The Renegade Runner

When Mike Freedman of Tauton, Mass., first purchased his red '94 Cobra, he didn't really know what direction he wanted to go with it. He knew that he wanted to race it but didn't really know what class to compete in. After some careful planning he bit his lip and decided to try his hand out in the very-competitive Fun Ford Weekend Street Outlaw ranks. At the time, Street Outlaw racers were running in the mid-8 second range and Mike felt that this might be the class for him.

After building his Outlaw combo Mike hit the race track with mixed results. His Cobra was running in the 9-second range (with a best being a 9.50) and he really didn't know if his early decision to run Outlaw was the correct one. The car wasn't breaking parts or running poorly, but rather just not living up to his expectations.

It was about this time (early 2000) that the Fun Ford Weekend Street Renegade class caught Mike's attention. "I just couldn't believe the times that [Jim] LaRocca and [Tommy] Annunziata were running in that class," explained Freedman. "I mean, running in the low 9-second range with a hydraulic-roller camshaft is flat out amazing." (See the April '00 issue of MM&FF for full features on Jimmy and Tommy's rides.)

LaRocca is a very well-known Pro 5.0 racer who in 1999 took a real liking to the Street Renegade class and has a host of customers (out of his Performance shop in central New Jersey) that own Renegade cars such as Jeff Salvato and Joe Clamente. Jimmy and Tommy shared the driving chores on these two radical machines in 2000 and dominated the class, finishing ninth and 11th in the point standings despite only running at three events and also wound up winning a race apiece.

It wasn't long before Jimmy and Mike struck up a liking to each other and the super tuner convinced Mike that he should convert his 10,000-mile-old '94 Cobra into a Street Renegade ride. Mike agreed and his Outlaw days took a back seat so that he could concentrate on performing the necessary modifications in order to become a Renegade racer.

A New Star Is Born

It was about this time that Mike began parting with his Outlaw equipment to make room for his Renegade inventory. With the help of LaRocca, Mike assembled one of the meanest Renegade engines to ever grace the race track.

The two started out with a tried-and-true Ford Racing A-4 block that had been machined by Danny Finn of the Engine Shop in Brooklyn, N.Y. "Danny really knows what he's doing," said Mike. "The hone on the cylinders and the overall machine work is flat out awesome."

After Finn worked his magic, Jimmy and Mike began the assembly process. They stuffed the A-4 with a steel Scat Racing crankshaft and a set of bulletproof Oliver steel connecting rods that spin LaRocca-designed J&E flat-top pistons. A Canton oil pan stores 6-quarts of racing oil and a Ford Racing oil pump keeps it on the run.

"The oil pan is the only engine component left over from the Outlaw combination," stated Freedman. "Everything else was replaced right down to the engine block and heads."

Renegade rules only allow for certain cylinder heads to be used and after looking over the Fun Ford spec sheet Jimmy and Mike decided on the Edelbrock Victor Jr. castings. "You cannot use heads such as the Yates or Trick Flow "R" models but you can use the Edelbrock castings," explained LaRocca. "We have had good luck with them in the past and decided to use them on this engine buildup as well."

The Fox Lake-massaged heads house a set of 2.02-intake and 1.60-exhaust valves that are opened and closed by way of 1.7-ratio roller rocker arms. The camshaft that works with the Edelbrock heads has some major limitations. In Renegade you have to use a cam with no bigger than .550-inch valve lift and, as if that's not bad enough, you also have to use the factory roller lifters.

"In Street Renegade you have major limitations in the valvetrain area because of the stock lifters and small cams that must be used," explained LaRocca. "We tested different cams until we found one that worked best with our combination." Working with Mike's "small" camshaft is a Holley Systemax long-runner intake manifold. As with the camshaft, Fun Ford rules mandate certain intake manifolds to be used. "You must use a long-runner intake," said Jimmy. "Because of that we have chosen to run the Holley Systemax unit and have had good success with it."

