Another team on the move these days is AFI Turbo and its angry-looking widebody S2000. The guys at AFI worked their tails off getting the car together in time for the Shootout, the major upgrade being a Tex Racing 4-speed dog box transmission and a bulletproof 8.8 rear end. During the drag event last year, AFI blew up third, fourth and fifth gears on its way to a 11.8-second pass, but this rendered the car a moving chicane during the time attack. The new dog box should remedy this problem, but how would the rest of the package hold together for this year’s Shootout?
On the dyno, the AFI S2K pumped out a mind-blowing 614.5 whp, yet this was only good for fifth place in this event. Madness. On the dragstrip, the bulletproof gearbox proved to be just that, but like many upgrades of this nature, the next weakest link in the chain was exposed when a driveshaft exploded out of the box. This ended the drag event early for AFI, having only posted a 13.89 prior to the axle going boom. According to team owner Mike Kenney, “I think now that we have the 4-speed, the 8.8 and Driveshaft Shop 930 axles, we should see a vast improvement during the drag event next year.”
With a quick axle swap and a mid-pack performance around the autocross course (sixth place), the AFI S2000 was still within striking distance of the SoS NSX for fastest RWD team going into the time attack. With a fastest lap time of 1:05.546 on an unfamiliar tire setup, AFI showed serious pace but fell 4/10th of a second short of the time posted by the SoS NSX. This meant a seventh-place overall finish and second among the RWD teams. If AFI figures out a way to harness 600+ whp on the dragstrip and around the autocross course, it could be a serious overall contender next year.