Some cars stand out amongst the pack, especially if they feature a turbocharged Coyote under the hood. We spotted a video of this Fox Mustang tearing up the track and had to find out more. The video was on the Boosted Injection Services Facebook page so we reached out they put us in contact with the owner of the car, Chad Hunt of Birmingham, Alabama, and he gave us the low-down on his badass, turbo hatchback.
“The story starts about three years ago,” Chad explained. “I have always been into Mustangs. A buddy of mind had this car.”
It is a 1990 Mustang LX, and when he bought it from his friend is had a decent chassis and a 447 cubic-inch nitrous motor.
“I wanted it to eventually build something over time, but I ran it like that for a while,” he said.
When it was time to rebuild the car and make it his own, Chad went all out and had a 302 cubic-inch Coyote engine prepped by Tim Eichorn at MPR Racing Engines.
“It’s a fully built long-block,” Chad elaborated.
The build process started in November of 2015 and they had it ready to fire up and run by August of 2016. The resulting engine features a 10.6:1 compression ratio and is running with a Precision pro-mod 85 turbo and methanol injection. A built Powerglide transmission and Moser 9-inch rearend round out the drivetrain.
“It’s such a big turbo on a small cubic-inch motor that I’ve had to make some adjustments,” Chad said. “I had to fight through some back pressure, converter, and transmission issues, but with the help of Jeff Reed at TCI I have been able to get past the majority of those problems.”
We asked about the combo’s numbers on the dyno, and Chad explained that he hasn’t run it for the numbers.
“We don’t run ’em on the dyno, we run ’em on the track,” he explained. “We’ve had it on the dyno for tuning purposes, but never to get the numbers. I have an idea of what I think it makes, and it’s north of 1,200 horsepower to the wheels. That’s based off the times and stuff like that.”
“It’s built for no-prep and was made to endure a 30 to 50 mile cruises before the race,” Chad, who built this car to run in True Street-style classes, explained. “The car has stock glass, stock doors, and full interior. The rules are pretty strict for the class.”
How cool is it that this badass turbo car, putting out north of 1,200 horsepower, is running stock glass and stock interior?
“The glass in the hatchback is stock too,” he added.
It’s always cool to see something built differently, and we love the no-prep stuff. Take the car for a 50-mile cruise and throw it straight down on the track? Awesome. It’s not as hard to build a high-performance car that’ll kill it for 10-second at the track, but to build something that’ll handle the street and can still bring it at the green light, now that’s a challenge we can appreciate.