This is Tim Meagher's Street Race car. Take away the stickers, and you have a vicious street car executing 60-foot times in the 1.30s on a 275/50-15 BFG drag-radial tire.
That Reagan guy called it trickle-down economics. In political rhetoric, it's about feeding an industry resources and taking advantage of the natural tendency of ideas and hardware to spread from the industry guys down to the man on the street. In Car Craft terms, it means watching the racer who blows things up for the sake of winning and adapting his trial-and-error knowledge to the street machine. Since the racer is going to push as hard as he can, he is also going to find inventive ways to use the latest technology. So you can look at the Car Craft Magazine Street Race class as kind of an R&D facility for your street machine. Pay attention, you are going to learn something.
The interior is from a '90 Mustang, including the airbag (not hooked up). On the center console is the control panel for the Mallory ignition system (the red box), and the box below it activates the boost control. Data-logging is not allowed in the Street Race class. The bottle contains CO2 that controls the wastegate.
Street Race was developed in connection with Car Craft for stock-appearing vehicles running DOT-legal street slicks or drag-radial tires. Participants are allowed EFI or carbureted engines that are nitrous equipped, supercharged, or turbocharged. Small-blocks are allowed a maximum of 415 ci and big-block engines up to 490 inches. Each car starts with a base weight determined by the size of the engine, the type of power-adder, and the type of tire used. For example, a turbocharged car must be limited to 360 inches and weigh at least 3,300 pounds. If you want to add an intercooler, add 100 pounds, if you want to run an aftermarket fuel-injection controller, you must add 50 pounds. You also can take off 100 pounds for running DOT drag radials to even it out.
Racers are required to use mufflers and can't alter the bodies aside from adding better hoods, and the engines need to run on gasoline. Nitrous guys can only use a single-plate system for carbs or a single-nozzle for injection; no foggers or timers are allowed, and you have to run approved aftermarket cylinder heads. Sound like a street machine? Stick shifts are allowed as long as you pull the handle yourself, but most of the guys are running some version of the Powerglide. So anyone who can bolt on a set of heads and throw a shifter can enter the field that is a mix of turbos, nitrous, and supercharged small-blocks.
The turbo idea came from the fact that Tim and his cronies have all owned 9-second street cars at one time. All of them turbo. Everyone told Tim a turbo wouldn't work in the NMCA, so they decided to try it. The Dart block is essentially a 347 that is 0.090 over for 357 inches with 218cc Victor Jr. heads and a Trick Flow TFS R intake manifold. The roller cam is class-limited to 0.555 lift at the valve; the duration is a secret. It makes 850 hp at 6,800 and 780 lb-ft at 5,400.
What all this means is currently, the ultimate combination for a drag-racing street machine is something like Tim Meagher's '81 Mustang that runs 9.10s all day long with a 357-inch small-block and a turbocharger. He's the '06 NMCA Street Race Points Champion. Check out this sick combo he used to dominate the class.
The Rules
Points and weight penalties conspire to keep things on the level in the Street Race class. The NMCA drops two races from the points average, so it's OK if you can't make every race. The association also adds 20 pounds to the total weight of the winner before the next event, and the weight is cumulative, so fast guys can get pretty fat and slow by the end of the season. The weights are reset for the next year. To join the fun visit fasteststreetcar.com or call 714/444-2426.
The Competition
The other guy who could have taken the crown was Larry Hourcle in his Vortech supercharged '88 Mustang. All he had to do was set the track record, qualify No. 1, and win every round. Unfortunately, the small-block dropped a valve in an early round and put him on the trailer
Casey Upton wired the dual Powermaster batteries. The Mustang uses two batteries run in series through a 16-volt system to keep up with all the electronics. The fuel cell and the intercooler tank are both hand-fabbed and are actually separate and do not share a wall. The electric pump is for pumping ice water to the intercooler. |  |
Tim bought an '81 Mustang shell to build a really fast street car, and that year was considered pre-emissions at the time. He also found a '90 in the junkyard for parts. They took every piece of the car down to bare metal before painting it. The cowl is from Cervini | 
Early in the season, Tim and the crew blew up a turbo and an engine. Thinking they were out for good, they showed up in Ohio and found out that the NMCA automatically drops two of the races. Back in the game, Tim dominated for the rest of the season. |
Job Spetter at Turbo People of New York did the math and prepped the Precision turbo. It measures 72 mm tip-to tip on the impeller wheel per the rules. There is no restriction on the exhaust wheel. The fabrication of the stainless tubes was performed by Chris Thatcher in three days. | 
Plugged into the back of the HKS 60mm wastegate is a MAP sensor that provides feedback to the AMS 1000 boost controller. A 6-pound spring can produce around 12 pounds of boost with another 1-5 pounds being added by a charge of CO2 through the black tube on the back of the gate for a total of 17 pounds. The boost pressure can be dialed using the controller in the car, depending on the track conditions. |