Being surrounded by six cylinder Barra engines all day long, Tony Bellert of TBRE Performance has finally decided to go racing with one.
There are many ways to go fast in drag racing, and the now world renowned Aussie Ford six cylinder Barra is proving to be the latest bullet of choice in a sea of RBs and 2Js. Aside from being Australian designed and manufactured, it is on-point with the younger generation of racers and still a relatively cheap build to go fast with.
For Bellert, who has a dominating Super Comp dragster in national index racing, he thought it was time to make the switch away from the big block V8 and build what he desired – but first he needed a new chassis.
“The car is a 273″ Spitzer which I bought June 2021 as a turn key Modified car with a 600ci big block in it, with the intention to fit a Barra in it,” recalled Bellert. “The car was a pretty stout deal after I gave it a service and a tune up on my hub dyno, I got it to run 7.1s at 189mph.
“I bought this car as I’ve always wanted to do a Barra dragster, as I have built so many Barras in my business TBRE Performance, but I could never fit one in my A/DA car.”
With a new chassis sorted to house his Barra plans, Bellert went about the build.
“After running the car for a couple of meetings to get some proven results on BBC driveline, I went about stripping it all out, and selling everything out of it so I could fit the modern tech Barra in the car,” he said.
“The car is fitted out with all the top shelf stuff you would expect in a build of this calibre, with Haltech supplying us a Nexus R5 VCU with one of there IC7 dashes and a set of their smart coils. We also had Plazmaman make us a custom rearward facing plenum to suit how I wanted to lay the car out. Turbosmart supplied us the wastegate and BOV for the build. Turbotech QLD supplied us with a new Garrett G57-98mm turbo. The car was fully wired using Tefzel – and the car is actually wired to be able to also fit any V8 combo as well if we ever changed direction in the future.
“Engine-wise it’s one of my full house top shelf engines that we fit a full billet PPM crank, rods and pistons in, along with a set of billet main caps. The head is one of our CNC port deals that we also hand finish. We also put a new set of billet roller rockers in this engine that we helped PPM design for the Barras, and this deal was the ultimate test for them. The car runs a Powerglide with dump valves, and all the fruit that goes along with it.
With power plant built, Bellert needed to find a class to slot his creation into.
“I wanted to build something a bit different to the normal,” he said. “And after contacting IHRA about doing this build, and asking about some rules and regs, to clarify about running the car in EE/DA, they advised me they wanted to bring in some engine specific classes for the Barras and LS engines, and with the Barra platform being so popular in Australia they said they have had the Barra on the table as far back as 2018 to do classes for.
“So with a bit of back and forth with them we built the car to suit one of the new classes they are in the process of introducing.”
While a Barra powered dragster is the perfect platform to showcase his business, Bellert was looking towards future generations as further motivation behind the build.
“I wanted to do this to try and get some of the younger generation interested in Group 2 racing. They are being brought up in a more high-tech world, with modern engines and ECUs on the cars with turbos. Let’s face it, kids these days aren’t interested in dinosaur technology.”
And the cost versus performance comparison compared to going with a more traditional V8 makes it very enticing for enthusiasts to embrace these newer engine options.
“With the modern tech these days you can go faster cheaper. For example the engine in my A/DA car, if you were to buy a current spec one out of the USA, it would cost you well over $100k for the engine alone. And the between round maintenance is huge with checking and replacing valve springs, chasing jetting changes due to the weather, etc,” said Bellert.
“Where as you can do one of these Barras for under $40k, and not have to do a thing between rounds except put some fuel in it and pack the chutes. And providing you don’t get too greedy and aggressive with the tune up, the engine will do four to five times the amount of runs between a freshen up over a Pro Stock spec engine. So the running costs are dramatically reduced as well.”
Proof is in the timeslip and Bellert recently took his new Barra project dragster to Willowbank Raceway for its first test laps.
“We took the car out for the first time to the last QDRC at Willowbank to get a bit of data, and see how things are going to work,” he said. “We had some issues with getting the boost control where we wanted it. But once we got it sorted we ended up getting a clean pass off the line where we backed off at 1000ft, and rolled through for a 6.70. I think if I ran that one the full track we probably would have gone a 6.60 – 6.62 thereabouts.
“Still got a bit of sorting to do on the start line side of things, but the car is showing some good potential for a 245ci engine with a factory block and cylinder head.”
The reliability and cost of a Barra operation also allows more opportunities to race without the risk of straining a high dollar competition engine.
“Having this combo also opens us up to doing more events like Jamboree,” said Bellert. “And with it being low maintenance between rounds we can also run the car in Modified if we wanted too, but predominantly we are aiming it for the new Group 2 classes.
“Since unveiling the car we have had a lot of solid interest in people thinking about joining in the Barra class, which is great for the sport and great for Group 2 racing.”
Check out some video of the Barra rail in action below.
-Drag News Magazine
