1988 Turbo’ed Chevy Sprint: Not Your Grandma’s Econobox

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You can clearly see that the Chevy Sprint is a close predecessor to the Geo Metro. The Chevy Sprint is often praised as a super fuel efficient car, but it’s never really been known for much else. That’s what makes this build perhaps the ultimate sleeper car.

Now, if you’re talking about just any ole Sprint, you’d expect an ‘80s econobox with a 3-cylinder engine. Until 2007, this Sprint was just that. When Fatman Fabrications got their hands on it, that all changed. The mission was to build a square-tube street rod frame on a unitized body.

Let’s talk about this engine first, it’s the centerpiece of the build. Stuffed in this small car is a aluminum 402 small block dry sump engine, and oh yeah, it has twin turbos! The engine was built by Duttweiler Performance. It has a Brodix block and heads, COMP Cams roller car, forged crank and rods, CP pistons, twin Precision turbos, and a Big Stuff3 EFI system.

The engine itself dyno’ed at 878 lb-ft of torque and 954 horsepower on pump gas and 1,216 lb-ft and 1,332 hp with race gas. Backing the powerful transition is a GM TH350. Fatman cut the body from the floorboards, and built a custom square-tube chassis for the little car. The body was braced before the separation so the new chassis could slide right under the car.

The Sprint rides on a MacPherson strut front suspension. It has a Ford 9-inch rear with Detroit Truetrac, and 2.50:1 gearing. To improve the stopping power, it has a set of brakes meant for a Nissan truck.

This little beast is compete street legal and a true one of kind sleeper. It’s currently up for sale here with only a little over 72k miles on the clock. If you’re looking for a light car with globs of power in a sleeper shell, this is probably your dream car!

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