Miller Finishes 2nd at King of the Hammers in First Start With MSD AirForce intake

02/15/2019
10 min read

Miller Finishes 2nd at King of the Hammers in First Start With MSD AirForce intake

02/15/2019
10 min read

In his first major start with an MSD AirForce intake manifold, rocksports star Erik Miller registered yet another podium finish at the King of the Hammers showdown in Johnson Valley, Calif. For Miller, who won the prestigious event in 2012 and 2016 and won the Ultra4 national championship in 2018, it was his third podium in the past four years, and he just missed in 2017 with a fourth-place finish. "The improvement in power with the AirForce intake was noticeable, and I mean right away," said Miller, the youngest driver (25 in 2012) to win KOH and the only East Coast driver to ever win it. His 4400 Class machine is powered by a standard-deck 427 cubic-inch LS7 custom-built by racing veteran Jeff Ginter of Artesia, Calif. "The quality of construction is impressive, especially how it seals up. For a short-course motor, reliability is paramount – it's even more important than horsepower. You need power, obviously, and this thing makes more than enough – 700 horsepower and 700 foot-pounds of torque – but for King of the Hammers, you need to know that what you have is going to make it to the end."



The 10-year veteran, who builds turn-key cars from the ground up at his Miller Pro Chassis shop in the rolling mountains of Cumberland, Md., knows what it takes to win. He's never failed to finish King of the Hammers, has more podium finishes at the grueling event than anyone, and was denied a third career title this year only because of lapped traffic. "In a lap race, you never know what you're going to get into," he said. "I almost caught up to Jason [Scherer] but couldn't quite catch him at the end." Miller crossed the line less than six minutes behind Jason Scherer and nearly 40 minutes ahead of third-place Shannon Campbell.



It sure wasn't a lack of horsepower that cost Miller the title. "This thing has more than enough power to win," he said. "It's making 20 more horsepower on the dyno. Just from the seat-of-the-pants feel, I could tell immediately that I had a lot more power than I did last year, and the AirForce intake is the only things that's changed. Every other part in the engine is exactly the same."


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