There was some history made at the NHRAV Thunder Valley Nationals when Alan O’Brien charged down the quarter mile in his awesome AMC powered dragster and stopped the clocks in 5.997 seconds at over 230mph. While the terminal speed was not the biggest the car had ever seen, the elapsed time was the quickest run the car had ever made and it is the first time that an AMC powered anything had run into the 5-second zone at the drags in history. This car was already the quickest AMC powered vehicle ever and now it has gone into some incredulous territory. The funny thing is that the 5.997 second run was a bit of a curse. Why? We’ll explain.
This car competes in a class called Top Dragster and the NHRA has an elapsed time “limit” of 6.00 seconds. The 5.997 second charge was actually disallowed from the qualifying sheet because of that rule. The machine did make a 6.06 second pass later on in qualifying to nab the #1 spot which held. O’Brien won his first round matchup with an elapsed time of 6.000! How’s that for precision?!
The engine is a 481ci AMC that uses Indy heads, Big Stuff 3 EFI with 16 injectors, a pair of 76mm turbos, and coil-on-plug style ignition. It is the only turbocharged top dragster entry in the field this weekend and it is a mighty impressive hunk of iron to run down the track. O’Brien is going to be bolting 88mm turbos on the engine directly after this race and test the combo at Norwalk in anticipation of running the PDRA’s “Outlaw” version of the top dragster category. We cannot wait to see what the car runs then! Right now the screaming AMC goes through the lights with about 30 psi of boost heading through it. With those bigger turbos, the engine will be making more boost from one end of the track to the other and the end result could be come really mind-blowing numbers.
Stay tuned, this is just starting to get good!
SCROLL DOWN TO SEE THE WICKED TURBOCHARGED AMC DRAGSTER!
Number one for orginality!
I wonder why he chose AMC – it couldn’t have been easy sourcing tuning parts but it was easy to resist putting a hunk of Chevy shit in the engine bay – wierdoes of the world unite!
Is he running a factory AMC block or one of those Indy aluminum AMC blocks?
I hope it’s a factory block. An iron AMC V8 is a force to be reckoned with when set up right.
most likely an Indy block. With that much overbore and stroke combined with 30lbs of boost would blow apart even the stout AMC casting.
Different strokes, different folks, so much fun to be different
Thats awesome, congrats Alan!
Very impressive! Surprised that the Indy Cylinder parts held up.they are over priced junk!! ( I have broke 2 blocks from Indy 1 completely in 1/2 see Nov. 14 Car craft WTF pics) they are expensive, hard to build,no info out there on them but kool to kick every ones ass with a small block rambler motor! Any one can build a hemi,ford,or chevy. Way to go al