Keith’s RSI Performance Twin Turbo Dodge Viper

Photos: Dave, & Mark | Words: Dave | Copy Edit: Richard

As our readers no-doubt already know, we don’t like to do things small (or slow) here in Texas, and I think you’ll agree this feature vehicle maintains that theme.

So, what do you get when a stock Viper’s power simply isn’t enough? A slight increase in power not sufficient?  50% more power simply inadequate? Double the power only just,”getting there”?

You get Keith’s Viper.

We had the chance to sit down with Keith to talk about the car, and then experience the madness for ourselves.  Mark and I both got to go for a ride, and I simply cannot put the acceleration into words. It feels like someone is standing on your chest, and there is ZERO turbo lag, its just one massive wall of torque. The feeling of 1000+whp is simply nuts!

We asked Keith, “Why a Dodge Viper?”

After graduating college, getting married, and buying our first house, my wife said to me that after all these years of waiting I could finally get my new car that I had always wanted. Now just being recently graduated from college, I was still in a rather reasonable mindset and was thinking about getting a truck or a large luxury sedan as a practical daily driver/ fun car. But then my wife, being the fantastic person that she is said, “ You can drive that luxury car or truck when you’re old. You only live once; why not get a sports car?” Being an engineer, I told her that I could always get a sports car down the line and it made more sense to drive something more reasonable in the time being. She replied “ That’s dumb, but if you want to be the middle aged guy driving the sports car with the floppy hat and sunglasses  waving at the high school kids that’s your choice.” Traumatized with the thought of being one of those creepy guys smiling and waving in their convertibles, I began my search for a sports car.

Browsing through the local car ads one day I came across a Graphite Gen 2 Viper GTS. Excited at the possibility of owning a viper I showed my wife the ad and asked her what she thought. The car’s owner had taken some mediocre pictures and my wife wasn’t really impressed but none the less, we went to go see it. I remember pulling up to the parking lot where we were meeting the owner and my heart racing when I saw the side profile of the GTS. As we were walking over to the car my wife looked over at me, tapped me on the shoulder and said “I want that one… Get that one” and we did.

 

So, having purchase a true beast of a car, you’d think that should have taken care of our owner’s power fix. Well, Keith thought the same thing as he explains here.

Now for most people and most places, a car with 450hp/500tq stock is more than enough power.  I had a friend from California who had just Single Turbo’d his MKIV Supra who talking trash on how slow my car was. Being competitive, I decided to add a simple power adder to my car which should be more than enough for anything. I ended up adding a 150 shot to my car and it made around 585whp/700tq which was more than enough for me.  The shop which had installed my nitrous system True Street Motorsports in Mckinney, TX was having a local dyno day which I decided to go to… and it all went downhill from there.

At the dyno day I met one of my good friends Elliot Presser one of the owners of Dallasracing.net (DR) and owner of a yellow twin turbo Viper GTS.  Elliot invited me to hang out with a couple members of DR for some driving fun. I came into that meet thinking my Nitrous Viper was fast (which, in any other “normal” State, it would be), but in Texas… 600whp is a grocery getter… as I soon found out after getting put in another zip code by a local CTS-V Sedan.

After that point, I left all my hesitation and rational thinking at the door and called up the top Viper performance shop in the country, Racing Solutions (RSI), and started to build my dream car. Will Hamblin, owner of RSI set me up with his RSI 1000 package and let me have the opportunity to be one of his first cars to have their new Street Twin Turbo Kit. The final result was fantastic; the car made around 960whp/1000tq on 93 pump gas and ran fantastic.

Unfortunately, one night of driving the car hard, the OEM water pump blew and the car overheated real bad and needed to be pulled apart and assessed for damage. RSI being the stand-up company they are, offered to fix the car on warranty for me even though it was an OEM part failure and had nothing to do with their build.

About a month ago, Will came to me with an opportunity to buy an already finished RSI 1500 car running the top of the line parts and engine management systems. I loved my Graphite GTS, but couldn’t resist the opportunity to move into the Black Gen 3 SRT that Will was presenting to me. I ended up selling my GTS mid build and moving into the Black RSI 1500 SRT Viper that you see here.

Although, I miss my other car and the memories with it, everything melts away as I hit the gas and feel the turbos come on. As for my wife, she likes this car better… main reasons being  1) It’s a convertible, 2) she doesn’t smell like gas when she comes out of it, 3) Doesn’t make her car sick, and 4) It’s a convertible.  As most of you know who suffer from the horsepower addiction… happy wife, happy life.

I have no future plans to turn up the power, my vision was to create a street car that I could drive to meets with friends, race, drive back home, and then take it to work the next day if I felt like it.

 

For those of you curious what it takes to make this crazy amount of power out of a Viper Keith has supplied us with the mod list:

RSI Twin Turbo System

•           Garrett GT-35 Turbos with 1.06 AR
•           RSI custom manifolds and piping
•           Tial Blow Off Valves
•           Tial Wastegates
•           RSI Custom Exhaust

RSI 522ci Stroker for 1500HP Short Block  

•           RSI Custom Modified OEM Crankshaft
•           CP Pistons with Upgraded Pins and Rings
•           Oliver Rods
•           Clevite 77 Bearings
•           Billet Main Caps
•           Darton Sleeves
•           Machined and Blueprinted
•           Full Balance
•           ARP Head Studs
•           RSI Main Stud Kit for Viper with ARP 2000 Studs
•           ATI Damper

 Greg Good Heads

•           Stage 3 “Race” Port and Polish
•           Oversized Stainless Intake Valves
•           Oversized Inconel Exhaust Valves
•           Double Springs
•           Comp Spring Cups
•           Comp Tool Steel Retainers
•           Chromoly Locks
•           Solid Bronze Guides
•           Comp Custom Camshaft
•           RSI/GG Lifter Upgrade
•           Comp PushRods

RSI Stage 4 Fuel System with E85

•           RSI Billet Fuel Triple Pump Hanger
•           Triple Walbro E85 430 Pumps
•           RSI Billet Fuel Rails
•           Fuel Line kit with Filters and Fittings
•           Fuelab regulator
•           RSI Regulator Bracket
•           RSI Billet Throttle Cable Bracket
•           Injector Dynamic 2000cc Injectors

RSI Billet Carbon Triple Disk Clutch with Heat Treated Flywheel

•           Wavetrac Limited Slip Differential

John Reed Racing Pectel SQ6

•           Traction control
•           Flex Fuel
•           Zeitronix E85 Sensor and Content Analyzer

 

Keith would like to thank the following people for all their support in his horsepower addiction!

I’d like to thank my Wife (Jessica) for encouraging me to have fun while I’m still young.

• Will and the RSI team, for giving me the opportunity to own my dream car.
• Elliot from DallasRacing.net, for introducing me to the scene and consequently ruining my life…. Just kidding.
• Dave, Mark, and Ken for taking the time to drive out to McKinney at the break of dawn to shoot my car.