Our friends over at Fastest Street Car Magazine [1], the editorial arm behind the Flowmaster [2] NMCA Muscle Car Nationals and the NMCA West series, reported this week that Mickey Thompson Super Street 10.5W ace Tony Nesbitt is spending his off season making a complete power adder swap on his 2002 Chevrolet Corvette, moving from a nitrous-assisted combination to a twin-turbo setup for the upcoming season. Dating back to his days of contesting the Nostalgia Pro Street category, Nesbitt has utilized nitrous oxide on his Corvette, but when he rolls to the line for the first time in 2013, he’ll be in brand new territory in the Billy Adams-owned Team Midnight machine.
[3]Gone is the nitrous oxide system on Nesbitt’s Corvette, which is now sponsored by Garrett Turbochargers, replaced with a pair of Garrett’s Pro Mod 88mm turbochargers that will be mated to the 550 cubic inch powerplant that’s being built by Kris Nelson of Nelson Competition Inc. The new bullet will be topped with a custom billet intake and a set of 16-degree, five-inch bore space cylinder heads.
Several top names in the industry are involved in the process, including Proformance Racing Transmissions, who are tweaking their Turbo 400 transmission for the turbo combo, Stainless Works, which is fabricating the headers and turbo piping, and Pro Street racer Jeff Lutz, who will be mounting and plumbing the turbo system at his Jeff Lutz Race Cars shop. Pro Torque [4] will be delivering a new converter for use with the Turbo 400, while BigStuff3 will get the nod for the engine management system. Mickey Thompson Performance Tires & Wheels [5] and VP Racing Fuels [6] will return as sponsors on the car.
“It’s a big learning curve for me because I was so used to nitrous, but I’m bringing the best people in on this and I’m going after Murillo,” said Adams. “He’s had championships, and now I want my Super Street championship.”
Nesbitt recorded a best of 6.60 with his nitrous combination, which was within striking distance of the twin-turbo Mustang of class front runner Mike Murillo. With Nesbitt armed with an even more potent combo, and several other challengers in the mix, 2013 should be an interesting year in the Super Street category.