly or Spicer HD in 1350 or 1480-Series sizes. Transmission yokes are available for a wealth of General Motors, Ford, Mopar, Doug Nash, Liberty, and Lenco output shafts. Every driveshaft is fully TIG-welded and professionally balanced.

Driveshaft length and peak RPM must be considered when determining desired driveshaft thickness. Strange driveshaft tubing is made from seamless, chrome-moly tubing. All Strange driveshafts are heat-treated to ensure maximum durability and longevity. Shafts are available with SFI Certification if your class requires it.

Specifying a racing driveshaft could leave you with more questions than answers – unless you know about Strange driveshafts. A few simple measurements and a conversation with a Strange experienced representative can have you on the way to a perfectly balanced custom unit.

Typically, when a challenge is thrown out there, it is one party challenging another. In the case of Toyota and the Toyota Motorsports Garage team, they challenged themselves to see what they could squeeze out of the popular Toyota Supra for the dragstrip with an additional modification budget of 10,000 bucks.

The team decided to apply this effort to not one but two matching 2020 GR Supra 3.0 sports cars. The goal was to increase power by 30 to 40 percent. Each car started with the stock 3.0-liter, inline six-cylinder engine.

The upgrades included:

Pure Turbo single turbocharger
Two CSF high-performance intercoolers
Titan Motorsports cat-less downpipe and 3.5-inch exhaust
Team-developed ECU tune
Stock 8-speed automatic transmission with paddle shifters
A CSF hi-performance heat exchanger and transmission cooler

Stopping these high-powered Supras is readily handled by Factory GR Supra 13.7-inch front discs with four-piston Brembo calipers and 13.0-inch rear discs, with the addition of Hawk Performance pads.

The result of all the engine modifications is a whopping 620 horsepower and 590 lb.-ft. of torque, compared to the 335 horsepower and 365 lb-ft of torque this engine makes from the factory. Toyota showed off the matching cars at the recent SEMA Show.

Power to the ground is implemented with Mickey Thompson street-legal rubber at all four corners: P305/45R17 ET Street S/S R2 compound radials on the rear, and 26×6.00R18LT Sportsman S/R radials up front were stretched over Weld Racing Belmont drag wheels.

“Our team has turned up the boost, giving fans yet another perspective of GR Supra performance through true 1/4-mile drag racers on a relatively small budget,” says Lisa Materazzo, group vice president, Toyota Division Marketing.

See the detailed Dragzine story here.