In an era where family cars run fourteen-second quarters flat and sport-compacts can walk Seventies Ferraris and Lamborghinis without breaking a sweat, burnout videos and photos have become the most played-out, suck-tastic, shark-jumping thing possible. Lame! Lamer than that! The lamest photo in human history! Who would have thought that a 470-horsepower sedan, new Ferrari, or Viper could actually smoke the tires? I don’t know, about about everybody with a brain?
Thankfully for all of us, a few brave wrench-it-yourself warriors have come forward to redeem the burnout video from its current “abuse-a-free-car-that-I-can’t-drive-worth-s*&$-anyway” hell. Behold… the SRT-4 swap minivan. More fun stuff after the jump.
This guy can build a regular Neon, too…
Yes, that’s a Neon running elevens. The trap speed was very close to what the magazines are getting out of the 911 Turbo S.
In a world of unlimited budgets, hyper-elite supercars sold to the ignorant rich, and an endless bukkake-esque barrage of “lifestyle marketing”, it’s nice to see people building fun cars that just happen to run awfully fast. I don’t know you, bubav8, but I salute you. And thanks to James Mackintosh for the Facebook link to the minivan vid!
Though I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that he ran the whole burnout with the E-brake on – witness the DRL’s turning off just before he launches – that is really cool! Reminds me of the guy with a boosted 2nd gen Caravan who’s been shaming F-bodies for at least 10 years.
And if anyone is interested, the guy who built it has a website showing you how he did it.
http://www.turbovan.net/van.html
All of that is much more creative than just being a rich guy with a fast car. Any of these guys who built most of it themselves deserve extra bonus points from me.
And that’s just one of the reasons I stuffed an LS2 into a Pacer wagon. Tomorrow I talk to an upholstery guy to see what can be done to salvage/reinforce the crumbling door and interior panels, and prepare a sunburst hole-perf template for a proper bit of old-school loudspeaker concealment. Exposed grilles are a feature I prefer to do without.
Neat video and the smoke hugging the tailgate is a good demonstration of why driving with the tailgate open is a bad idea.
These Poppy or Racing Red Chrysler Minivans are quite rare. I have the only 2nd gen one around here I know of and seeing a 3rd gen in the same color happens once in a blue moon.
TOWN AND COUNTRY SRT8
After borrowing my turbocharged Omni to run some errands one day, my mother insisted on a turbocharged vehicle of her own. Fortunately for her, Dodge had recently made their minivans available with the 2.5l turbomotor. Having done her market research, mom opted for the much more durable 3-speed automatic (the then-new 4sp+od autos were notoriously unreliable) and a stripped-down interior for her grocery-getter. We quickly unbolted the rear seats, the better to lighten the chassis. With the stock logic module replaced by the more aggressively tuned Mopar unit, shift points for the 3-speed rose to 55 and 85 mph, with the van topping out at an estimated 130 (it’s hard to measure when the needle hits the zero pin on its way around) before its breadbox shape finally pushed back hard enough against the 2.5’s deep torque well.
Many was the weekend where I would swap cars with my mother, the better to confuse the downcountry denizens on cruise night. According to my friends, mom was far more fearsome in my Omni than I ever was, despite – or perhaps because – of her unfamiliarity with the car and its unpredictable torque steer. I just enjoyed kicking around the IROC-Zs and LX Mustangs with the dove-grey minivan. You’d think some alarm bells would go off when the other guy checks out the interior and notices an awful lot of nothing where some bench seats should be.
It is for those reasons I adore Lee Iacocca and his tenure at the Chrysler Corporation; he kept the bean counters under control and was not afraid to let the engineers have their fun bringing niche vehicles to market just because they could. No other automaker has turned their lowest cost, entry level car into their quickest and best handling product while simultaneously keeping its price in line with the rest of the product spread. Lido understood that buyers of the L-body turbocars had zero interest in their K-based Daytona/Lasers, and was more than happy to give those freaks a reason to spend money on the pentastar brand. It is a lesson the automakers should take to heart; if you can create a wild mutant performance option with a simple engine swap and suspension upgrade, you’re going to gain more customers from the lunatic fringe than you will lose to any false projection from the market research team.
Thanks for posting those lunatic performance videos – and thank you for reminding me that Mopar fans tend to be the craziest of them all.
I worked for a Chrysler-Dodge dealer in 1989. I had some fun with a turbo Caravan that had been a Chrysler fleet vehicle, supposedly. At the time, the Ultradrive 4 speed was only available with the Mitsubishi V6 and the automatic for any 4 cylinder was a 3 speed Torqueflite. I suppose the Turbo/Ultradrive combo may have been on offer in 1990.
The Omni GLHS is probably the only turbo car that I would actually own. We had bad luck with a Lancer ES Turbo when they were new, but the GLHS would be worth the risk of headgasket and accessory failures.
Turbo mini van may well become the next diesel stick wagon.
The SRT-4 turbo motor was installed with some detuning in the PT Cruiser GT (or GT Cruiser). Additionally, it was equipped with a getrag five speed transmission.
All stock and equipped with the factory warranty.
Just thought you might want to know.
There is an old farmer that lives here that attends the hot rod nights with his wild, four-door Chevette. He wear hickory-sttriped bib overalls. From the outside, it looks totally stock with what looks like the stock 13 inch steel rims and cheap factory. plastic hub caps. It is painted in red primer. The interior is in horrifying worn shape.
Hot Rod Night attendees crowd around it with creepers and flashlights to look closely at the drive line, wherein a Keith Black 572 inch big block with twin Garrett ball bearing turbos and a twin solenoid-operated wet nitrous system take up the engine bay with no room to spare….including for inner fenders. There is only the slightest of bulges in the hood that might give this sleeper away. It has a built TH-400 that is operated with a stock column shifter (of course!). The intrusion of the pumpkin from the Dana 60 rear-end is concealed with a pile of old dirty clothes. THe ladder bar/coil over rear suspension is well-hidden from a side-view glance. The thing goes, with the exception of one rear wheel, nearly airborne at launch.
This guy is dead nuts serious. There are the titles to numerous mustangs and camaros taped to the dashboard, like scalps. It has time slips from Spokane raceway indicating a 8.47 @ 132 mph.
This guy you describe here is what makes tuning so interesting. You can take any car from any era, or country of origin and make it into whatever your imagination can come up with. You want to take a Viper V10 and cram it into a Dakota? Sure! You want put a Chevy small block in your RWD ricer? Go for it! You want to turn a Mercedes A-Class into a monster truck? That’s really weird… But do it! A lot of people wonder why people spend so much money on tuning worldwide, because it takes an extension of our body, the car, and turns it into an extension of our body that reflects whatever is wrong in our screwy, car loving, minds.
I bet that smoke cloud smells REALLY bad.
We lived for burnouts back in high school. My friend’s mom’s Javelin was particularly adept at it. It was the early 80’s when almost nothing being sold could smoke its tires.
But today? It seems a waste of very expensive tires. Perhaps the minimvan is smokin up cheap retreads, but smoking the tires in any modern high HP sedan, Viper, Vette, Mustang or exotic car is just a pointless waste of expensive rubber.