This Mk6 Fiesta drag car is the fastest of its kind in Europe, although that’s still not fast enough – Dean Hyndman won’t be satisfied until he’s running eight-second quarters!
Dean Hyndman is a true trailblazer of the Fast Ford scene. His way is not to follow the established path, or fall in line with the commonly accepted ‘right thing to do’, but to carve his own route. Now, on paper, it seems as if he’s starting from a disadvantage – his project, as you can see, is a Mk6 Fiesta, and it was always the aim to build it as a drag car for the strip. Inauspicious? No, not a bit of it. Sure, the Mk6 may be ubiquitous on the Ford modding scene, but that doesn’t mean there’s no room for originality. It hasn’t all been done yet, not by a long shot. And the fact that this platform is nobody’s go-to when the term ‘drag racing’ is mentioned hasn’t slowed Dean down at all.
So why choose a Mk6 Fiesta for a drag car in the first place? “Well, they’re cheap,” Dean laughs. “It makes a cracking base for drag racing, and you can pick them up for peanuts.” He’s not kidding. The car you see here was a £150 bargain found on Facebook Marketplace – and while the realms and definitions of ‘cheap’ have been somewhat stretched as the high-performance spec has developed, there’s no arguing that saving the money at the acquisition stage has allowed further investment to be channelled into the area of motive power. Because this thing is fast. Really bloody fast. In fact, this is the fastest Mk6 Fiesta in Europe, and that’s something Dean’s able to prove with maths and cold hard evidence.
Dean’s car history
It’s fair to say that Dean has a certain amount of form in this area, of course. He didn’t just fancy building a drag car simply to see what happens – this stuff is his life’s passion. Over the years he’s owned more Fords than you can shake the proverbial stick at, everything from a Mk1 Fiesta to a 500bhp Cossie, and it’s on the quarter-mile that he really feels most at home. Regulars at the strip may well be familiar with Dean’s previous drag build, a Mk3 Fiesta that ran elevens thanks to its hardcore Zetec turbo setup, making it the fastest Mk3 in the UK at the time.
The Mk6 Fiesta drag car you see here was built to replace that car, and to step Dean’s achievements and goals up to the next echelon of performance. “This Mk6 was built to run 10-second quarter-miles,” he says, matter-of-factly. “It’s snowballed from there, really – after many engines and years of development, the new goal is to run 8s. It’s been a crazy four years to get the car to this stage!”
Mk6 Fiesta drag car engine
The current setup uses an ST170 engine as its base, although there’s not a lot left stock with this motor; it’s running JE pistons, Pro-Race I-beam rods, M12 ARP head bolts, and a custom ported cylinder head from A.L. Developments.
The turbo is a massive Enhanced Turbo Superstorm 960 dual ceramic ball-bearing unit, and there’s a custom turbo cam kit, along with bespoke Crazycage Fabrications inlet and exhaust manifold and a Fueltech FT550 ECU, which was mapped by Gordon at Street Racers. The upshot is in the ballpark of 800bhp, which is pretty nuts, and that leads to some insane numbers on the strip. .
At the back end of 2023, the Mk6 Fiesta drag car clocked a 9.5-second run at 155mph. It’s quick enough to make this the record-holding Mk6 over the quarter-mile, and to put it into the top-five FWD Fords overall, but this isn’t enough for Dean. He wanted eights, and he’s going to get eights.
Making the Mk6 Fiesta drag car lighter
As you’d imagine, the car’s specification has to be one of pure function in order to achieve this. Every individual element has to be honed and refined, every part assessed for necessity as well as for whether it’s the most efficient or lightweight version it can be. Look through the wafer-thin plexiglass windows and you’ll see a cabin of pure purpose, shorn of all besides that which it needs to get from Point A to Point B a quarter-of-a-mile away with no messing about. So there’s no standing on ceremony: one of the headlights has been gutted to accommodate the tank that intrudes from below, because the tank is more important.
The brakes haven’t been upgraded, because there’s a parachute. There’s a Volkswagen gearbox simply because that’s the best tool for the job – an 02Q with Monster Performance 1-4 dog gears, plus a Quaife differential to stop Dean’s wrists from snapping. It’s a serious bit of kit. And despite the relatively unassuming exterior, ‘serious’ is a vibe bystanders pick up on straight away.
Verdict
“People just can’t believe how fast it is – and the sheer noise of it,” Dean laughs. And naturally the last laugh has to be his: he’s developing this car to run eight-second quarters, that’s its sole function in life… and with a purpose that clear and unalloyed, you can be damn sure that this supremely focused trailblazer is going to make it happen. Just wait and see.
Photos: Ade Brannan
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