Naturally-Aspirated Shootout - Natural Causes

Justin Burcham
Crownsville, MD
'93 Cobra

Known for his wicked-fast Mustangs, Justin Burcham of JPC Racing brought a horse of a different color to the N/A shootout--the NMRA-legal Factory Stock '93 Cobra clone owned by Mike Washington. While Mike looked on, the much lighter Justin dumped the clutch and rowed the gearbox to a Third-Place finish. Before we get into the details of the Fox-body, a bit of background information on the class this car was built for will not only serve to inform, but to amaze.

Factory Stock is designed for 302 or 4.6L engines, with a maximum displacement of 313 ci. Only original-manufacturer cylinder heads are allowed, and they can't be ported (unless they are Two-Valve heads). Throw in a camshaft requirement of a max valve lift of 0.480 inch, and you can see that those fancy aluminum heads and whopping camshafts are not allowed between the shock towers. What that basically means is that Justin had to go as fast as possible with a stock-spec cam and E7 heads.

Looking for maximum performance and a 10-second timeslip, however, we found out that Justin and Mike made some alterations for our event, effectively taking it out of true Factory Stock trim. "We changed the car around a bit to try and get it into the 10s," Justin says. "We put on a pair of slicks and took 100 pounds out of the car. If we had more time between the NMRA race in Georgia and the day of the shootout, we probably could've lightened the car a bit more and gotten closer to a high 10."

Knowing that makes Justin's 11.10/120-mph blast that much more impressive. After standing the car up high on his first crack at things, he aired up the tires, raised the rpm chip to the limit, and got the car to whoa down enough to spend the entire day in the low-11.1-second zone. "The car honestly could have used a bit more gear," Justin says, "but we're happy with how things turned out." Who needs aluminum heads, right?