By Douglas R. Glad
photographer: Douglas R. Glad
427CI Small-Block Ford, 2,300 On Big Boost
Jim Mill, Horseshoe Lake, AR
'The mystery cam is mid-600 lift around a lot of duration-a lot.
We had to push through the crowd to get a shot at Jim Mill's super-spooled '95 Cobra Outlaw Drag Radial car. We caught him practicing at the NMCA finals in Memphis late last year, clicking off shrieking 7.80s at around 200 mph on 325/50R15 M/T ET Drag Radials with stock suspension and a 3,480-pound race weight. The chassis was a roller from a single-turbo Outlaw 10.5 effort, when Jim and his reprobate friends got ahold of it with the idea that if one turbo was good, two would be better. Boost is radical, boost is good.
Hot
The hot side twins are Precision GT4788 turbos that produce about 35 pounds of boost and are controlled by an AMS 1000 controller. The headers are 171/48 primary tubes with a handmade 3-inch collector.
Huge Heads
The AN fitting jabbed into the front of the Brodix BF-202 heads allows the combustion area to be cooled first. The heads have huge 2.180 intake and 1.600 exhaust valves and flow around 330 cfm at 0.500. They're too huge for your 5.0 Mustang unless you are boosting it with 30 pounds of pressure.
Cooler
The radiator was sitting lower than the engine, so it was cut apart, completely resealed, and hooked to a remote reservoir mounted high enough so the cooling system could be burped.
Iron Eagle
The block is a Dart Iron Eagle 427 with a 4.125 bore and 4.00 stroke. The rotator has an Eagle crank with Bill Miller 6.200-inch aluminum rods and Diamond pistons. The static compression ratio is a secret plus a lot of boost.
Cheap
The zillion dollars worth of race-car engine wears a set of carbon-fiber valve covers that Jim bought on eBay for $85.
MSD Triggers
To use the MSD Pro Billet distributor with the FAST system required that seven of the eight reluctor wheel tabs be cut off so the distributor can act as a cam-position sensor in conjunction with the crank sensor to fire the ignition. The engine plate is from Skinny Kid Race Cars.
Elbow
The elbow bolts to the flange on the Edelbrock Super Victor manifold and is welded on the other end to the throttle body that feeds the intercooler in the back seat of the car. There are two sets of 160-pound injectors. Jim is racing on one set and saving the other set for "growth." The rail is controlled by a FAST system.
Load The Gat
The ProCharger race blow-off valve is the biggest one they make.
Cold
The cold side is all handformed 4-inch aluminum that runs through the firewall and into the PT 3000 intercooler that takes up the back seat. The V-band clamps are both stronger and easier to work with than ordinary hose clamps.