Being different in racing can be a good thing, it can lead to great technical innovation, championships, or new class records.   Drag racing has a long and storied history of racers being different in how they attack the 1320. Tommy Ivo created a twin engine front engine dragster, “Big Daddy” Don Garlits helped pioneer the rear engine Top Fuel dragster, and Bill “Grumpy” Jenkins gave us countless innovations by being different. And now, Chad Davis and his Wavelengths Enterprises team carry the flag of different with their VW-powered dragster — a small cubic inch dragster that’s knocking on the door of the six-second zone and sounding plenty angry while doing it.

Your typical Volkswagen and Audi motor is mechanical work of art. These engines pack a serious punch for having a small displacement and cylinder count. You’ll usually see these motors with multiple valves per cylinder, overhead cams, direct injection, and a displacement below 200 cubic inches. Audi does make some pretty impressive larger V8, V10, and V12 engines that are used in different cars, and in their LeMans winning race program, as well.

Taking a small displacement motor and running low 7’s is no easy task, that’s why Chad enlisted the help of Shane Tecklenburg  to get the VW dragster up to full song.  Shane is an accomplished tuner and builder who has helped customers all over the world with “outside the box” combinations in all forms of racing. The Wavelengths Enterprises dragster is powered by a  16-valve, 2.0L, inline 4-cylinder VW production engine — the very motor that came in some Audi production cars. Providing the boost to the engine is a single Garrett GTX 88mm turbo, while the fuel flow is handled by  a set of eight Injector Dynamics ID2000 injections, controlled by a Motech M800 engine management system.  Check out the video of this VW dragster building some serious boost, then running a 7.05 at over 200 MPH to become the world’s quickest VW production engine powered vehicle.