Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2020 i Mopar Action

THE MEMO LEFT ME REELING. It was from Mopar Action HQ on the 10th floor. The short, terse directive informed me that I had used up my allotted jokes and smart remarks in my Editor’s Notes for the year, and couldn’t resume my wayward ways until the February 2021 issue if, indeed, I would still be employed by then. What to do? I seldom panic about anything. I see some folks wringing their hands or taking tranquilizing meds over what’s happening due to the Kung-Flu virus and the general unravelling in the world at this time. Then there’s brother Kim and his sister ratcheting up North Korea’s nuke threats. And what’s up with Iran and the Rooskies doesn’t bode well for a good night’s sleep, either. Me? Doesn’t raise my…

STROKED AND POKED Using the same internal parts, which engine has the potential to produce more torque? 400 CI stroked to 500 CI or 440 CI stroked to 500 CI? I am considering using long ram manifolds on this. Robert Long Rock Spring, GA Robert–Obviously, this is hypothetical, because the shorter deck on the 400 results in somewhat different internals. The 440 will be a bit more durable in the long run (due to longer conrods and piston skirts),  but, since the bore and stroke will either be identical, or very close, there will be no meaningful difference in torque or HP. This, of course, assumes the same heads, camshaft specs, manifolding, etc. With long rams and 500 cubes, the low-end torque will be Cummins-like, but it will run out…

BACK IN 2012 , Tim Nist sold a ’68 Dart he’d built, powered by a 511 CID Hemi. He pocketed a tidy sum, but as usual, new project cars can quickly find their way into garages of people freshly-flush with cash from selling other completed projects. In Nist’s case, it was a 1971 Barracuda convertible that had been born with a 318 but was now powered by a 440. The owner had been trying to restomod the droptop and had already asked Tim to assemble the car once he finished the bodywork. Big surprise, things didn’t go as planned. That was around 2008, when the economy had basically put a rod through its block. So the guy stuck the Barracuda in a garage and left it. Well, cars don’t resto-mod…

ABOUT 52 YEARS AGO , the disclaimer read “not manufactured for use on the public streets, roads, or highways, and does not conform to motor vehicle safety standards.” That was if you had just arrived at your Dodge retailer looking for a Hurst-converted Hemi Dart. On July 2, 2020, FCA announced the new Challenger SRT Super Stock, but no disclaimer is coming with it this time. Unlike the purpose-built Dart of yore, this incredible successor is not only street legal but has a warranty, will not require racing fuel, and makes 807 horsepower. The final gear ratio is not 4.88 but 3.09, yet (and read it twice, kids) it will run a quarter in 10.5 at 130+ mph and will be the quickest and most powerful muscle car ever released:…

WHILE NHRA was basically reworking its Pro Stock program with the minicar invasion that resulted in the mid-1972 Chrysler boycott (see last issue), the latter half of 1972 found Don Carlton busy back home down south, driving both the Missile and in the Demon he and Clyde Hodges had constructed. Ronnie Sox’s new Duster had come into its own by the time of the IHRA U.S. Open Nationals in Rockingham that September, clocking a legal 9.27 in this fresh car for the top spot there. Meanwhile, the Don Carlton-lettered Demon, now well-seasoned thanks to its summer of USRT races and some match-racing, was second at 9.33 and looking for another IHRA victory. Don beat Hubert Platt, Linson Kendall and Bobby Yowell to reach a rain-delayed Monday afternoon final at “The…

TO BE HONEST , my involvement began when friend and former Mopar Muscle publisher Jerry Pitt contacted me about a new car show. To be held soon after the 2019 SEMA event, he was enthusiastic, but I was skeptical. Still, the more I heard, the more I was interested. The event would include 450 carefully chosen show-quality vehicles and race cars, all of which would be available for sale during an auction and week-long display being orchestrated by Worldwide Auctioneers from Auburn, Indiana. There would be over 250 aftermarket exhibitors, OEM exhibits from General Motors, Ferrari and Mini, plus appearances by numerous A-list headliners such as Chip Foose and Richard Rawlings. Then came the wide range of action events. Monster Jam, featuring well known monster trucks like Grave Digger, professional…

SO YOU’D THINK that once a container ship arrives in port, you’d just get a call like,“hey, come pick up your car.” If only it were that easy. Bringing a car into the U.S., as your truly has done only once, requires getting EPA and NHTSA clearance forms, bringing them to U.S. Customs along with a ton of paperwork from the ocean freight company, declaring the value (gotta be no less than you insured it for), paying the duty, then hanging around for another stack of paperwork. In the case of Baltimore, where I went, no amount of paperwork will actually get you into the port to pick up your car. You have to hire an escort (not that kind), this has to be someone who has jumped through all…

