While the stock-appearing theme is evident with the body and interior, the similarities to stock end in regard to the wheels and tires, suspension, and engine. Pop the hood and you'll see a 440ci engine built by NVR Racing of Butler, Wisconsin, that produced 630 horses on the dyno at 6,300 rpm. That's a lot of horsepower from a 10.5:1 compression engine with a moderate hydraulic roller cam fed by a single 750-cfm Holley four-barrel carburetor sitting on an Edelbrock Torquer II 440 intake. It is no secret that the power comes from the heads, and while the port work performed by NVR sweetened the pot, the out-of-the-box port design on the Edelbrock Performer RPM 440 heads used is outstanding. Tom says, "The power curve on this engine is unreal. It comes off idle hard and smooth and just keeps pulling."
One would think traction would be limited in a car weighing just over 3,000 pounds with 3.70 gears and a manual four-speed Hemi transmission. Tom says, "The car hooks like crazy. It will barely spin the tires when you leave off the clutch just right. The sticky Yokohama tires and the suspension modifications seem to work just as well in a straight line as they do in the curves." Tom has restored and modernized a number of vintage race cars and applied that experience to his Barracuda. That translates into fully stitch-welding the body and chassis and adding frame connectors and braces to strengthen it.
Turns are made easier and more fluid with an '05 Ford Mustang rack-and-pinion steering rack, which acts on 245/45ZR17 Yokohama tires mounted on 17x7-inch Volk Racing GTC rims. Larger 275/40ZR17 Yokes on 17x8-inch Volk rims get the job done inside modified rear fenderwells. Stopping power comes by way of 12-inch drilled and slotted Wilwood brakes using a separate master cylinder for the front and rear. For the suspension, Tom uses a billet adjustable QA1 coilover suspension in front, and relocated leaves (2 inches lower) and billet adjustable QA1 shocks for the rear. No wonder this Barracuda packs such a mean bite.
Tom said, "It took almost 14 months to build this car. I thought at first we would have plenty of time to finish it and put a few miles on it before the Goodguys Great Lake Nationals on August 12th. We made it even though the first test drive out of the shop wasn't until the day before. One thing almost got us. We knew the oil pan hung too low, but found out how bad when we bent the pan bottoming out on the freeway. It didn't cause a leak and luckily we were still able to make the Goodguys event. Once we returned from the Nationals, we immediately started working on designing another pan to gain more ground clearance."
At this time, Tom hasn't taken the car to the track, but plans to do plenty of road racing and drag racing as soon as he gets a few more miles on the engine. With the power-to-weight ratio of the car, this Barracuda should be capable of extremely low 11-second or high-10-second quarter-mile times. That's not bad for a pump-gas road racer that allows Tom, his wife, and two kids to cruise anywhere they want.