Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2020 i Mopar Action

CALIFORNIA CRACKS ME UP in more ways than one. First, it’s their politics—but I’m not going there. I want to narrow in and look at Sacramento County in the Golden State, originally known as the Grizzly Bear State (so much for history.) The brain trusts who concoct zoning legislation for their fiefdom have come up with a doozy—hence the crackup on my part. First, some background, as E-booger is wont to say. It’s common for communities to use zoning codes to exclude commercial and industrial uses from residential areas, which in itself is all well and good. It helps you avoid being a potential nuisance to your neighbors. ’Course there are many other ways you can be a nuisance, but we don’t have the space to list them all here.…

DAMPENED ENTHUSIASM I bought a 1968 Coronet, 383, that has been sitting for at least 25 years. I am trying to get it running. I know the gas tank is beyond hope, so I installed a new fuel pump and ran a hose to a gas can. It sort of ran, lots of sputtering and some backfiring. I then rebuilt the carb (AVS), which helped a lot. I noticed the distributor looked to be installed wrong (the vacuum pod was hitting the A/C compressor), so I took it out, put the crank at TDC compression stroke number one cylinder, cleaned the points and gapped them, put the drive gear in the right way (parallel to the engine centerline), installed the cap and wires correctly, and new plugs. Then it would…

THE SPEEDKORE Performance/ Gearhead Fabrications twin-turbo 1400-horsepower 2018 Demon held the record as the world’s quickest Demon with an 8.77 ¼-mile ET. Well, it seemed that wasn’t quick enough for Mario Abascal—the top gear over at Florida’s Gearhead Fabrications. So, on a cool windy October 16 at Great Lakes Dragway in Union Grove Wisconsin, we were on hand as the big Speedkore hauler pulled up and unloaded the ’18 Demon, which we ran as a full feature in our August 2019 issue. DSR/ Mopar driver and 2018 NHRA Factory Stock World Champion Leah Pritchett was tapped for the driving chores—same as when she set the 8.77 record. Mario explained that he wanted to give the record-chasers more of a gap to overcome in trying to catch this mean Demon. The…

ONCE AGAIN , Mr. Ed made Mopar magic happen at the Carlisle Fairgrounds. Now we did not have a magic carpet, nor need of one—in fact, we drove over in a Mope like everybody else. The Carlisle Chrysler Nationals has been a mid-July occurrence for over 25 years now, and even from its very beginnings has been significant to the hobby. Ed (his real name, if you don’t know it, is Ed Buczeskie) has been this show’s event manager at Carlisle for several years now, and because the Carlisle staff hosts these deals throughout the calendar year, this annual Mopar-focused celebration is both well-organized and well-orchestrated. Show cars: got ’em. Late models: oh, yeah. Special displays: unmatched. Extra activities: pick ’em. The swap meet, manufacturers midway, Dodge thrill ride, burnout…

HEY, MO’FANS, bet you’re familiar with atmosphere, stratosphere and maybe even the ionosphere. But here’s a new one for you—the Mopeosphere. Never heard of it, eh? That’s because we just made it up—so it’s a Mopar Action exclusive. It’s a virtual area reserved for only the most rarified Mopars—like the game-changing ’69 Charger featured here. Until now, Mo’fans into classic Mope rides have had several choices—drive ‘em stock/restored or run ‘em modified with appearance/performance upgrades. That’s just fine if you’re into that classic “ambience” dash and interior. Still, performance, while more than adequate back in the day, pales light of the quantum leap in technology, performance (power, handling, braking, safety) and comfort of modern Mopes. And with more and more late models hitting the road and showing up at events,…

“YEAH, WELCOME TO FLORIDA, RIGHT?” We were discussing the late-summer heat. Lots of people live in the so-called Sunshine State, with its sometimes tropical breezes (Accuweather calls ’em hurricanes) and blisteringly hot days punctuated with a near-daily shower. Jeff Richey from down in Fort Pierce has been a Mopar man from way back, and vocationally owns a body-and-paint shop called Affordable Auto Body. That means he is not out spending hard-earned dough that you laid out for body work to buy quarter-million dollar trailer queens. It also means he likes to be hands-on with his car stuff, which is how this car came to be. “I have a ’68 Charger that’s a resto, but I really wanted an E-body driver, and that’s what got this started,” he notes. “I also…

FOR THIS ARTICLE, we’ll take a brief history-and-tech look at Carter’s four-barrel carbs as used on Mopars, then we’ll concentrate on hands-on rebuilding, both functionally and including platinum-show restorations from an acknowledged industry leader, Harms Automotive in Washington state (harmsauto.com). To begin with, Carter Carburetor Co. began making their 4-Bbl carbs (WCFB) in St. Louis in 1952. However, for the purposes of this article, we won’t consider anything earlier than the AFB, which saw service on virtually every street-performance Mopar through 1967. AFB is simply an acronym for Aluminum Four Barrel. The design of this carburetor was simplicity itself—giant secondary-opening flatspots were controlled by a counterweighted second-secondary throttle valve, which was difficult to tune (for use in non-OEM setups). All Chrysler OEM AFBs used the smaller 4 7/ 32" air…