I GUESS it all began with that Charger I got in high school. You know, prior to that, cars were not a real focus for me. Horsepower was—locomotives, machinery, steel mills, etc. Anything with smoke and fire was cool (and you wonder why drag racing was a perfect fit). At any rate, the Charger got me some high school cred, and soon I was hanging with the wrong (err, right…) crowd, street racing in Philly, spending all my dough on engine hardware, and generally finding out that some of the other brand X guys were knuckleheads. About the same time, the movie Christine came out. Here was a bad Mopar that came back from the dead, and the other guy had a ’68 Charger like mine. The late, late show…

IN 1957 , Chrysler ran a major corporate-wide ad campaign: “Suddenly, it’s 1960”. With all-new styling, all-new torsion bar suspension, and wide availability of the 3-speed TorqueFlite transmission, it was true—the cars were a quantum leap compared to 1956. One Plymouth ad bragged “...the only car that dares to break the time barrier!” What was true in 1957 was even truer for 1970. When ‘70 Mopars were introduced, yours truly was somewhat overwhelmed by the huge display of “newness.” It actually took me a while to digest and understand it all. Now, a scant half-century later, I have fully comprehended all the 1970 advances (OK, maybe it was a little sooner than that). So, on this silver anniversary, here are the highlights, and even some lesser-known factoids, to share with…

WHEN RICK AND MARY PFEIL CHOSE to restore their 1979 Road Runner, it probably wasn’t the wisest decision they’ve ever made. Thanks to western Pennsylvania elements, and the road salt used to combat them, Metal Mites had taken their toll on virtually the entire car. The floors were gone. As were the rocker panels. Yep—quarter panels too. And being a Volaré, is anyone surprised the front fenders were toast? But all things considered, it’s an attractive car, with an unusual combination of options as an argument to save it. Did I mention Rick’s dad bought the car new, and it’s never left the family? Theater manager Ron Pfeil (Rick’s dad), like many of us, began his automotive life as a sporty and performance car enthusiast. And he wasn’t afraid to…

THE GUY who owns the street-based Hemi Dart seen here, Bob Lawlis, has been drag racing a loooong time. Like a lot of hot-rodders of the 1960s, Bob used a prewar body for his car at first, and the A/Street Roadster he owned started running in 1962 with an injected Olds motor in it. It got “Olds” all right—those internals divorced under power and decided to part ways at the end of the 1964 season. A part-time college student, Bob had already scored some fresh smallblock Chebbie gear as a replacement when he read about the new A990 Hemi Mopes coming out. Now that could offer possibilities as a fresh engine for the little roadster. The Chev junk went to a new owner and Bob began his chase. “Tried to…

MI KE KELNOFSKY is a tough guy to keep up with. I mean, we go shoot his car at an event, and before we can run it in the magazine, he changes it around. “You can’t show last year’s car!” he exclaimed. “Think of my family, my friends and the guys in the cruise hangout at the Grease Pit Burgers parking lot on Tuesday nights. What will they think of you if you feature an ‘old’ car?” Actually, we have no idea. “So, Mike,” we say. “Look, our company skateboard is in the shop for service and a new set of high-tech wheels, so we can’t roll out to you on the west coast for another photo shoot.” Mike understands and says he has a local guy near him who…

BREATHE DEEPLY 3G HEMI INTAKE MANIFOLDS FROM ROCK AUTO BUYING AND INSTALLING a used intake manifold pulled from an unseen donor engine onto your 5.7L Hemi is risky because there is a good chance the donor engine sprayed metal shards into its intake manifold when it catastrophically failed. Cleaning bits of broken piston out of a used intake manifold’s complex passages is difficult and time consuming. Unseen flakes of metal may still remain embedded in the plastic and can damage your engine if they later dislodge. RockAuto.com has pristine new aftermarket and/or OE Mopar intake manifolds for 5.7L Hemi car and truck engines that eliminate that worry. MATCH GAME PAIRED 11-IN ROTORS FROM YEAR ONE YEAR ONE has paired 1966-1969 Mopar B-body 11-inch 1-piece front disc brake rotors for models…

MOPAR FANS in the U.S. have been clamoring for news from Chechnya…any news. Sure, they say, you give us news about FCA, but we can go on the FCA website and get the same news for ourselves. True. You give us car features, they say, about Mopars that you see at shows. We can go to the same shows and see the same Mopars for ourselves. True. You give us tech features, they say, on stuff Ray Barton does. We can go to Barton’s shop and see the same stuff for ourselves. True again. But we can’t go to Chechnya, they say, so at least give us news from Chechnya. Well, dear readers, Mopar Action is one up on you (as always). Actually, we will be going to Chechnya—with the…

