While Charlie Cooper captured a fifth place finish in NMRA Edelbrock Renegade points in his 2012 Cobra Jet in 2015, he set out to make sweeping changes for 2016.

He began by purchasing multi-time champion Jason Lee’s 1999 Mustang as a rolling chassis, and hired Lee to set it up and dial it in with a small-block Ford purchased from multi-time champion John Urist and fronted by a ProCharger F1X-12.

When it was declared good to go, Cooper headed to NMCA and NMRA competition, where he ran as quick as 4.43 on his way to finishing fifth in points on the NMCA side and tenth in points on the NMRA side in 2016.

“Whereas most guys will buy a car and take two years to get it ready for the track, Charlie bought the car and wanted to take two minutes to get it ready for the track, so we hurried, even though we knew the combination wasn’t going to be the most competitive and easiest to work with in Street Outlaw,” said Lee, who, along with his PTP Racing partner Patrick Barnhill, tunes Cooper’s combination with BigStuff 3. “We spent the year trying to maximize the combination within the rules in place for blower combinations.”

In January of 2017, Lee suggested to Cooper that he change from a blower combination to a turbo, and upon agreeing, Cooper delivered his engine and car to MCRP for some work.

At the Pennsylvania-based shop, Cooper’s engine, which is built around a Dart compacted graphite block, received new rods and pistons, and his Edelbrock SC1 heads featuring port work by Race Flow Development were massaged before being reunited with his Wilson Manifolds intake.

MCRP also mounted an intercooler, fabricated the plumbing, installed the freshened engine and a 98mm Precision turbo and mated them with an M&M Transmission-built Turbo 400 and ProTorque converter before fastening on a new carbon fiber one-piece front end and doors by Schoneck Composites.

With that, the team was ready for a test session at Orlando Speed World in mid-February.

“Testing went pretty smoothly,” said Cooper. “We had a couple little hiccups, but otherwise, everything worked the way it was supposed to, and we got a couple full hits, including a 4.35, and we weren’t really trying to push anything.”

From there, they headed to the 23rd Annual Nitto NMRA Spring Break Shootout presented by Muscle Mustangs & Fast Fords, March 2-5, at Bradenton Motorsports Park in Florida, where New Jersey-based Cooper flew to a 4.38 to qualify in the second spot, and earned his first win in the series with a 4.36.

He wasn’t done there, as a week later, at the 15th Annual NMCA Muscle Car Mayhem, also at Bradenton Motorsports Park, he qualified third with a 4.47 and took another trip to the Aerospace Components Winner’s Circle with a 4.40.

Lee, who had an idea that Cooper would lay down the stout numbers that he did based on data from comparable combinations, said that Cooper’s back-to-back wins were especially commendable considering the degree of difficulty involved with going from the driver’s seat of a blower car to the driver’s seat of a turbo car.

“We were willing to do whatever we had to do to make it work, and I’m really happy with how everything has gone,” said Cooper. “I don’t like turbos, truthfully, but they make more power with my combination and you have to do what you have to do.”

“We’re learning about the turbo combination and what it wants, and we’re doing it out of the box without an owner’s manual,” said Lee. “It will take some time, but I truly believe the potential of the 98mm turbo car with the current rule set will allow for 4.20s in a maxed-out combination, and that’s what we’re trying to get to.”

Catch Cooper and his crew, including his wife, Lizzy Cooper, Ben Liedel and Alfred Noce, at the 9th Annual NMRA/NMCA All Star Nationals, April 6-9, at Atlanta Dragway, or via the event’s live feed offered on SpeedVideo right here and sponsored by Mickey Thompson, TBM Brakes, UPR Products, E3 Sparkplugs, Edelbrock, Max-Fire, Moser Engineering, and GoodGuys Rod & Custom Association.