Drag Week Reader Build: This Boosted, Coyote Powered Mercury Capri Makes 900hp At The Tire And Eats Clutches


Drag Week Reader Build: This Boosted, Coyote Powered Mercury Capri Makes 900hp At The Tire And Eats Clutches

The Mercury Capri is a Fox-body that lots of people seem to either forget about or write off. Yes, the looks weren’t quite as good as the Fox-body Mustang, but there are less of them around, they use all the same stuff as the Ford Mustang, and why not be a little freakin’ unique, ya know? The more squarish front end and the rounded “aero” style back window aren’t products of an Italian design house but you’ll at least be driving something the other guy will remember when you out run him time after time. Hey, John Puckett agrees with us and that is why he built this really pissed off, Coyote swapped, stick shift, 1983 Mercury Capri. Not only does he run it, he beats the living daylights out of the sucker!

The car survived Drag Week in 2013 but ate up a clutch on the last day so the plan is to increase the power level, increase the clutch clamping capacity, and come back to kick even more ass here in 2014. We loved watching the car run last year and with these upgrades he should be even quicker yet! Oh, make sure you read the part about the supercharger and the latest round of dyno testing.

HERE’S JOHN’S STORY IN HIS OWN WORDS AND BELOW THAT A BUNCH OF PHOTOS OF HIS MERCURY CAPRI – 

1983 Mercury Capri, 2012 5.0 Coyote Aluminator crate engine. Running a t-56 magnum. Gets 26 mpg all day long.

I had killed the clutch on the last day of 2013 drag week. Slipped the whole way down the track. I had made it! I had made plans to add a pound of boost and some injectors and a new tune from Lund Racing, Jon Lund II is making it happen. Wanted to be a baller so I forked out the cash for 17″ front runners. Was also sick of killing the clutch to get the car off the line I bought some slicks and spare wheels. Running the car on Fuse 116 unleaded race gas. Did all the 91 pump gas tuning on the street and some of the race gas until it was hard to keep the tires from spinning. With Jon Lund on the other side of the phone line we tuned it to 775 hp and 600 tq. Well that happened to be the same as last year.

Now the car did have a stalling condition that could not be fixed with the old injector. I still was looking for 900 at the wheels. What I felt I needed to run 9’s on a drag radial with a 2.0 60ft. With my crap driving of a stick car I needed the power to make up for me! So I stuck a 20% overdriven ATI balancer on and a 3.0″ supercharger pulley, up from my 2.85. Was thinking it was too much boost to start with. Back to the Dyno a week later and killed the Paxton 2200 on the first pull! I did my math wrong and was thinking it was only 65,000 rpm and ending up being 72,000 rpm. It has been 2 weeks on the 29th and no word from Vortech/Paxton superchargers. I was told a 3 week turn around. So week to get there, 3-4 weeks with them and a week back to me in Iowa! That’s if it can be fixed and at a good price. If not there will be a Ysi on the way!

BTW I hit that #! Made over 900 hp at the rear wheel but at a cost! Will be backing it down to a safe head unit rpm.

CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS OF JOHN’S CAR, BUSTED PARTS, AND MORE!

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5 thoughts on “Drag Week Reader Build: This Boosted, Coyote Powered Mercury Capri Makes 900hp At The Tire And Eats Clutches

  1. 1badmonkey

    I love this car, always have. back in the day when we were all young and dumb, hanging out on 17th… when Puckett showed up it was always ” hell yeah, game on!!”

    1. John Puckett

      Back in the day I had No Fear! Would run anyone who wanted to. I hurt some feelings with it!!

  2. OahuEli

    Man I love this combo! The more offbeat cars have always been my favorites and I’m dig that you’re running a Coyote. Looking forward to your progress.

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