Harringtons Ratcheting Up Their High-Horsepower Racing Program

Chris and Jeff Harrington are passionate about their racing program, and that shows with every turn of the wrench and with every trip down a well-prepared race track in their 1992 Mustang.

With their father and crew chief, also named Jeff, by their side, the Michigan-based brothers who share seat time in their car accomplished a lot in Mickey Thompson Radial Wars in the defunct NMCA series and Outlaw 10.5 at Darana Dragway in Michigan over the years. While they were enjoying even more success in Pro 275 at Darana Dragway in Michigan for the past four years, change is on the horizon.

“We were running pretty well with our 430 cubic-inch small-block Ford, which we built with MBE heads and twin Garrett GTX 94mm turbos, while working on our chassis set-up, and we ran 3.91 at 199 mph on Mickey Thomson 275 Radial Pro tires,” said Chris. “We had planned to continue competing in Pro 275, but the class is not being brought back this year.”

The Harringtons, whose car also features a Rossler Turbo 400 two-speed transmission and a rear end built by Marty Merillat with a 10-inch floater housing, are now getting their hot rod ready to race in the popular 275 ranks at various tracks across the country, and in Door Mod, a new category at Darana Dragway in Michigan. Door Mod is for racers with door cars who previously campaigned, or currently campaign, their cars in Pro Mod, Outlaw 10.5, Radial vs. The World, Pro 275, Top Sportsman, and other categories. Racers in the 16-car qualified field will leave the starting line with a .400 Pro Tree and go all-out on the eighth-mile to the finish line.

“We are replacing the factory frame rails and getting rid of the factory K-member, and we are also updating and replacing the original single rails to make the chassis a true double frame rail setup,” said Chris. “The chassis will be far stiffer, and the engine will be set back some more, so we are fabricating a new firewall, and it is all getting reworked in there. We are down to the inner frame rails, and it is a complete rebuild from there. We are also going with a new Strange Ultra Strut system in the front of the car. Our good friend, Jeremy Salewsky, who has been helping us for ten years and got the racing bug from us, is helping us on this, and we are doing it in his barn, which we helped him rebuild after a recent fire, so that makes this even more special.”

All of those changes will help welcome a new BAE Hemi engine, which previously powered the Wolverine II Pro Mod Camaro made famous by Matt Zimmerman and Tim Slavens. It features Brodix 10X heads and a Thompson Motorsports intake, and the Harringtons will pair it with twin Garrett GTX 98mm turbos.

“We ran our small-block Ford engine for a very long time, and it was really good to us, and we made good power with it and did well with it, but we have now reached our limitations with it,” said Chris. “If we turned it up, we would have bottom-end issues, and we don’t want to push that at a time when we are looking for even more horsepower along with reliability. We like the BAE Hemi platform a lot. It is well-known, and it is easy to get parts for it. On top of that, we trusted that this engine was ready to go since it was in the Wolverine II Pro Mod Camaro, and Bill Riddle, who runs in PDRA Pro Street, is helping us to tear the BAE Hemi engine down, to help us get familiar with the HEMI platform and ensure it will be ready to go.”

As the primary tuner for the combination, Chris will use a Haltech Nexus R5 vehicle control unit to put a base tune on the car, before enhancing the tune with dyno time with Joe Oplawski of Hyperacktive Performance Solutions.

As always, Chris and Jeff will split their time behind the wheel of the car that they know so well, and they have a shared set of goals they want to accomplish with the new combination, which surprised some fans who have come to know them as diehard small-block Ford racers.

“We are really excited to get back to the track and see what we can do with this new engine,” said Chris. “We will need to run well into the 3.70s in the eighth-mile to be competitive in the new Door Mod class at Darana Dragway in Michigan and in 275 at various tracks, but we are focused on doing what we need to do to make that happen.”