The journey to get Project Number Cruncher ready for the track took longer than expected, but it was totally worth it. We fought an unsafe roll cage, new car blues, and other problems before the LS-powered Firebird started making licks at the track. LS Fest was our first big event and the car did well, so we decided to make the trip to Indianapolis Raceway Park to participate in the 2022 NMCA World Street Finals and wrap our season in style.

Based on how Project Number Cruncher performed at LS Fest, we decided to try our hand in the Street King class at the NMCA event. The big x-factor was the weather conditions for the NMCA event. At LS Fest, we were dealt a hand of high humidity, heat, and lots of water grains in the air, but the NMCA finale was the exact opposite. Temperatures during the day were close to 20 degrees cooler and the air was ripe for making horsepower.

The first time trial didn’t go as planned and there was an obvious performance issue. After a lighting-quick spark plug swap, Project Number Cruncher ran a new best of 9.85 at almost 140 mph. That was a great run, but way too spicy for the 10.00 index we were running under. The rest of our time trial runs and qualifying was spent trying to figure out how to slow the car down to get as close to the index as possible. We eventually figured it out and ran a 10.01 during the first round of eliminations, the only problem was the .024 red light. That’s racing…it was a great event and we learned a ton about the car.

Now, the offseason plan for Project Number Cruncher is to address a few issues that we discovered during our thrash to get to the track. We’re also going to work on cleaning up the wiring a bit and adding some sensors. Make sure you check out the Project Number Cruncher page on Dragzine right here. You can see the entire build and get caught up on what we’ve done to the car so far.

Special thanks to SAM Tech, Dart, BMR Suspension K1 Technologies, Wiseco Pistons, MAHLE Motorsport, ARP, Summit Racing Equipment, Total Seal Piston Rings, Melling, Moroso, COMP Cams, Manley, PAC Springs, Trend, T&D Machine Products, Wilson Manifolds, FuelTech, Fuel Injector Clinic, MSD, FTI, American Racing Headers, Holley, Strange Engineering, Meziere Enterprises, ATI Performance Products, Boninfante, Palko Motor Sports, Kontras Performance, and MundyTuned.