Maryland native Chris Rankin is no stranger to the “Street Outlaws” franchise, but he will take on his most arduous racing endeavor to date in 2023 aboard a newly-built Chrysler Conquest for “No Prep Kings” competition.
Rankin, famous for his one-of-a-kind ’87 Conquest known as “Relic,” began the effort nearly two years ago, keenly aware that his 427 cubic-inch, turbocharged, LS-powered machine would be outgunned in the franchise’s only track-racing program. Determined to stay on-brand, he tracked down a Conquest withering away in a field in Florida, made a trade with the owner, and then tasked Henry Fryfogle at HFR Fabrications to construct a world-class new racing machine.
“My other cars are fast cars; the Relic is a 4.20 car, but it’s not a 4,500 horsepower car that can go threes,” Chris says. “I just needed something faster. Henry does a top-of-the-line chassis car up here. He just built Mo Hall’s new car, and he’s had some other really fast radial-tire cars, but he hasn’t had many big-tire customers, so I told him I was doing No Prep Kings, was going to take him outside his wheelhouse a little bit, and he was down for it. He worked with me on the build, and it’s a very well though-out build for the wheelbase that it is. We came up with midplate-to-axle center measurements that we felt like we needed, and created the instant center where we believed they’re needed to get the four-link dimensions right.”
The car, which he’s coined simply “Relic X2” will feature power from a Billy Briggs-built Alan Johnson 481X, with twin 88mm Comp Turbos, which will be guided by GP Tuning utilizing a Holley EFI ECU. Rankin is backing it up with a close-ratio three-speed Turbo 400 and a ProTorque lockup converter, and a Mark Williams 10.5-inch ring-gear center section and full floater axle setup. Penske air shocks have been chosen to help plant the power and keep the nose down downtrack.
“The turbo cars struggle because they can’t 60-foot like the supercharger cars and they weigh more, and without the zoomie headers they tend to wheelie downtrack. Since the surfaces are better early but go away after the 330, the turbo cars have trouble using the lockup and getting into the power where they can make up the difference. I come from a small-tire and no-prep platform, and I do things differently, and I’m really hoping what I do is going to mark this short wheelbase car do what it needs to be able to do out the…
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