Shooting Bullitts and Mach Speed Performances

Heading into the shootout, we were looking at Josh Klugger as having the best odds of running in the 10s. His best time to date had been an 11.01 at 131 mph. The 131-mph speed showed he had more than enough horsepower to run deep into the 10s. Unfortunately, the best he could manage on our turf was an 11.35 at 124.57 mph and backed it up with an 11.38 performance. There was an obvious stutter as Klugger banged gears going down track. The car left soft with 1.7 short times and the engine did not pull cleanly through the power band. His results were still impressive.

Initial assessment of the problem had Klugger looking at his MAS, which was maxed out. However, when he got home to Florida, he began inspecting everything and found the turbocharger was dying. The seals on the exhaust side were blown out, and that was the reason for problems. The turbo was unable to spool and produce boost properly.

The engine was rebuilt last year to handle the stress of being turbocharged and remains completely street legal and driveable. The short-block was fortified with better connecting rods and forged CP pistons that yield a 9.5:1 compression ratio. The camshafts and valvetrain are FR500 pieces and work well in the boosted application. Klugger's Mach 1 has made 617 hp at the rear tires at LaMotta's Performance with 14 psi of boost.

Jimmy Waller left Tennessee and hauled up to Englishtown, New Jersey, as a consistent 11.5 performer. He left the shootout with a new best e.t. of 11.38 and backed it up with several 11.4 performances. It is amazing what a little bit of nitrous will do to one of these Mach 1s. As we saw with the forced-induction versions, having a near-stock Mach 1 with a power adder will make you an 11-second hero. We tried to get him to up the juice, but Waller was content with running in the 11.3 zone with the smallest hit of nitrous the kit would allow him. One would think that if he were to up the system to 200 hp, he would certainly have gone much quicker. Durability is a key ingredient for Waller. He wants to log hundreds of miles on the dragstrip without any problems, so we cannot blame him for playing it conservatively with the pill.

The 60-foot time is where Waller picked up the pace compared to his previous best time of 11.53. At E-town, he logged a best of 1.53 on the 11.38 performance, while his 11.53 came by way of a 1.65 short time. The simplicity of Waller's combination certainly brought a smile to our faces. He quickly credited his family and friends along with Page Brothers Performance and Gotera Racing for the quick runs.