Where Jimmy really shines is in the tuning of the EPEC (Extreme Performance Engine Controller) computer system. "In the old days we had nothing to help us adjust the factory computer," explained Jimmy. "Then along came the Ford Extender but now we have the EPEC and that is one reason why the performance has picked up lately."

The EPEC system is programmed with a laptop computer, but it still utilizes a mass airflow sensor and, because of that, you can really fine-tune the engine for optimum performance. The engine gets its fuel from a set of 96 lb. injectors and the leftover gases are channeled through a set of custom 13/4-inch long-tube headers.

As if all that's not impressive enough Mike took his combination one step further by slapping on one of the hottest blowers on the market today--the ATI ProCharger D-1R. "We have used ATI blowers for quite some time and have never had any problems with them," explained LaRocca. "The unit can spit out over 30-lbs. of boost and is part of the reason why we run so well."

Mike purchased his Cobra new in 1994 and immediately took a liking to the 5-speed transmission in it. "I have always loved driving and racing stick shift cars," said Mike. "When it came time to build a real race car the transmission choice was simple--it had to be a stickshift.

Mike soon found himself on the phone with G-Force Transmissions in Annville, Penn., ordering up one of its tried-and-true 5-speed gear changers. The gearbox connects to a Lakewood SFI bellhousing that houses a McLoud single-disc clutch system. Out back, the G-Force spins a custom steel driveshaft that connects to the factory 8.8-inch rear end housing.

Just because the car utilizes the factory rear don't think for one minute that it doesn't have any goodies on the inside. A custom Mark Williams steel spool spins a set of 3.55 Ford Racing gears that channel the power to a set of 35-spline Mark Williams axles.

The suspension system tells a funny tale as well. "The car originally had a coil-over rear suspension system under it because it was set up in the beginning to be run in Street Outlaw," explained Mike. "We had to convert everything back to the factory specs in order to be able to run the car in Renegade and be legal."

This meant loosing the coil-over shocks and ladder bar suspension. For this Mike turned to John's Racecraft in Brockton, Mass., for the detailed conversion. Using nothing but quality Wolfe Racecraft components John transformed Mike's modified suspension to Renegade specs which meant that the stock upper and lower control arm mounting points had to be reused.

"John basically had to remove the entire rear suspension system and start from scratch," Mike said. "Luckily, the stock mounting points (on the frame of the car) were still intact so the conversion wasn't all that bad."

The front suspension consists of a set of Koni double-adjustable struts that work in harmony with an Anthony Jones Engineering coil-over conversion kit and the engine sits on a tubular K-frame that has also been constructed by AJE. "By installing the AJE frame we gained valuable header clearance," said Mike. "The weight savings [off of the front end] was huge."

A new car for a new season

By now the 2001 racing season was just around the corner and Mike and Jimmy were eager to see what all of their hard work would reward them with. Early testing showed great promise but it wasn't until the 2001 Fun Ford Weekend Spring Break Shootout in Bradenton, Fla., that Mike began to really flex his muscles.

During the Thursday test and tune session, Mike rocketed down the quarter-mile to the tune of a 9.06 at 151.25. Mike made it all the way to the semifinals before losing a real close race but a few weeks later at the Downs Ford Mustang Shootout held at Atco Raceway in Atco, N.J., Mike was the runner-up there and pushed his Cobra to an insane 9.03 at 156.50 mph.

That run established Mike, once again, as the quickest and fastest Renegade pilot on the planet. To say that Mike and Jimmy were happy would be an understatement. Behind all the hard work are good people and Mike stressed that none of this would be possible without the incredible support of Jimmy LaRocca, Mike Plummer, Mike Gove, MPE Racing, Fortes Auto Parts, ATI ProCharger, David Wolfe, Mickey Thompson Tires and, of course, Mike's entire family.

Of course, there's one player out there that might just give Mike a fit or two in 2001 and that person is Jimmy LaRocca himself. He shoes Jeff Salvato's '91 GT in Renegade and the engine combo is a virtual clone of the one under Mike's hood. With the two of them running as good as they are were sure that the rest of the Renegade class will be in shock for a long time to come.