The Windsor mates to an FB Transmissions' (Long Island, New York) AOD, complete with a Performance Torque Converters' 2,800-rpm stall converter. It feeds a custom aluminum driveshaft and the old 9-inch rearend that Randy recovered from what was left of his '85. Leaving the setup naturally aspirated, Randy took the coupe to the dragstrip. "I originally had the car running without the turbos. The strategy for this was that I needed to learn how to tune the engine with the Haltech system and get a feel for the car." It ran a 12.98 on its first pass and as quick as 12.15 at 112 mph before Randy added the turbos.
In order to meet his goal of low 9s, Randy installed twin 62mm turbos and designed a second fuel system. "The stock tank feeds 30-lb/hr injectors in the stock location. The second system is a five-gallon fuel cell in the trunk that feeds eight 95-lb/hr injectors installed in the upper intake. The car normally cruises around with 93-octane in the regular tank, but when the engine goes above 3 pounds of boost, the second set of injectors kicks in and uses 112-octane fuel." This is the key component that allows Randy to drive his coupe just about anywhere he wants.
"The first pass with the turbos (set on 5 pounds of boost), produced an 11.23 at 123 mph. After that, the track owner asked me to get the car's safety equipment installed," Randy recalls. He called up TRZ Motorsports to install the rollcage, subframe connectors, and safety net. "TRZ did a fantastic job installing the chromoly cage-it fits so perfectly that all the interior components can be removed and reinstalled around it." Randy recently returned to TRZ for the installation of a mini-tub to make room for 30-inch-tall 295/65-15 M/T drag radials.
This past spring, Randy won MM&FF's Tremec True Street at this year's Spring Break Shootout (SBS), held at the NMRA event. At that time, he told us of this plan to drive to Commerce, Georgia, to compete in True Street there. Naturally, we laid down the proverbial gauntlet: "If you drive to Commerce and run True Street, we'll ride along and document it."
Georgia On Our Mind
Before we knew it we had a plan. Randy and I met in Orlando and were on the road to Georgia. We made the nearly 500-mile trip, stopping only for gas. In Saturday's True Street competition, Randy ran an 8.85, an 8.87, and 8.94. Though not enough for the win, he took home the runner-up prize with an average of 8.891. His subdued LX (it does have a stock hood and tail pipes) performed as designed and turned a lot of heads in the process.
With rain in the forecast for Sunday, we hit the road Saturday after the True Street awards ceremony. With his luggage in the back seat and no chase vehicle, Randy completed the last leg of his 1,000-mile round-trip without a hitch.
"The car drives very much like most Fox-body Mustangs. It idles smoothly, and with the overdrive and 3.25 gears, it gets almost 20 mpg on the highway. I would like to thank Jay at Real Street, Mike and Fred Brown at FB Transmissions, Ronnie Crawford, and Mike and Todd Braasch at TRZ Motorsports for their help and support."
For the record, the coupe has run 8.64 at 159 mph (with a 1.289 short time)-it did so at the 2010 SBS. How much power does it make? Since it has never been on a chassis dyno, Randy estimates about 1,000 rwhp.
Randy isn't finished, though. "My plans are to continue to engineer things and make some minor changes to make it faster. How fast is a secret right now, but I intend to keep it on the street and drive it to the track."
We can only guess, but Randy may drive it over 1,100 miles to Milan, Michigan, and run low-8s. Sounds like another road trip is in order.