Like all good drag racers, Aaron James is always looking to go quicker, and you can do that two ways: add more power or push less weight. For the past 10 years or so, Aaron’s been happy to go with option #1, which has taken his Drag Challenge-honed VG Valiant from a solid 11-second street car to a drag-and-drive weapon capable of mid-nines. But recently he decided to give the second option a go, and this ’77 Chrysler Centura is the result.

First published in the January 2026 issue of Street Machine

PAINT: That gorgeous and era-correct bronze paint is actually a mix of around 10 different colours from the leftovers shelf at Martin Boys Chop Shop. While the original plan was just to get the car tidy enough for a wrap job so it could make Drag Challenge, the Martin Boys crew convinced Aaron to let them paint it in whatever they could find

“With the Centura, I don’t care if there’s a dent in it or a crack in the paint, but if I crashed the Val, I’d be gutted,” explains Aaron of his decision to return the VG to street-only duties and transfer its 528ci big block Chrysler driveline to the smaller car.

Aaron had initially been offered this Centura years ago by the car’s original owner, Lee Baxter, back when it ran a Dodge R5P7 NASCAR mill. He’d knocked it back at the time and had always regretted it, so when it turned up on his radar again, Aaron wasn’t about to repeat that mistake.

WHEELS: While the MaxWheel 15×9 rims and 235 rubber on the rear aren’t exactly monstrous, they fill up the diminutive Centura’s wheelwells beautifully – no tubbing required. Coupled with Weld AlumaStars and front-runners at the pointy end, the result is pure pro street

“Lee messaged me out of the blue and said, ‘I bought my old Centura back and am about to advertise it, but I thought I’d offer it to you again’,” he explains. “I thought, ‘holy shit, this is a sign’.”

The deal was done, and before long Aaron had the perfect – and much lighter – vessel for the stonking big-block his dad had built for the VG. A Molnar crank swings rods and pistons from 440 Source to take the 440 block out to 528 cubes, while Indy SR heads and a matching tunnel ram are topped with a pair of APD 950cfm carbs. A fully manualised, reverse-pattern 727 Torqueflite backs it up.

In the Valiant, the combo made 665hp on a chassis dyno, but with the extra room in the Centura’s engine bay, Aaron’s managed to squeeze in a slightly bigger set of pipes. “The stainless headers are stepped from 2in to 21/8in to 2¼in, and then into a twin 4in system,” he explains. “I reckon it’s making a little bit more now.”

ENGINE BAY: That Perspex scoop really helps show off the stonking 528ci stroker Chrysler big-block. The Centura runs pump fuel for the road and MS109 race juice for the drag strip, so there are separate fuel pumps and fuel lines at the front of the engine bay. Behind the oil filter are two bulkhead fittings; when it’s time to race, Aaron just swaps the fuel line over to the other fitting, fills the tank with MS109 and sends it!

Having been a drag car for quite a long time, the Centura already had a pretty good rollcage, four-link set-up and a stout chrome-moly sheet-metal diff housing, but there was still a fair bit to do to turn it into something capable of handling Drag Challenge. Advanced Race Fabrication got the ball rolling by giving the rollcage some tweaks needed to meet ANDRA specs.

The plan then was to simply drop the big-block and transmission into the Centura, but the decision was made to set the engine back in the bay a little, which complicated matters. As the car had been previously set up for a small-block, Aaron needed to make up new engine mounts anyway, but there was still a bunch of other stuff to do to get it all sorted. “We did the fuel system, wiring, interior and paint,” says Aaron. That might not sound like a very long list, but it becomes a tall order when you start the build less than six months before Drag Challenge!

INTERIOR: Aaron discovered that a set of Auto Meter accessory gauges for oil, water and volts fit the Centura’s factory dash perfectly; the only original gauge is the clock. JAZ racing seats have replaced the stock Chrysler front pews, but the rear seat remains stock – although there’s really only room for one person back there due to all the barwork

Aaron’s adamant that they wouldn’t have got the car to DC ’25 without the tireless efforts of his dad, who got everything sorted while Aaron worked his FIFO job and spent time with his young family. One of the most impressive feats of the build was the getting the panel and paint done, which wasn’t part of the original plan. “We went to see Martin Boys Chop Shop to ask them to iron the dents out; we were running out of time before Drag Challenge and thought we’d just wrap the car. They just kept on at me about painting it, so six beers later, we’re in the paint booth,” Aaron says. “Ten different random paint cans later, we ended up with this colour, and six days later, it was painted and ready for pick-up.”

With the freshly painted Centura back in the shed, the James lads embarked on a mad thrash to get the final jobs sorted in time to tow the car across to South Australia for the start of DC at Dragway at the Bend, and while it didn’t end up as light as they had hoped, it was still 550lb slimmer than the VG.

With the rush to get the car done, there wasn’t any time for testing before DC, so the fact that the Centura went 9.30@146mph on its first full quarter-mile pass (compared to the Valiant’s 9.52@141mph best) and finished third in the ITF Hire 235 Aspirated class is remarkable. But the campaign wasn’t without its trials.

“We’d been having problems during the week with what we thought was a carb stumble, but on the last day of the event, Alon Vella and Wayne Smith of Performance Carb Tuning told me that something was wrong with my converter,” Aaron says. “We used the same converter from the Val, but because the Centura is so much lighter, it doesn’t flash up off the line like it should, so that’s why it was bogging down.”

Aaron’s not making excuses, though. If anything, it just shows that, once it’s dialled in and has a bit more testing under its wheels, this Centura should easily run well into the eights.

DRAG CHALLENGE: Aaron’s gameplan for DC ’25 was to be laying down eights by week’s end, but while he only managed a best of 9.30@146mph, he was consistent enough over the five days of racing to finish third in the ITF Hire 235 Aspirated classAARON & ALLAN JAMES
1977 CHRYSLER CENTURAPaint:Ten Beers Bronze MetallicENGINEBrand:528ci Chrysler big-blockInduction:Indy tunnel ram, twin APD 950cfm carbsHeads:Indy SRCamshaft:Comp Cams solid-rollerConrods:440 SourcePistons:440 SourceCrank:Molnar strokerOil pump:MilodonFuel system:MagnaFuel 300Cooling:AluminiumExhaust:Stepped headers, twin 4in stainless exhaustIgnition:MSD distributor, Crane FireBall HI-6 DS ignition and coilTRANSMISSIONGearbox:727 TorquefliteConverter:TCE 5000rpm stallDiff:Sheet-metal 9in, 40-spline axles, 3.5:1 gearsSUSPENSION & BRAKESFront:Strange coil-oversRear:Four-link, Strange coil-oversBrakes:Strange discs (f & r)Master cylinder:StandardWHEELS & TYRESRims:Weld AlumaStar 15×3.5 (f), MaxWheel Star 15×9 (r)Rubber:Moroso Drag Special 5.50-15 (f), Hoosier DR2 235/60R15 (r)

THANKS
My old man Allan James for his endless hours and building one bad-arse big-block; Brett Whintle for wiring; Ricky Wood for the gearbox; Brodie Mitchell at Advanced Race Fabrication for rollcage mods; Matty at Geelong Diffs for sorting the diff centre; Martin Boys Chop Shop for panel and paint; Nick for the interior; Pro Performance Parts; my sponsors for their ongoing support: Tyrepower Pinjarra, 7 Sins Apparel, Storage Town, Cobram Windows, CJ Metal Works and JD Auto & Detailing; most importantly, my partner for putting up with this hobby!

Related