AFTERBURNER

TWIN-TURBO V8 STREET CARS WERE A RARE COMMODITY IN 1988, BUT GRAHAM SCHILD WAS AHEAD OF HIS TIME WITH THIS WILD VJ CHARGER

- SIMON TELFORD

HIGH-end Mopar feature cars were thin on the ground back in the early days of Street Machine, so Chrysler-philes rejoiced in our story on Graham Schild’s twin-turbo VJ Valiant Charger in the March ’88 issue. While turbo V8s are common these days, they were a rarity in that era.

“The turbo thing came about when someone told me that I couldn’t do it,” says Graham. “That was it!”

At the time, Graham was a 24-year-old maintenance fitter for Coca-Cola, and he built the suck-through-style turbo set-up from scratch. “The turbo pipes were made from heavy-duty exhaust pipe, with brackets on the heads to support the weight,” he says. “The internal-wastgate turbos came from AIT. We reasoned that if one of their units was enough for a 4.1-litre six, two of them would be fine for a V8. They were probably a bit small, but it made the car very driveable.”