Devin Vanderhoof & HCR Innovations
From Race Car Build to Dealer
The PDM28 Across Two Generations of Drag-and-Drive Racing​
Devin Vanderhoof is the owner of HCR Innovations, a wiring and tuning shop built around Holley EFI systems and serving the drag-and-drive racing community. What started as a side hobby wiring cars for friends grew into a full-time business, with Devin and HCR Innovations having rewired dozens of race cars from scratch and become a trusted name in drag-and-drive wiring and tuning.
Devin is also a competitive drag-and-drive racer in his own right, with multiple event wins to his name in series such as Sick Week and Hot Rod Drag Week. His own cars double as a proving ground for the parts and techniques HCR Innovations brings to its customers — a track record that now spans two build generations.
DRAG-AND-DRIVE
Drag-and-drive cars live a double life: capable of running deep into the single-digit second range at the strip, then driven hundreds of miles on public roads between events. That combination puts unusual demands on a car's electrical system — it has to control a high-horsepower, turbocharged powertrain reliably at the track, while also running the fans, pumps, lighting, and driver controls needed for everyday road use, all without adding excess weight or a maze of point-to-point wiring.
THE ORIGINAL
Devin's original drag-and-drive car, a twin-turbocharged 1993 Ford Mustang convertible known as Big Ern, set the standard for this approach, running deep into the six-second zone at over 230 mph and racking up multiple event wins. Its successor, a newer S550-generation Mustang known as Reddi Whip, was purpose-built to go even further — its chassis and roll cage are SFI-certified for the five-second range, with a lighter build, carbon fibre body panels, and a big-block powertrain fed by a pair of turbos aimed at getting it there. In both cars, Devin needed to bring power distribution into the same digital environment as the Holley EFI system managing the engine and the CAN keypads used for driver control, rather than running it as a separate, hard-wired system alongside them.
Devin built both cars around a Hardwire Electronics PDM28 Power Distribution Module, using it to control and power each car's electrical systems from a single, solid-state unit in place of a conventional fuse and relay panel. In Reddi Whip, the PDM28 is mounted on the passenger side of the car, keeping it within easy reach for diagnostics and reconfiguration.
In each build, the PDM28 is fully integrated into the car's CAN bus, where it talks directly to the Holley Dominator ECU as well as the car's CAN keypads. Rather than switches and relays triggering circuits directly, inputs from the keypads and data from the ECU are shared over the same network, and the PDM28 handles the job of turning the right outputs on and off in response — powering everything from fuel pumps and fans to lighting and driver-facing switch functions.
KEY ASPECTS OF
THE IMPLEMENTATION:
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A single PDM28 powering and controlling each car's full electrical system, replacing a traditional relay and fuse panel with a compact, centralised, solid-state unit — carried over from Devin's original Mustang to Reddi Whip
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Two-way CAN bus communication with the Holley Dominator ECU, allowing the PDM28 and the engine management system to share data and coordinate control rather than operating as separate systems
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Direct integration with each car's CAN keypads, so driver inputs from the cockpit are read straight off the CAN bus and used to trigger PDM outputs, cutting out dedicated wiring runs for each switch
BECOMING A DEALER
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Having put the PDM28 through its paces in his own cars and in customer builds, Devin saw the value the platform brought to drag-and-drive and race car wiring more broadly. HCR Innovations became an official dealer for Hardwire Electronics, adding the full PDM range alongside the Holley, MSD, Racepak, and Davis Technologies products the shop already carried.
HCR Innovations went a step further, developing its own unterminated, flying-lead wiring harnesses specifically for the PDM28. The harnesses give customers a ready-made starting point for their own installs, cutting down the time it takes to get a PDM28 wired into a car and reflecting HCR's hands-on experience running the module in demanding, real-world race applications — experience built across two generations of Devin's own drag-and-drive cars.
Devin built both cars around a Hardwire Electronics PDM28 Power Distribution Module, using it to control and power each car's electrical systems from a single, solid-state unit in place of a conventional fuse and relay panel. In Reddi Whip, the PDM28 is mounted on the passenger side of the car, keeping it within easy reach for diagnostics and reconfiguration.
In each build, the PDM28 is fully integrated into the car's CAN bus, where it talks directly to the Holley Dominator ECU as well as the car's CAN keypads. Rather than switches and relays triggering circuits directly, inputs from the keypads and data from the ECU are shared over the same network, and the PDM28 handles the job of turning the right outputs on and off in response — powering everything from fuel pumps and fans to lighting and driver-facing switch functions.
THE RESULTS
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Simplified, weight-conscious wiring — consolidating relay and fuse functions into a single CAN-integrated module suits the dual demands of a drag-and-drive build, where every pound and every point of failure matters
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Coordinated control across systems — CAN bus communication between the PDM28, the Holley Dominator ECU, and the cockpit keypads lets the electrical system and engine management work together rather than as isolated circuits
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A proven setup carried into a new build — the same PDM28 architecture that ran in Devin's original Mustang has been carried straight over into Reddi Whip, underlining how repeatable and dependable the setup has been across builds
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A new product line for HCR Innovations — becoming a Hardwire Electronics dealer, and building custom flying-lead harnesses for the PDM28, gave HCR's customers an easier path to the same setup Devin runs in his own cars
LOOKING AHEAD
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With the PDM28 proven across two generations of Devin's own drag-and-drive cars, and now available through HCR Innovations alongside a purpose-built wiring harness, more of HCR's drag-and-drive and race car customers have a straightforward path to the same CAN-integrated power distribution setup — backed by a dealer who races and wires with the product every day.
Hardwire Electronics designs and manufactures solid-state power distribution modules for automotive, motorsport, and industrial applications. To learn more about the PDM28 or how our modules can simplify your vehicle's electrical architecture, contact us.