PONY EXPRESS
A ’65 Mustang designed to cut it with the finest pro touring cars on the planet
THE SUPERCHARGED AND TWINTURBOCHARGED 5.1-LITRE FORD ALUMINATOR QUAD-CAM V8 HAS COPPED A BRUTAL AMOUNT OF WORK
WE’VE had guys build street machines using plenty of cuttingedge race car technology and influence, but none have done it to quite the same level as Vicious, the silver-and-grey ’65 Mustang fastback on these pages. It packs a modern quad-cam V8 inflated by a supercharger as well as two 68mm turbos, plus it has a paddleshifted sequential transmission, centrelock wheels, data-logging, carbon-ceramic brakes, independent rear suspension and a wild aerodynamics package to boot!
Timeless Kustoms in Camarillo, California, is the shop responsible for this madness, constructing Vicious with the aim of taking on the best pro touring beasts in America.
“The concept for Vicious just came out of my head,” says Timeless Kustoms bossman Jason Pecikonis. “I want to win the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational in 2017, as I’ve had some customers take their cars in it but they were always compromised by being more street cars than all-out race cars. So I found Chris, a client of mine who wanted a build that was more race car than street car.”
Owner Chris Marechal takes up the story. “This is the second ’65 fastback that I commissioned Timeless Kustoms for. I knew it was going to SEMA 2016 and I wanted to challenge Jason. We were searching to push the boundaries of street-legal, trackready cars, plus we wanted to be disruptive at SEMA and pull a lot of attention, as it was both Jason and my first time there.”
Timeless actually started with a brand new ’65 Mustang coupe shell from Dynacorn, widening, lowering and channelling the metal into the form you now see here, including the mean under-car aero package. One component central to that is the large diffuser hanging out the back of the car, sucking it to the road at speed and giving it an edge over traditional pro tourers that retain standard
bodywork and then have to overcome a lack of cornering grip.
One thing Vicious will never be short of is horsepower, with a supercharged and twin-turbocharged 5.1-litre Ford Aluminator quad-cam V8 up front that has copped a brutal amount of work. Timeless Kustoms had Darton build them some custom cylinder sleeves to handle all the boost, while a Ford Performance Boss 302 forged crank, custom Manley 2618 forged pistons and 300M Pro Series I-beam conrods round out the block. The heads are from the new GT350R Shelby Mustang track monster, a lightweight 525hp cornercarving brute powered by a 5.2-litre V8 with a flat-plane crank and 8200rpm redline, codenamed ‘Voodoo’.
These were Cnc-ported before Timeless jammed in Manley Nextek springs and Comp Cams upgraded bumpsticks, and a 90mm throttlebody on top to swallow the 26-28psi of boosted charge-air from a twin-charge set-up that comprises not just a Magnuson TVS2300 supercharger but a pair of Precision 6466 ball-bearing turbos. The car has an estimated output of over 1000hp at the wheels on E85, and near-instantaneous power at any point of the rev range.
Aussie company MOTEC supplied the brains for the whole shebang, just like they do for V8 Supercars and countless other professional race series around the globe. This includes the CDI spark box and colour dash display, data-logger and other super-trick stuff like traction control and ABS braking – it even handles shifting the sequential transmission.
Rather than a shift-kitted automatic or regular manual gearbox with some fancy straight-cut or dog-engagement gears, Vicious uses an EMCO CG46 six-speed sequential transmission with paddle shifters, mounted via a Quicktime bellhousing and a custom Centerforce Road/race Dyad twin-plate clutch.
The base of the build actually started with an Art Morrison chassis, off which Timeless Kustoms fitted currentgeneration Corvette front suspension and all-aluminium cradles to hold the main undercarriage components. Delrin bushes were selected to keep deflection to a minimum, at the expense of ride quality – we told you this is a race car!
Out back, an AME multi-link independent rear suspension cradle was given the nod, with one of Strange Engineering’s 9.75-inch aluminium independent diffs chosen to handle the motor’s huge power and torque. That centre-member features 3.73 gears for a solid mix of brutal acceleration and skyhigh top speed.
Ridetech supplied custom-rate coil springs as well as a quartet of its trick triple-adjustable shock absorbers, which were custom-valved for Timeless. The suspension is rounded out with a steering rack by Woodward that will allow far better turning than the Mustang’s original soggy box set-up.
Behind the custom centre-lock 19x12 and 19x14 Forgeline wheels are huge brakes that are notable not just for their size but what they’re made out of: carbon! Just like all the top hypercars and race specials, Vicious runs carbon-ceramic rotors spanning 394mm, clamped by Brembo sixpiston and four-piston calipers respectively.
“This has so much more technology in it than an ordinary street/track car and is really a state-of-the-art race car,” Jason explains. “It’s all steel with aluminium sub-frames, but it is also road-registered and will be both road-raced and run in standing-mile events.”
“We built it to take on the track, even though it is a gorgeous build,” proud owner Chris says. “We will autocross it, mile-race it, time-attack it – we will use this thing in 2017! My background is real estate and I thought I was retired, but I think I found a new passion.”
IT’S REALLY A STATE-OF-THE-ART RACE CAR, BUT IT’S ALSO ROAD-REGISTERED AND WILL BE BOTH ROAD-RACED AND RUN IN STANDING-MILE EVENTS