Morgan Evans’ Hurricane Dodge Hits 8.89 and Drives Home

When Dodge contacted Morgan Evans to see if she was interested in competing in the 2024 Roadkill Nights Grudge Match, she’d never driven a Hurricane-powered vehicle and she had never made a pass down the drag strip. About eighteen months later, Evans was the first person to pilot a Hurricane-powered vehicle down the quarter-mile in the 8-second range, when her 1987 Dodge Ram D150 with the 3.0-liter twin turbo inline-six ran a stunning 8.89 at 149 miles per hour.

We last featured Morgan Evans and her 1987 Dodge Ram back in September, shortly after she had claimed the record for the quickest Hurricane-powered quarter-mile time with a 9.00. That big number came right after she had won her second-straight Roadkill Nights Grudge Match and taken home the title for the Quickest Six Cylinder Vehicle in the Michigan Miles Drag and Drive event. Evans and her 1987 Dodge pickup had a great 2025 season, but in the process of setting that 9.00 record, the stock 8-speed transmission took on some damage, sidelining the World’s Quickest Hurricane Vehicle for a short time.

“[The 8HP75] owed us nothing though after 7,100 HARD miles, hundreds of passes and the amount of power we were throwing at it. We immediately started looking around for a reputable builder and found Brian Shull with Applied Torque Solutions. He specializes in 8-speeds,” said Evans. “We drove out to Texas, built the new Stage 3 transmission with him, drove home and immediately put it in. We wanted to go to the track then, but it had to be loaded up for Vegas that week. So the truck went to NHRA Las Vegas, then to SEMA, and as soon as it got home, we planned our next outing to the track.”

As you can likely imagine, that trip to the track on November 19^th proved to be a great one. She described the time leading up to the first 8-second pass.

“Our home track, Orlando Speed World, is about 30 minutes from us so we just decided to drive the truck there…in typical drag and drive fashion! First pass it went a 9.50 at 137 mph, we knew something wasn’t right since we hadn’t changed anything but the transmission (which was working flawlessly). The data log was clean, all looked as it should, and the truck was running smoothly so we started digging into other things. We pulled a plug and it looked a little fouled, not horribly but it was the only thing we could think would cause that kind of decrease in power. Being at a couple shows, I think it was probably cold-started and shut off many times so it made sense to try. We swapped the plugs, went back out and clicked off a clean 8.89 at 149mph. I truly would’ve been happy with an 8.999999, but to see an 8.8x was just amazing. The best part is, I was able to turn right around and drive it home.”

Click here to watch that first 8-second run on Evans’ Instagram page.

For those who have not read any of the prior articles about Evans’ 1987 Dodge D150, the list of upgrades to the drivetrain is pretty short. The factory twin turbo setup has been replaced by a big single turbocharger from Precision Turbo, but this truck uses a 100% stock factory long block, the stock fuel system and the factory air-to-water intercooler. When running a C16 race fuel tune, this engine made over 800 horsepower at the rear wheels, but putting that kind of power to the ground requires some high-quality, high-performance supporting components.

The rear differential in Evans’ Dodge truck is a Moser Engineering Mopar_® 8 ¾ unit that carries massive Keizer wheels wrapped in Mickey Thompson tires. The suspension components include Viking coil-overs in the front and Calvert Racing split mono-leaf springs with Caltracs out back, and Wilwood brakes get the 3,300-pound truck down from big speeds at the end of the track. Also, the Circle D Specialties torque converter plays a key role in Evans getting away from the starting line so aggressively.

On the inside, this 1987 Dodge Ram D150 has a safety cage, JEGS racing bucket seats, JEGS safety harnesses and an AEM CD7 digital dashboard. Since this truck is used for lengthy drive-and-drag events, it even has cupholders built around the modern shifter.

While talking to Morgan Evans about her incredible 8-second run, I asked her if she thinks that there is still more left in this build without any dramatic changes.

“I do still think there’s more in it as it sits. We want to install a Turbolamik transmission TCU so we can actually tune the transmission. We don’t have great tunability right now through the stock TCU, so it’s actually still running the stock calibration the 8HP came with out of the crate. There’s a lot left on the table there alone, but we may still turn it up a little more. We do need to make some other changes as well, mostly in the safety department. It needs a full 8.50 cage and possibly a seat/harness upgrade. Our next event is Sick Week in January 2026; our goal is to end the week with an 8-second average.”

In closing, Morgan Evans wanted to credit some of the people who helped her get this 1987 Dodge Ram D150 into the 8s.

“I definitely would like to give a special thanks to Applied Torque Solutions for helping us build an incredible 8HP to withstand all of our abuse, Precision Turbo for helping us dial in the perfect setup for this platform, Moser Engineering for building us one tough 8 3/4″, Mickey Thompson for having a tire for all our needs, Circle D Specialties for building us one of the key pieces of this new setup, Hot Shots Secret for proving fluids top to bottom, JEGS Performance, Holley Performance, Proform Parts, Hemmings – I could write an essay on all the people that have helped us in one way or another with this truck.”

The Hurricane engine architecture is proving to be a very solid platform for a high-performance build, so we are sure to see more Mopar racers using the boosted 3.0-liter to turn impressive times, but only one person will ever be the first to put one in the 8-second range – and that will always be Morgan Evans. Congratulations from everyone at Dodge for this incredible accomplishment!