TURBO Taxi has the distinction of being the very first Carnage project car, back in the heady days of early 2017. It started as a genuine Melbourne FG Falcon cab with 576,000km on the clock.

The goal was to run a 10-second pass down the quarter mile – on LPG fuel. With the plenty of assistance of from MPW Performance, Tunnel Vision Turbocharging, Haltech, GCG Turbos, Plazmaman and Extracted Performance Exhaust, Scotty got the Falcon up and running in turbo form in a couple of months, kicking off a roller-coaster ride of highs and lows.

The initial build quickly got us into the flat 12-second zone, until it was put into a tree during Drag Challenge 2018. We fixed the car, fitted a second set of injectors and got it into the mid-elevens at Drag Challenge Weekend. A voltage booster cured some ignition problems, allowed us to run 20psi and got the car down to a best of 11.30. Our goal of a 10 was within our grasp, so Scotty headed to Calder Park for a street meeting and run a stonking 11.01@125mph pass – destroying the Barra in the process.

Maxx Performance fitted a new LPG-spec Barra and we upgraded to an Turbosmart Gen V 50mm Pro gates at the same time. Not only that, but Shockworks treated us to new springs and shocks to help the old girl hook up better. The car was soon running low 11s again, until we blew another engine to smithereens at Sydney Dragway last year.

Of course, we’ve built a stack of other projects in between all of that, but the time has come to have another lash at the long-suffering Taxi. In this episode, Scotty pulls the dead Barra down for a post mortem and swaps the good bits onto the next victim – the fourth Barra to roll the dice.

Will we stick doggedly with the LPG set up – which will need some sorcery if we are ever going to run that 10 and not keep destroying engines – or call it a day and swap over to E85? Stay tuned to find out.