Illustrated spoke with representatives from the two leading brands in
centrifugal supercharging, as well as some of the drivers, tuners and engine
builders who’ve worked with the products and experienced considerable
success with them.
PROCHARGER
GOES PRO MOD RACING
Pro Modified has been a class subject to trends since
its earliest days in the early ‘90s. Body styles would come in and
out, from the ’53 Corvettes and ’41 Willys at the beginning to
the late-model Camaro bodies that’ve become the norm. Similarly, power
adders have had their moments. Nitrous oxide paved the way before rootsstyle
superchargers took over, with the twin-turbo setup making major
moves in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Screw blowers set the pace in
outlaw Pro Mod classes.
Now, centrifugal superchargers are having their moment. ProCharger
is leading the way with its F-3X-140 superchargers in NMCA Xtreme
Pro Mod, PDRA Pro Boost and, new for 2020, NHRA Pro Mod. It’s the
company’s biggest, baddest blower.
“With Pro Mod in general, non-NHRA classes, it really started with our
introduction of the F-3X-140 ProCharger,” says Walt Sipp, ProCharger’s
technical service manager. “That supercharger has been able to support
a higher level of power than our F-3R-136, which was for a long time our
largest supercharger we made. The 136 typically would be a 3,000-horsepower-capable
supercharger. The 140 pushed that power level up by about
500 horsepower, which is more in line with what guys were needing in a
Pro Mod category as cars were getting quicker and faster. That was a big
part of it. We were finally able to have a supercharger that was capable
of running the numbers guys would expect to run.”
ProCharger had customers in NMCA and PDRA running the F-3R-
136 with some success. Then, the company started to work with Pro Line
Racing Engines to develop the F-3X-140. Pro Line put together a “house
car” with ProCharger components, which made its competition debut at
the Mid-West Pro Mod Series’ Elite 16 race at Texas Motorplex in late 2018.
“We had really good testing partners with Pro Line Racing,” Sipp says.
“They really jumped on board and were looking for the new, latest and
greatest thing. That really helped us develop our next level of superchargers
and be able to run at an NHRA Pro Mod level.”
STEVE PETTY
The mechanical minds at
Pro Line, including Dillard
and tuners like Steve Petty
and Brandon Stroud, worked
together with ProCharger to
refine the F-3X-140 and prove
its potential to other racers.
In just one race, the Pro Line ProCharger ’69 Camaro, driven by Pro
Line co-founder Eric Dillard, made major waves in the Pro Mod world.
It caught the attention of Rivenbark and the GALOT team, who bought
Dillard’s car and had Pro Line convert Strickland’s roots-blown ’69 Camaro
to an identical ProCharger setup.
ProCharger continued to work with Pro Line on the GALOT cars
throughout the 2019 season. Rivenbark went back and forth between
big tires in Pro Boost and small tires in Radial vs. the World. In RvW,
he set numerous ProCharger records, and even became the first smalltire
car to break into the 3.50s en route to a $101,000 victory at DuckX
Productions’ Sweet 16 2.0.
The mechanical minds at Pro Line, including Dillard and tuners like
Steve Petty and Brandon Stroud, worked together with ProCharger to
refine the F-3X-140 and prove its potential to other racers.
“We had really good racers and tuners and engine builders that we’ve
worked with for years and we appreciate everything that they’ve all done,”
Sipp says. “Pro Line just presented a whole different angle in that they
84 | Drag Illustrated | DragIllustrated.com Issue 158