This Turbocharged 240 Wants a Shot at the Street Race Title at Sick Summer - Gets Tuned Up with a Victory at Muncie Dragway’s Heads Up Event
The inaugural Sick Summer Presented by TBM Brakes left an impression on several people, including Street Race 275 class participant Jeremy Ortiz.
Actually it left several impressions; from the second-place finish thanks to his 8.63 average, to the ‘send it’ mentality that sent the LS engine out with a bang on the final day of competition at Cordova Dragway. And Jeremy is ready for redemption at this year’s Sick Summer Presented by Motion Raceworks, in more ways than one.
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“I had an amazing time and am hooked on drag-and-drive events,” said Jeremy, who got right to work on a replacement engine for the purple Nissan 240SX. Jeremy started with the staple 5.3-liter LS, and added “every Brian Tooley Racing shelf part available” to the mix.
He also made a change on the power adder, choosing a slightly smaller 84-millimeter turbocharger from Forced Performance Turbochargers. A Coan Turbo 400 3-speed automatic and an Import Drag Solutions bolt in solid axle subframe for an 8.8-inch rear end back up the potent engine combination.
“I'll be competing in Street Race 275 again this year,” said Jeremy. “I’m bringing some solid upgrades this year for power, but even more importantly, reliability!”
He didn’t plan to roll in without prep work, so he recently made a trip to his local track, Muncie Dragway for the Hole Shot Media Heads Up event. “The idea here was to get the weekend highway racers out to the track and in a safer environment,“ Jeremy said of the event structure. “Saturday’s race I went in just wanting to use it really for a test session to get ready for Sick Summer. I made a handful of changes to the car over the winter, and really hadn't been able to get some solid A-to-B passes in.
I entered into the Extreme Radial class; Not too many rules here, but mainly DOT small tires, drive to and from the staging lanes, etc. We run two qualifying passes, and then do chip draw (to determine opponents) each round.
I put a tune in for Q1 that I was hoping would get around that 8.50 mark. Unfortunately, I had to peddle it on the hit and ran an 8.90. This was a bit frustrating, as this car in the past has always gone A-to-B just about anywhere.
We quickly looked at the data and reviewed the video, and decided to make a small suspension change and go back out to Q2 with the same tune. The car left perfectly and landed an 8.52. Goal achieved for the day!”
At this point, Jeremy said he had achieved his goal; making sure the tune up he put together would clock an 8.50 pass, the number he wants to hit every day on Sick Summer. “From this point, anything more for the day was just a bonus,” Jeremy said. First round he drew a local racer with a potent GT-R that has clocked times well into the 7-second range. “I figured I would just go out and do my thing see what happens. Luckily, I nailed the tree (had the better reaction time) and was able to take the win even with a slower ET going 8.4 to his 8.3-second pass.
The semifinals found Jeremy drawing the lucky chip for a bye run; a single to get him to the final round. “We tried a hot tune-up, but it didn't hold,” he said. "They made the needed changes for the final round, and a short time later, Jeremy was standing in victory lane. “In the finals, we were able to take the win after my competitor Ron had issues.”
All-in-all, Jeremy considered the event a huge success. “I drove the car back into the box with a trophy and a couple on the dot tunes for the Street Race 275 class at Sick Summer,” he said. “I'll give the car a good once over, change in some fresh Driven Racing Oil fluids, and get packed up to be ready for Sick Summer!”
Written by Derek Putnam. Photos courtesy of Sick the Magazine and Jeremy Ortiz.
If you have thoughts / feedback / ideas, please e-mail us at derek@sickthemagazine.com