The NEW and Improved Murder Nova at Outlaw Armageddon

For nine seasons on Discovery Channel’s Street Outlaws, we’ve watched Shawn and the Murder Nova, in two drastically different configurations, maintain a spot on the list. I don’t remember the car ever being off the list, perhaps briefly while it was swapped from the ProCharger to twin turbos, but if it was off of the list at all, it wasn’t off for long. Despite battling consistency issues, mainly due to severe tireshake, the car has amassed a solid win/loss record and has always been in contention for the top spot.

However, time as come to pull the OG Murder Nova off and bring out the new and improved Murder Nova. The car was first revealed in December at PRI in Indy, then quietly went on an extended vacation to Quillen Motorsports Engineering for some TLC from fabricator and tuner – among many other things – Travis Quillen. As it came from Don Dial Race Cars, the car probably would have been an absolute beast, but Shawn, Chief and Travis analyzed data from the the OG Murder Nova and the Crow and realized there were some things that could be done to help the car really reach its true potential. So Quillen set about moving the engine down and back in the car to lower the center of gravity and shift the weight distribution further to the rear. This meant the pedal assembly and even the gorgeous funny car-style roll cage had to be moved as well, but they wanted the car to be right, so the changes were made.

As you can see in the clip below, the changes certainly seemed to work, as the car bites hard and launches beautifully on the unprepped Thunder Valley Raceway Park surface. Now all that is left is to gather more data and fine tune the engine and chassis, and the new Murder Nova should be ready to dominate the most famous Top 10 List in the land!