I've always enjoyed drag racing. For many years I've visited the track on their "test and tune" days. Although there is no organized competition or prizes to be had at these events, it is still fun to see what your car can do. I've had great personal success with my Turbo Mirages, but when I once got the urge to compete in a Saturday night bracket race it was a humbling experience. Being my car had approx. 400hp to the front wheels made it difficult to be consistent. Competitive drag racing at a local level is not about achieving the absolute lowest E.T., but is all about consistency.

In 1999, after purchasing, and lightly modifying my 1991 Eclipse turbo, I was amazed by how simple it was to make the turbo 2.0 liter Mitsu motor perform. When I say "perform" I'm talking about a car that runs low 13 second 1/4 mile times with a very small amount of cash. All this while racking up over 80 miles a day at no less than 27mpg.

Since I was now sold on the power potential and reliability of the Mitsu motor, I started dreaming up different vehicles the Mitsu 2.0 could be used in. Then, while scouring the Club DSM Archives I quickly found an old message that told of how the stock 1.6 Turbo motor in the Colt/Mirages and the 2.0 Turbo are nearly identical, and the swap is fairly straightforward. That's all I needed to hear, and over the next the next four years I built two nearly identical Turbo Mirages powered by the 4G63.

I was having a blast with my Mirages, but all along was dreaming of Rear Wheel Drive cars that would be perfect for the 4G63 engine swap. RX7? Nah. Miata? No. Mustang? Yikes! I'd read a few articles over the years of 4G63 swaps in Starions & Conquests. This seemed like a natural platform. I always felt the Starion was ahead of it's time in terms of styling and performance. The first time I read about Eric Plebani's 4G63 Starion was in 1999. I was intrigued and impressed, but it seemed like a major project that was in its "experimental" stages at the time. After seeing most of the major players build Rear Wheel Drive powered 4G63 cars over the years I began to consider it more and more. What changed my mind was Buschur Racing's Starion. The stunning performance of this car combined with the clean simplicity made me a believer.

Since this car's focus is on drag racing and will see limited street duty, I was looking for a Starion that needed a little TLC. It would be a shame to tear into a mint condition, low mileage car since there are so few of these on the road. After searching for a few months I found out about a friend locally with a Starion for sale. It was in good condition but had a blown motor. I spoke with him on Instant Messenger and picked it up the next day.

My goal is to create the ultimate all-around import drag racer. Fast, Consistent, Inexpensive, Reliable. I will be starting out quite conservative from a performance standpoint since my goal is to build the car in phases. Stay tuned as I document the life of this project car. From the build to completion and beyond, I'll be covering every detail for the true car nuts (like me) out there.