Compact cars are a double-edged sword if you’re trying to build a race car — they’re light weight and small size don’t take a whole lot of power to go fast, but the limited space to work with can limit your engine options. The majority of modern smaller cars you find in drag racing are those like the Cobalt, Cavalier and Sunfire that have been converted to rear wheel drive. The Dodge Boys Darrell Alderman and Scott Geoffrion wrecked the Pro Stock division with their small Dodge cars back in the 1990’s, and the Mopar contingent did it again years later with the Dodge Neon, but granted, those were heavily re-worked bodies meant for such a purpose. Otherwise, you don’t see too many size-deprived Chrysler products out there. But at the Street Car Takeover in Kansas City recently, the guys from 1320 Video found a 1988 Plymouth Sundance that uses a crazy mixture of parts to put down over 600 horsepower to the wheels.
To make this Sundance able to pro due that kind of power and also get it to the ground, the owner converted the car to rear wheel drive. The engine is still the stock 2.5L block and bottom end, but the mad scientist builder bolted up a 1997 Dodge Neon cylinder head for better flow. Boost for the 150 cubic inch engine comes from a 60mm turbo that came off a 2005 Dodge truck and fills the mill with up to 30 lbs. of boost. To clear everything after the rear wheel drive swap the steering rack out of a Mazda RX-7 was implemented. Keeping up with the junkyard madness of this P-Car is a 1992 five-speed Toyota Supra transmission mated to the engine with a Dodge Dakota truck bellhousing that puts the power down to a Ford nine-inch rear end.
All of these parts mixed together put down 630 horses to the wheels on full boost and propelled the car to a best of 10.60 at 130 MPH at a race weight of 3,000 lbs. Turned down to 27 lbs. of boost and having traction issues the Sundance boogied down the Heartland Park quarter mile with a 11.00 elapsed time at 130 MPH — not bad for a street car that looks bone stock and never had any business making this kind of power or running that quick.