Going class or index racing can be a killer way to get your speed fix and be involved in tight competition, without actually racing heads-up. To be successful in the E.T. racing world you have to be a lumberjack on the tree and be a thief at the stripe to get that win light. But another part of the class racing equation is the combination you’re running and how well you have it dialed in, because performance matters in this game, and many racers stick with what they know. And that’s what Australian Darryl Marsh has done, taking a tried-and-true Altered chassis and mating it with some new school import power in the form of a twin turbo 2JZ to terrorize the EE/AA 7.25 Index class in the Australian National Drag Racing Association.
The Altered chassis with a fiberglass body (original steel at an earlier point in time) has been around since the golden age of drag racing. Taking a tube chassis and putting a body on it to make it track legal was how the whole idea of the altered was born. From there it just got wilder, spawning the always exciting fuel Altereds that had nitro-burning power, supercharged power plants between the pipes. Now you see Altereds across the globe, just like this one, in bracket and index trim running in a variety of classes.
Marsh has built his ride right starting with a 125-inch chromoly chassis. The Toyota 2JZ power plant is built to make some serious power with top shelf parts. Inside the 3.0 liter engine is a stock crank that rotates Arias pistons that are connected to a set of Crower rods. Ashford Racing Engines provides the head and a set of adjustable cam gears go with the 275-degree cams. A Hypertune intake feeds on boost provided by a pair of T66 Turbonetics snails on a 50mm GFB Wastegate, and an AMS 1000 controls all the boost and estimated 1,000 horsepower the engine makes. Putting all of that power to the ground is a QLD Powerglide transmission and Mark Williams 9-inch rear stuffed with 4.11 gears.
In this video from Drag Videos Australia you can see just how nasty Marsh’s car is. Right off the first hit the 2JZ obliterates the big Goodyear’s and on the second pass gets fussy at the top end, causing Marsh to lift and coast to just an 8.50.