We reported back in March that Tony Hobson had decided to move from NMRA Turbo Coyote Shootout to Edelbrock Renegade, and had mapped out a route to ready his 2014 Mustang GT for the single power-adder and small-block category.
The first stop was swapping his Precision 86/85 turbo with a 76mm Precision turbo to complement his Rich Groh Racing 5.0 engine, which was built on a stock block with Rich Groh Racing sleeves and topped with Rich Groh Racing heads and a Cobra Jet intake.
The next stop was delivering the car to Starting Line Motorsports, where its ten-point chrome moly cage was replaced with a 25.5 chrome moly cage and where it was set up for the turbo, which faces forward. A Transmission Specialties Powerglide and M&M Transmissions converter were put into place under the car which features a Moser Engineering M9 rearend and rolls on double-adjustable Viking Performance rear shocks, Strange front shocks and Mickey Thompson Street Radial Pros.
Kevin MacDonald used AEM Infinity to design a fresh tune at Justin's Performance Center (JPC), and Eric Holliday agreed to in his words tinker with the tune at upcoming races.
When work on the car was wrapped up, and everyone involved was raring to see what it would run, Hobson, who was tied up at his job, gave his blessing to Holliday and fellow driver Ronnie Reynolds, a tech for JPC, to take his prized possession to Capitol Raceway in Maryland to dial it in.
We ran the car to the eighth-mile rather than the quarter-mile, since it's Tony's car and we didn't want to wreck it, and it went well, said Holliday, who tuned the car while Reynolds drove it. We made three passes and went a best of 5.06 at 142 mph, which we felt was pretty good considering it's a new combination.
Holliday said the combination is making the power he and car owner Hobson wanted it to make, but they'll further finesse the tune to apply more power in the 60 and 330 foot marks before diving in to compete in the class where the current records are the 7.40 and 187 mph held by Aaron Bates.
I don't expect Tony to win any races in Renegade this year because he's new to the class, but we'll begin to make more power, and we'll have something for the blower cars soon, said Holliday.
See St. Louis, Missouri-based Hobson in action at the 11th Annual Nitto Tire NMRA/NMCA Super Bowl of Street Legal Drag Racing, July 28-31, 2016 at Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, Illinois.
We ran the car to the eighth-mile rather than the quarter-mile, since it's Tony's car and we didn't want to wreck it, and it went well, said Holliday, who tuned the car while Reynolds drove it. We made three passes and went a best of 5.06 at 142 mph, which we felt was pretty good considering it's a new combination.
Holliday said the combination is making the power he and car owner Hobson wanted it to make, but they'll further finesse the tune to apply more power in the 60 and 330 foot marks before diving in to compete in the class where the current records are the 7.40 and 187 mph held by Aaron Bates.
I don't expect Tony to win any races in Renegade this year because he's new to the class, but we'll begin to make more power, and we'll have something for the blower cars soon, said Holliday.
See St. Louis, Missouri-based Hobson in action at the 11th Annual Nitto Tire NMRA/NMCA Super Bowl of Street Legal Drag Racing, July 28-31, 2016 at Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, Illinois.