Right after securing a 7.73 and a second place place finish in NMRA ProCharger Coyote Modified points last year, John Kauderer began making plans to put down even more power this year.

He began by purchasing a new Coyote engine and having his Forced Inductions-massaged 76mm turbo freshened before heading to the 24th Annual Nitto NMRA Spring Break Shootout in early March at Bradenton Motorsports Park in Florida. There, he posted a 7.86 to qualify in the fourth spot in his UDMC-backed 2014 Mustang Cobra Jet which has a cage by Watson Racing and rolls on BMR suspension and Mickey Thompson drag radials, but his new engine got hurt in the process.

Without missing a beat, his crew chief and tuner, Eric Holliday of Justin's Performance Center, took the car to Justin's Performance Center in Maryland to take a look at the engine.

They called me and told me how badly the engine was damaged, and we decided to move from the person who built it to Rich Groh of Rich Groh Racing, said Kauderer, who pairs his powerplant with a Turbo 400 transmission massaged by both RPM Transmissions and Proformance Racing Transmissions and a ProTorque converter. I didn't want to miss the second NMRA race of the season, which was just a few weeks later, so Rich (Groh) didn't have much time to get the new engine together, but he did it, and let me tell you, it's one hell of an engine.

Built around a Ford block, the engine has a Ford crank, Diamond pistons and Oliver rods, and it's topped with Ford heads massaged by Rich Groh and a Ford Cobra Jet intake, and as soon as it was installed into Kauderer's Mustang Cobra Jet, Holliday and his colleagues at Justin's Performance Center performed a chassis dyno, and Holliday used AEM Infinity to come up with a baseline tune.

They didn't look for killer numbers when the car was on the dyno, said Kauderer. They just wanted to get the engine broken in and lightly tuned.

Witn no time to spare, Kauderer headed to the 10th Annual NMRA/NMCA All-Star Nationals presented by Mahle Motorsports, April 5-8 at Atlanta Dragway.

I'll admit that I was afraid to step on the gas pedal because I just wanted everything to be okay with the engine and I just wanted to get down track, said Kauderer.

Not only did he get down track, he did it in 7.69 seconds to qualify in the second spot, and he picked up to a 7.60 to win the first round of eliminations. He followed that with a 7.61 to win the second round of eliminations, and after losing traction in the final round, he locked in a runner-up finish.

I was elated, and we achieved those numbers even though we haven't really pushed the engine yet, said Kauderer. It was a great weekend for us.

Now, Kauderer and his crew, including Holliday, Ronnie Reynolds and Charlies Barnes, are preparing for the 18th Annual CJ Pony Parts NMRA Ford Motorsport Nationals presented by Vortech, this weekend, May 3-6, at Maple Grove Raceway in Pennsylvania.

We will start the weekend as-is, and then turn up the tune and go from there, said Kauderer. It should be good.