American Racing Headers’ Hemi Prius Part 4

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When we last left the American Racing Headers PriuSRT8, Farks Supercars was putting the final touches on the car. Little things like installing the radiator and air conditioning components topped the list. Once those tasks were done, the car was hauled over to Impressive Auto Body for finish work. And by the way, Farks Supercars took a mere 9 months to gestate the baby. Pretty cool, we’d say.

Back to Impressive Auto Body: The car was actually re-sprayed in silver. Once that was done, Nick Filipides had the car wrapped (by local sign shop “Sign-A-Rama”) in the eco-green scheme you see in the accompanying photos. Much of the PriuSRT8’s publicity has it wearing that in-your-face wrap, but soon that will all change. Nick tells us the wrap is coming off and the Prius will look more like, well, a Prius (back to sleepy non-descript silver).

One thing we haven’t touched upon is the engine. Going in, the basic combination was a bone stock Hellcat power plant topped with a 4.5-liter rear entry Whipple supercharger. Downstairs, the custom stainless steel headers and exhaust were built by (you guessed it) the American Racing Headers team. Al Berge (Hemi Tuner) kicked in with his knowledge of wiring and also tuned the basic combination. It wasn’t long before the Prius was up and running. As it turns out, the car was front-row center at the 2017 SEMA show. Additionally, Nick made an appearance with the car on Jay Leno’s garage. Pretty cool!

More importantly (at least from this perspective), Nick has also been pounding the car in the quarter mile (what most don’t know is that Nick is a drag strip regular and his actual race car is one of the nicest, if not the nicest tube frame 1965 4-4-2 on the planet – it’s Olds powered too, but that’s another story).

Since the Prius is Hellcat powered, Nick and Jose felt it was only fitting that they attend the Modern Hemi Shootout in Rockingham NC, for their baptism under fire. The outcome was something over which they were elated. On the first lap, Nick left with the RPM low (the car nosed over), and gingerly granny shifted the thing. The PriuSRT8 ran a 10.05-second pass in the quarter at a booming 139 MPH. On the next pass, Nick stepped it up and the car responded with a 9.72 at 144 and change. The third pass resulted in a slightly better 9.70 at 145 MPH. At that point, they went after the tune, and the hopped up PriuSRT8 rewarded them with a 9.56 at a mere 133 MPH (Nick backed off). The last and final trip down the 1320 earned Nick a 9.38 second ET slip with a top speed of 147 MPH. On that last lap, the number 3 injector plug came loose, which in turn leaned the cylinder and cracked the piston, so it was time to call it a day. You can see a compilation of those Rockingham passes in the following video - and check out the other vid as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=227&v=c2bknPS7YuQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POSKNO7z5Sw

Now what? In typical racer fashion, the Hemi came out and was dropped off at BES racing Engines in Guilford, IN. Tony Bischoff and crew went through the engine. It now has Manley rods along with Ross pistons, and the heads have been CNC ported; the cam was swapped for a BES special and the damper was swapped for 10% overdrive ATI job. On the dyno, the team was remunerated with 968 HP and 875 pound-feet of torque (and that was with a mild tune – the thing can easily produce 24 pounds of boost). The bottom line here is, Nick and the PriuSRT8 crew are headed for the eight-second zone, which is pretty darned quick for 3300-pound street driven car (including driver) that runs on 10-inch wide bias ply tires!

As it turns out, Nick really doesn’t take pleasure in calling out other Hellcat powered or customer cars. Instead, what he’d really like to do is to line up against a Tesla (a car Nick states does zero for the racing industry). Any takers?

In the end, what American Racing Headers has done is to make a statement for the racing industry. And simultaneously, they’ve provided a one-finger salute to political elements that could overwhelm our motorsports passion. As Nick tells us: “If you don’t realize the potential problem the racing industry faces, you’re not paying attention.” For that, we thank them. In the meantime... we can hardly wait to see the SRT8 cruising along with the “Boring Conga Line” (HOV lane) of stock Prius’. Yee-Haw!

With the car almost done, there was a lot of little nagging stuff to complete. As it turns out, Farks Supercars finished all of it in just under 9 months. Simply amazing.

With a project of this magnitude, there’s an epic list of “stuff to do” – everything from wiring to plumbing to paint to upholstery to tuning.

Headers and exhaust were done by the American Racing Headers team (who else?). Needless to say, everything is built from stainless and it’s all beautifully TIG welded.

As you can see, the office is actually pretty inviting (comfy too, we’ll bet). All done, it doesn’t look quite so difficult.

Stick a fork in it – it’s done! By the way, this could be the last time you see it in eco-green. Nick is removing the wrap and it turning it back into a sleepy factory silver scheme. You gotta dig it!