Kurt Busch’s ’70 Dodge Challenger Gets Some One-Off Experimental Engine Work

We’ve been tediously following the Kurt Busch drag racing adventures ever since we first caught wind of his ’70 Challenger build. Originally destined for the True Street class.  Busch had a little fun at the Gatornationals in Super Gas, despite being put on the trailer first round. As if high 9’s and a touch over 1100 Horsepower weren’t enough to feed his drag racing craving, a little bit of experimental engine work is being done to not only improve the engine’s reliability, but to inevitably allow for a bit more power.

Checkout Yellowbullet to get a peek at Busch’s sweet new custom Wilson Manifolds intake.

Busch’s new Wilson Manifolds piece makes his 8 injector setup a thing of the past, upgrading to a 16 injector style on his 101mm turbo monster Mopar. While the intake could be a topic of discussion in itself, there’s a few more significant changes going on in the modern Hemi’s engine bay. Thus far, head-lifting, head gasket failures and just general unreliability have plagued the new Hemi block when they start to get up into the 12-1300 Horsepower arena. In hopes of curbing these problems, a few experimental Hemi block packages have been devised recently, in aluminum form no less.

The HEMI currently being put together for Kurt’s Chally has a Dailey Engineering integral dry-sump oil pump setup instead of the wet-sump system that was previously in use. Aside from that, a few hush-hush improvements to the block oiling system have also been done. Once it’s all back together, it’ll be time to crank the boost up to 30 PSI and let her rip. Despite his over-exasperating NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule and other sponsor obligations, Kurt hopes to get the Challenger back out to the 1/4 mile to enjoy his new-found joy – drag racing.

{ad:HHP}