If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em?
That’s not likely to be the case, given how far Pro Line Racing Engines and it’s turbocharged race cars have come and the kind of numbers they’ve been able to produce in the 1/8-mile; rather, it would seem that a new challenge is on the horizon.
Eric Dillard, Steve Petty, and the team at Pro Line Racing have established themselves, internationally, as the leaders in turbocharged engines and EFI and turbo tuning, but now, they’re tackling the very combination they’ve been chasing in the Pro Extreme and Outlaw Pro Modified ranks.
The Kuwait-Based Q80 Racing Team and Pro Line, who partnered to set the drag racing world on its ear with the first 3.5-second runs by a turbo car and the all-time 1/4-mile doorslammer world record, have assembled a Pro Line-built HEMI powerplant with a screw supercharger, which is controlled, most interestingly, by a FuelTech FT500 electronic fuel injection system.
The car is the very same Jerry Bickel Race Cars-built 1968 Camaro that Turky al Zafiri drove to the stunning 5.46-second, 272 mph blast last year in St. Louis. The engine itself, meanwhile, is the very first screw-blown combination to be built by the Pro Line gang notorious for their turbocharged prowess.
The Q80 team is at the Virginia Motorsports Park this week testing the new combination (along with Jose Gonzalezs’ new C7 Corvette turbo car), but as of press time, no numbers have been released. The team is planning to complete in the PDRA’s Pro Extreme category.
Photos courtesy Adnam Anaam
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