Yes, the Boss is back, and in a big way. Try 500 cubes of nitromethane ingesting hemi-headed mayhem – fresh off the drawing boards at Ford Racing. That’s right, Ford themselves have re-engineered the vintage Boss big block series, and with the help of John Force Racing’s John Medlin, injected it with what they term “performance enhancers.” This is the first all-new Top Fuel engine for the NHRA in years. Take it one step further - when was the last time an American auto manufacturer designed and built a dedicated drag-race engine at all? Especially one that lays down and estimated 8000HP!
Mike Neff will be John Force Racing’s guinea pig driver for the new Boss 500. He will be the only one running this engine during the 2008 NHRA season - which will be a development year for the program. The plan is for John and Ashley Force to use the engine once it’s sorted. Dan Davis of Ford was quoted saying “We want fans to associate this engine with Ford and Force…the plan is for this to be a John Force Racing-exclusive engine at the start but we do want to be able to sell it to Top Fuel teams for competition in the near future.”
So now we have the traditional Chrysler Hemi-based fuel engine joined by the new Boss Ford fuel engine. All we need now is a GM design, and we’ll have a new nitro-powered muscle car war on our hands.
ppatch