‘Wonder Bread’ Terminator Cobra: No Loafing

All you need is a couple of turbos and a world-class engine tuner to knock on the door of a 6-second drag pass.

It’s only fitting that the ‘Wonder Bread’ Mustang Cobra runs a butter-smooth quarter mile in a few ticks over 7 seconds. This Wonder-ful machine belongs to Keith Rhea, a respected Pennsylvania Modular engine tuner who has built the world’s quickest Cobra. And it looks the very picture of drag racing beauty at the 2017 Haltech Import vs. Domestic World Cup Finals at Maryland International Raceway.

In the World Cup Finals’ Radial vs. Modified class, the Wonder Bread Cobra competed against some very heavy hitters running deep into the 6s. Rhea may not have matched up head-to-head very well, but he set out to run hard and qualified 12th in the 24-car field with a best of 7.17 seconds at 195 miles per hour.

Rhea hoped to make the first-ever 6-second pass for a Cobra engine, but the twin-turbo 5.4-liter Mod engine had other ideas. The tires spun on the throttle hit in Round 1 of eliminations, unfortunately ending the Wonder Racing Mustang’s weekend early.

As Rhea tells BigKleib34, under the hood lurks a factory 5.4-liter GT500 Modular block, obviously with a healthy internals build. A pair of Precision 72-millimeter turbos stuff boost into the block. With full boost, Rhea estimates the car will make 2,000 horsepower when set to kill. He tried to run it at that setting during eliminations to blow off the tire..

We have little doubt the Cobra will return and that 6s are possible. Just one year ago, Rhea had only just put the car into the 7s. That’s a quantum leap in elapsed time so we were eager to see what the car could do next time it ran hard.

We didn’t have to wait long. The Wonder Bread Cobra cleaned up the “King of 4V” class at the Mod Nationals at Cecil County Dragway the very next weekend. That’s a bounce back.