After starting his racing career back in the late 1980s with a Ford Mustang and then progressing to some pretty quick GM products, Jimmy Dolan was ready for something different to go fast in. To quench that thirst for speed, and to be different Dolan decided he would take his love of the Ford Lighting truck platform and use it to create “The Yetti”, a twin turbo monster that’s living up to its name.
The Yetti build started innocently enough as just a simple tune on the blower motor at Total Induction Tuning Solutions, but things got serious pretty quick. “After seeing shop owner Paul Albino’s turbo truck, I was sold on the combination. Before I knew it, the truck went from a basic street driver to an all-out race truck,” Dolan says.
To start things off, Dolan sent the truck to Paul McDermott at Outlaw Racecraft to get all the chassis work done for the pending powerplant upgrades. Not wanting a Ford Mod motor for the Yetti, Dolan reached out to Jon Bennett at Bennett Racing Engines to get a 417 cubic inch small-block Ford engine built. A pair of 88mm Bullseye Power Turbos create the boost, while a Turbo 400 transmission from Mark Micke at M&M Transmission puts the power down.
For Dolan, the choice to go a different route was pretty easy, as he explains. “When you go to the track there are so many Mustangs, so I wanted something different. Making a car go fast is pretty cool, but making a big truck go fast is badass, in my opinion.” The truck recently went a new personal best in the 1/8-mile, running a 4.99 at 147 mph and winning the Mid Atlantic Street Outlaws race, all while weighing in at a hefty 3,900 pounds!
Not being one to settle, Dolan is looking to push the truck even harder in the future for better performance at the track. “Our next goal is to put the Yetti on a diet, get some steel off of it, and add some fiberglass from GTS Fiberglass this summer. We’re looking forward to coming out in September with a lighter and faster truck that will go deeper in the fours and maybe get us closer to low sevens in the 1/4-mile,” Dolan says.