BREATHEÉ in the mouth… out… then ahhh… C’mon! Even Mr. Myagi can’t help you on this one. The world of keeping your Mopar nice and shiny is a confusing place. Where to begin? Ask Alexa and even she will have a meltdown. So many choices of compounds, clay bars, liquid wax, paste wax, carnauba, glaze, polish, ceramic, buffers, pads etc. Waddya’ expect, it’s a multi-million-dollar industry and there’s no single tool or product that does it all because every finish is different. I am not gonna lie, there is a ton of products and competition in the market. It’s fierce! And they all fight for the shelf space to be the one in your garage, so what’s right for you? 30 years ago, products were limited and the only choice…

CHRYSLER PICKUP Mr. Ehrenberg–Do you know the part number for the fuel sending unit for my ’68 Chrysler 300 ’vert? Would love to find an NOS one, heard the repops are junk. Really enjoy your tech articles. Gregg Ehrhardt Oxford, PA Gregg–Sure, the Mopar P/N is 2809031, fits all ’67–’68 C-bodies except wagons. Did Chrysler call this a sending unit? Pickup? Transducer? Nope. The parts book’s noun is “Gauge, fuel tank.” When the repop fuel senders began to appear about two decades ago, virtually all were total junk. Now you can occasionally find one that works, sort of. The U.S. put men on the moon in 1969,—all Chrysler-powered, you should note. Now all we get from the supposedly-friendly “hi-tech” folks in China is hacking—your computer, your cell phone, and…

REPLACING THE TEAM’S DODGE CHALLENGER, the 1972 Motown Missile Plymouth ’Cuda was supposed to shock the world. For two years, Chrysler’s brightest engineers, race team members and associates had raced Pro Stock. As the second car built for the team owned by Ted Spehar and led by Tom Hoover since the class was started, the fresh Plymouth used every bit of titanium, every nuance of the rulebook and every fraction of available horsepower from Spehar’s legendary hands. Then it ran headlong into Bill “Grumpy” Jenkins, a Vega nobody had expected, and the rule-making buzzsaw of NHRA’s “high sheriffs.” Jenkins would have a spectacular season, but one of the few he didn’t win was the Gatornationals in Gainesville, Florida in March ’72. There, the Missile entered the record books for its…

THE NEW-FOR-’76 transverse “bent” torsion bar suspension was specifically designed for a smooth, quiet ride, which was, indeed, achieved. This was thought necessary to sell cars in the post-performance “smog” era. Unfortunately, the suspension geometry was sub-par (sub “Mo”par, anyway) for handling, with very large doses of bump steer thrown in. The oval rear leaf bushings induced steering wander, too, though huge positive caster settings and splayed leafs helped mask this. On a glass-smooth highway, those who were after a miniaturized luxury car were generally satisfied, while performance or back road drivers were disappointed. The police eventuall got “TSB” solid cast iron replacements for the huge “flexi-flyer” (soft rubber) K-member mounts. Introduced a year or so later, this helped by tying the longitudinals together, but the geometry was still very…

IF THERE ARE SIGNATURE VEHICLES adorned with Mopar Pentastars currently, it has to be the tag team of the 6.4-liter Dodge Challenger and Charger. Well-celebrated these days for their factory Hellcat versions that crank out 707 flywheel horsepower, these cars are awesome but require a well-heeled buyer to afford parking one in your driveway. But lucky for you, today you can have a Challenger or Charger that’s 23 HP up on a Hellcat (dyno proven!) for a lot less cash through the installation of the Vortech supercharger kit. Best of all, with this upgrade you can still retain great around-town drivability and meet the emissions requirements of your state - any state—that’s all of them! Vortech has made a science of building systems that deliver amazing power and retain all…

CRUISE NIGHT. Main St., Bloomsburg, PA. Just like any other cruise night, except this night would change Denny Strausser’s life… forever. Denny, along with a group of other cruisers, pull into what used to be the W.T. Grant store parking lot on the cruise route. A girl in the group gets out of her pickup, walks over to Denny and says she likes his Road Runner—nice color, nice interior and all that. Denny says he likes her, too. “Will you marry me?” And they live happily ever after. The end. Wellll, it might not have happened exactly like that, but Denny does credit his beeper for reeling in the girl who would eventually become his wife. To get the whole story, we must fast backward some 40 years. A 20-year…