A few years back, Mike Bowen’s shop, PowerHouse Automotive, paid lots of attention to the S197 Mustang platform and developed a turbocharger system for both the Three-Valve V8 and V6 cars that were quite well-received in the industry – that was his “something different” at the time, and he used the platform to compete in the NMRA’s Modular Muscle class.

He stepped back for a few years to concentrate on the business, but like any racer, Bowen got the itch again and started exploring his options. After looking at the costs associated with racing in a heads-up class and weighing them against the time necessary to be out of the shop to compete successfully, he picked out the NMRA‘s hottest eliminator, Coyote Stock, for its promise of restricting costs through the use of a sealed crate engine. This time around, his “something different” would be his choice of platforms – not your typical Fox-Body or New Edge Mustang. 

The car, a 1971 Ford Maverick covered in original Grabber Blue paint and found on eBay, was located just outside Birmingham, Alabama. Initially, Bowen was concerned that the paint was so chalky that the entire car would need to be repainted just to be acceptable, but once he got it back to the shop and started the cleanup and detail process he discovered that it was in fact salvageable. Although it has a few bumps, bruises, and scratches, it’s a race car, and the non-perfect paint adds to the Maverick’s character – the only modification performed is a painted-to-match carbon-fiber hood from Maverick Man Composites.

“I bought the car in October and monkeyed around with getting the engine fitted, and from January right up until Bradenton it was a full-on max-effort – I had a lot of guys lending a hand and donating time to get her done and down to Florida. Just in the two races I’ve been to, even though I haven’t performed well, I pick up a tidbit of information here and there, and I’m starting to figure out how these guys are doing it,” he explains.

There, he battled new-car bugs all weekend long, succumbing to a broken ring gear caused by rear springs that got beaten up in the trailer on the ride down and affected pinion angle, but through it all, he had a smile on his face and a positive attitude, knowing that sorting out a new car is about perseverance, not flash-in-the-pan results.

As mentioned, Coyote Stock is a sealed crate engine class, which means that nothing from the intake manifold to the oil pan can be touched in any way, shape, or form – Ford Racing Parts installs special fasteners at the factory to ensure that the competitors cannot touch any performance-enhancing items inside the engine. They even provide the NMRA with a spec tuneup that’s installed into each racer’s engine control computer at each NMRA event.

302 cubic inches of stock Ford 5.0L Coyote powerplant includes the production block, crankshaft, connecting rods, pistons, cylinder heads, camshafts, intake manifold, and throttle body. Also along for the ride are the factory ignition system that’s sold as part of the Coyote Stock Control Pack, the drive-by-wire throttle pedal, and Copperhead processor to control the whole works. Bowen put together a set of custom 304 stainless-steel stepped Tri-Y headers, a Magnaflow X-pipe, and Magnaflow mufflers to pull exhaust out of the 412-horse engine.

PowerHouse Automotive sits in the shadow of Lake Erie in Girard, Pennsylvania, and is just a stone’s throw in either direction from Erie, PA, and the Ohio state line. Winters are filled with lake-effect snow and not much time to go racing or testing. Since we shot these photos in Florida, he’s only been able to get to the track for testing once between events.

“I went testing in Columbus the weekend before the Atlanta race and broke the TKO500 that was originally in the car, and I had this brand new TKO600 sitting here, so I put it in there. It’s not ideal as it’s still fully synchronized and has fifth gear in it. This transmission is not for racing in this class as we’re turning well over 7,000 RPM and TREMEC only recommends 6,200 for it,” he says.

The plan is to source a tricked-out T-5 modified by none other than manual-transmission guru Bob Hanlon of Hanlon Motorsports for the rest of the season. Unfortunately the issues he’s found while trying to keep a street transmission humming along in a race class caused his exit from the NMRA Atlanta race in the first round with a 1-2-5 shift required to even get the transmission in gear.

A custom-built 8.8-inch rearend has been modified by PowerHouse Automotive with 4.56:1 gears and Moser spool and gundrilled 35-spline axles, while the rear suspension is built around a set of Calvert Racing‘s Split Monoleafs, Cal-Trac Bars, and AFCO Racing spring sliders controlled by a set of AFCO’s double-adjustable shocks. 

The rest of the car can be modified according to a limited set of rules, and as Bowen wasn’t building your typical Fox or New Edge Mustang chassis, special attention was needed in the engine compartment during the construction process. The engine bay was widened by cutting out four inches from the strut towers along with other modified sheetmetal to fit the wide Coyote engine into the car. Bowen added one of AJE‘s “Colt 65” K-member and control arm packages along with a set of QA1 coil-over struts and Fox Mustang spindles up front.

It looks like it fits right in, but PowerHouse Automotive did substantial work to the shock tower area to allow the wide Coyote engine enough room to slide into place.

Carriage House Engineering built a chromoly ten-point rollcage complete with 2×3-inch through-the-floor subframe connectors. The car wears a set of Aerospace Components four-piston brakes at all four corners, and perhaps the best part is that everything looks like it was installed at the factory.

From our perspective, this is without a doubt the neatest car in the entire class. Entering a new race class is always challenging, but with the help of the rest of the PowerHouse Automotive crew, along with sponsors CHE and Triangle Speed Shop, Mike Bowen has plans on putting his Maverick at the front of the NMRA’s Coyote Stock field.