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Editor's note: This is part of a series at KSL.com featuring some of Utah's coolest cars. If you own a customized vehicle — from sports cars to semitrucks — email fjolley@ksl.com with a photo of the vehicle and a brief description for consideration.OGDEN — Chase Jenson first laid eyes on his now dedicated race car nearly six years ago in 2011 when he traded his Honda Del Sol straight across for it. It wasn’t anything special then, but that is far from the truth now.
This Acura Integra has gone through many transformations while being owned by Jenson.
He first swapped in a stock 1.6-liter dual-cam vtec engine with a budget turbo kit that failed a few thousand miles after being installed. Then he installed a stock 1.8-liter engine while he saved up money to put something nicer together. Once money was saved, he swapped in an LS-vtec engine with a little nicer turbo setup that made over 600 horsepower. However, much like the first setup, it also met its demise not long after being swapped in.
This led Jenson to store the car while he planned and saved up again. This time it was going to be done right, and money wasn’t spared on the build since his new goal of 1,000 horsepower reliably for quarter-mile and half-mile racing had to be accomplished.
The new engine features Golden Eagle cylinder sleeves along with Manley Turbo Tuff connecting rods mated to CP pistons to handle all of the power the engine is producing. The cylinder head has been heavily modified with a Killer B CNC port along with a set of dual valve springs and pair of Skunk2 Pro1 camshafts to match.
The turbo kit that helps produce all the power consists of a Garrett GTX4294r turbocharger along with a pair of Tial 44 mm wastegates and 50 mm blowoff valve to control all of the positive pressure going into the engine.
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Would you watch a YouTube video of a car’s taillights? Well, more than 30,000 people have watched a video of a 1967 Mercury Cougar. Those lights and a few other things made Gary Hart a huge Cougar fan.Any engine producing over 1,000 horsepower requires a lot of fuel. That is why this Acura is equipped with a Weldon 2345a fuel pump and matching Weldon fuel filter, as well as a Weldon fuel pressure regulator.
The car was tuned by Courtney Green before being raced, and this is when the car first produced 937 wheel horsepower at 28 pounds per square inch, but later it was retuned just before a racing event and the magical 1,000 whp number was achieved with more tweaking to the setup.
Now that the car was at peak efficiency, Jenson was ready to go after the standing half-mile front-wheel drive record, which at the time was 188 mph.
“This thing was uncontrollably fast,” Jenson said. “It felt like my eyes were getting sucked back into my skull.”
With his first run at the event, he was able to achieve a speed of 178 mph which put him in second place, and by the end of the event, the car had run a best of 185 mph, just 3 mph short of the old record. But a new record of 190 mph was set at the same event.
Jenson’s car has also seen the quarter-mile strip at Rocky Mountain Raceway where it battled drivetrain issues and traction and still managed to run a 10.2 at 157 mph.
Jenson plans to have a wide front end as well as a new carbon fiber hood for the car this year so it can be as sleek and smooth as possible.
