The Formula Drift season opener taking place in the streets of Long Beach is literally right around the corner and we’re pretty excited over here.

Of course we’re stoked to have a nice day at the event and see some old friends, but we’re really pumped to see what changes all of the teams have made to their cars and how they perform. One in particular that caught our eye was the Rockstar Energy team and the new Volkswagen Passat drift car that Tanner Foust will be piloting.

Last week we posted the teaser video, but today we finally get to see the finished product in action at Horse Thief Mile at Willow Springs Motorsports Park.

The Passat is outfitted with over-fenders to accommodate the wide KMC wheels and Nitto tires, a full roll cage, and a brute LS engine under the hood that puts out 900 horsepower on spray, and 700 naturally aspirated. One thing we found really interesting about the engine setup was the header setup. It’s not a 4-1 design or a 4-2-1 design, but an 8-1 design. All eight tubes coming off of the exhaust ports meet up in front of the engine in what looks like a knot.

Though not commonly seen because of the difficulty getting them packaged in a tight engine bay, headers like this that pair up primary tubes on opposite banks so that their firing order helps scavenge the neighboring pipe are actually a pretty well-known speed secret. We can’t tell you the power difference over traditional headers, but we do know that it gives the LS engine a very distinct sound under load.

From what we can see in the video, Foust’s car looks and performs great, but it is larger than most of the cars in the series so we’ll just have to see how it stacks up once it gets out on the track. Although Foust is only competing in three rounds of the series this year, we’re really looking forward to seeing an LS-powered Passat at full steering lock, tapping doors of other competitors.