Occasionally when you’re walking the halls of the PRI show, you feel like everything that can be imagined has been tried on the racetrack by somebody at some point, with varying degrees of success. Drag racing has been an especially fertile ground for innovations (and quite a few dead ends): altered wheelbase cars, straight-axle gassers, slingshot dragsters, twin and four engine cars, and even jets have all had their day in the sun.
One particular branch of the drag racing family tree that flourished, then faded, was the sport compact/import scene. While there’s still plenty of Honda, Mitsubishi, and Toyota grassroots racing going on, it’s unlikely we’ll see another serious 1,400 horsepower front wheel drive drag car built. The highly unnatural act of making a FWD car run sevens at 200+ MPH in the quarter mile was certainly an accomplishment (in fact more people have walked on the moon than have earned a 7-second FWD timeslip), but putting that same kind of high-winding small displacement engine in a proven style of chassis is a better way of running quick.
That’s where this rail, on display in the BorgWarner booth at this year’s PRI show, comes in. Built around a 2008 250-inch dragster frame built by Ken’s Kustom Chassis and powered by a Mitsubishi 4G63 engine displacing just 125 cubic inches, this car has run 6.95 at 193 MPH in the quarter, and holds the NHRA I/D record with a 4.56 at 155 in the 1/8 mile. All up weight for the combination? A feathery 1,500 pounds.
That 4G63 is the same basic powerplant that motivated the Mitsubishi Eclipse, Eagle Talon, and Plymouth Laser, as well as the respected Mitsubishi EVO. Of course in those cars, it wasn’t backed by a Powerglide transmission or boosted with a BorgWarner AirWerks S400SX-10587 turbo compressing air spiked with methanol from 14(!) 1600cc injectors.
While not everyone is a fan of import/sport compact drag racing, you have to give credit where credit is due and admire just how much power and speed it’s possible to squeeze from a handful of cubic inches with a little help from the right turbocharger…
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