2004 Ultimate Street Car Challenge

Test 3Guru Panel

There was an unusual calm in the dyno room this year. Previous years were dominated by massive power claims, chest pounding and untouchable pushrods. None of that happened this year.

Like every year, there were two scores up for grabs in the dyno cell. The obvious one is peak power-the biggest number wins here. The subtle one, and the one that rewards the true street cars, is the power delivery score. Power delivery is effectively a measure of the area under the torque curve. The dyno queen tuned for giant numbers above all else will be crushed by the mild-mannered, flexible powerplant. So sad.

Ultimately, it was a Supra on top, just as it was in 2002, but for once it was an underdog story. Matt Andrews is no dyno junkie. He's a track hound. He carefully selected a Garrett GT35R turbo, planning to sacrifice peak power for flexibility on the track and a strong power delivery score. It was a wise strategy, and one no Supra owner had done before.

Blazing a trail has its risks, though. It would have been nice if some other Supra owner had figured out the subtleties of mounting ball-bearing turbos. Andrews mounted his at an angle, which caused oil to back up in the center housing and blow through the turbine seal. The last thing you want at a track shakedown the week before USCC is oil smoke billowing out the tailpipe.

In retrospect, a restrictor in the oil line would have solved the problem, but spooked by the cloud of blue, Andrews reverted to his old T67 P-trim dyno queen turbo, which mounted horizontally on a different exhaust manifold. Turns out that worked just fine. Andrews laid down 623 hp, 4 more hp than Mani Jayasinghe's winning pull two years ago, and still walked away with the power delivery score.

All eyes were on Sean Morris when he rolled Nick Wong's R32 Skyline into the dyno room for the second year in a row. It wasn't anticipation so much as suspicion that got him the attention.

Morris is a shrewd veteran competitor eager to exploit any advantage, and he managed to slip one by us last year. He'd added an exhaust cutout that dumped the exhaust before it had to squeeze through the catalytic converter. It was no secret that he used this on the dyno last year, and the fireballs shooting out from under the car revealed that he was doing the same this year. His sneakiness came when he "forgot" to redirect the exhaust to the rear for last year's emissions test. While he dumped noxious fumes out the front of the exhaust, our tailpipe probe saw nothing but rose water and belly dancers out the back.

We spotted nothing shifty this year, and he managed 552 hp under our watchful eye. The engine sounded off song, though, and the fourth-place power delivery score showed something wasn't quite right.

Taking that close second in power delivery was Brad Bedell's supercharged, nitrous-breathing V6-powered MR2. The "MR6" made it into the competition as a lark. We thought it would be cool to see, but didn't really expect a top-half performance. However, Bedell was confident, well prepared and very strong from the beginning.

Despite being a first-timer, he showed a veteran's wisdom in his preparation. In testing, he made substantially more than the 442 hp he delivered here, but shrewdly turned down the nitrous for better durability. As a result the car ran comfortably without misfires, hiccups, or any sags in the powerband, and despite being 181-hp down in peak power from Andrews' Supra, he was only 14 points behind in power delivery.

At the opposite end of the power delivery spectrum was Andrew Campbell's Miata. Squeezing 417 hp from what is essentially a warmed-over Mazda GLC engine takes some serious work. It also takes another dyno queen turbo. The lag monster was in a three-way tie for sixth place, but came in dead last on power delivery.

For the second year in a row, K&N let us take over its R&D center for this test, running its two-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive Dynojets side by side so quickly and efficiently we almost forgot how chaotic and stressful this event is supposed to be. We paid back K&N's hospitality by not blowing up a single car on its dynos. - Dave Coleman

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