James Reeves 12 second Dodge Omni
James doing what comes naturally...
On with the story...
OK, well, I picked up the car for $800 from a kid who had NO IDEA what he
had (he did know it was turbo, as he had "TURBO OMNI" written HUGE, in old english letters, all the way down the side of the car....but he swore to me
that it was NOT A GLH...he,he! He said the car "just didn't have enough power" and he needed "a big V8" LOL!!! I drove it home from the courthouse,
and he was 100% right!! It had NO POWER.....got home, and popped the hood, and the wastegate actuator was just dangling in the air!! LOL!! No wonder
it had no power for him....it had NO BOOST.. The next day, I hooked up the turbo, hacked off the catalytic
converter and the muffler, and piped on a
cherry bomb. Then, I went to pick my old man up for a ride!!! WE ran up the road, turned around as I was burning rubber...went to grab second and
there was NO SECOND!! There was no 3rd, no 4th, no 5th, no 1st!! What the ?? Had to tow it to my garage, to find out that I stripped the joint where
the intermediate axle and the half shaft come together "NO splines left....looked like a bearing!" So, replaced it with a full length axle,
and headed back to my house (about 50 miles from my parents house).....made it about half way, when the car started LOOSING POWER big time and then
finally quite....again, what the ?? Turned out that I stripped the teeth off the timing belt....even though the car had all new belts and hoses and
stuff.....looks like they never replaced the timing belt....BLAH!! So, had to fix it, and replace some motor mounts.
I started cranking up the boost, little by little, till I got up to about 12 or 13 psi, and replaced the injectors with some 804's I had lying around
from my Shelby Z. I then went to the strip.... Well, it took a while to keep it from overboosting, (spiking bad), but one good run yielded a 15.3
(mph forgotten, but I will look for the slip).
James installing manual rack on left, Ken & James trying to "convince" engine into bay on right.
Ok, so I had fun doing this run around for a while, and having a cool street
terrorizer......but after a month or so, I was tired of the TI. So, I thought "Well, hell......pop a TII top end on for cheap, and have even more
bang for the buck!!" Well, TII top end, turned into rebuilding the engine, turned into replacing the engine, turned into building a 2.5, turned into
building it RACE styled with forged pistons and so forth, turned into porting the head, intake and exhaust manifold and running a 52mm T-body, etc......
With this setup (which, if you want me too, I will just break down my different setups and times for you later?), I got the 12.5 @ 108.50.
With the new setup this year...I'm really hoping for 11's!! (probably high one's, but that'll work for now :)
(James' current best is
12.3 @ 113)
James also has a pretty sharp Daytona, too!