IT WAS EARLY OCTOBER , about 10 days past our self-imposed deadline for heading west from New York. Brian had been given a heads-up that crossing the Rocky Mountains in autumn could mean encountering some serious white stuff (which he had never, ever seen), but Brian had booked a container to shlep the Beeper from San Fran to Melbourne, so the car simply hadda be there just 9 days later. Just as certain was his non-refundable ticket from LaLa land back down under. It was, literally, (cash) crunch time. In a car that had been built from a rusty junkyard mongrel into a running, driving, very much roadworthy ’Runner in under 30 days. Let the games begin. BEEPER3 BEEPER3 is, as the name implies, the third Mopar Action Road Runner…

I’M NOT A BIG FAN of television or comedians. So when word came that some dude name Kevin Hart had been hurt in a modified ’Cuda among with all the other things that were going on at the NHRA race in Indy over Labor Day, my first response was, “oh, well, stuff happens.” Hart had given the keys of his prized ride to a buddy to take a run up the legendary Snake, So-Cal’s canyon-twisting Mulholland Drive. Hart had also allowed a young lady to hop and ride in the back, where the backseat used to be. Soon afterward, said buddy promptly proved unable to hold back 700-plus Gen3 ponies and put the car over a steep hillside, through a fence and into the media frenzy s*&tstorm. Of course, in…

LARRY LIBASSI IS TOOLING ALONG on New York’s Long Island Expressway. A good citizen, Larry is observing the speed limit, he’s using his turn signals when changing lanes and he’s not texting or picking his nose while driving. Uh, oh—flashing red lights in his mirror. What kinda crap is this? Larry pulls over and a young cop eases out of his cruiser and saunters over to Larry’s rolled down window. “You know why I pulled you over?” “No sir.” “I want to look at your car.” “What? You made me soil my underwear because you want to look at my car?” “Yeah, I was attracted by the color. It stands out. You’d never be under the radar with that thing.” So, the cop looks over Larry’s Pro Street ’67 Dart.…

THE A12 SALES CODE was used by Chrysler to denote a special street machine release in mid-1969 for Super Bee and Road Runner. Today, they are sometimes termed M-code or Six-Pack cars as a group, but A12 was the way you ordered one back in the day. That code got you the fortified 440 RB engine (called out in the VIN as “M”) with a trio of Holley two-barrels on top of an Ed manifold. It also got you a black fiberglass hood with no hinges, wide steelies with no hubcaps, and acceleration with no fear. OK, we lied about that last part; under hard acceleration (usually as a passenger), this thing is terrifying. The A12 code could be had on the Super Bee or Road Runner models only; the…

LAST TIME WE WERE HERE , we finished up our compression ratio calculations, which, at under 9.7:1, was a bit of a disappointment: With the Trick Flow aluminum heads, we would have rather seen mid-10s, but there was no reasonable way to change this—we’d already spec’d the thinnest MLS gaskets Cometic makes. Sure, the block could be decked, the heads cut, or even the pistons swapped, but we wanted this on the road, and soon. And for minimal cash! So, for this installment, we’ll spec out a cam, install the heads, finish the valvetrain, including measuring for pushrods and checking the cam phasing (“degreeing in”). While we bought a pre-assembled short block, which, on paper, absolved us of the need to check and fit bottom-end components, there’s still a slew…

WE ALL ADMIT, both the old and new Challengers are pretty cool cars. While we were at the NMCA season-opener in Bradenton, Florida putting this story together, we posed Jeff’s car with David Hakim’s personal 392 Scat Pack Challenger, a 2017 model purchased from the FCA media pool. The biggest differences was size itself. The newer car is larger, and also heavier by at least 500 pounds even after the changes Jeff has made to the early version. The old-school ride does take advantage of the modern A/C, adaptation of the OEM 1970-era driveline parts, and collector-car styling. The late-model has a more upscale interior, the Shaker hood, 8 versus 3 forward speeds in the automatic, and a little better mileage thanks to combining that tranny and a 3.06 final…

NO, THIS IS NOT A MOVIE REVIEW of the iconic 1953 motorcycle drama that starred Marlon Brando and Lee Marvin. This is a story that takes place in our time and focuses on the exploits of two particularly driven men, no pun intended. One possesses the years of experience and knowledge it takes to create wickedly powerful supercharged Hemi engines. The other prides himself in taking Challengers powered by these over-the-top engines to the limit. In this day and age, there are those who may insinuate that our lead characters are encouraging and participating in motor mayhem. The fact is, nothing could be further from the truth. Quite the contrary, one is simply dedicated to building engines with performance on the wild side, while the other actually lives his life…

BRIAN AND HIS LOVELY WIFE, FAYE, had prefaced their trip to the US with a 2-week European vacation—everything from Slovenia to, while enroute back to NY, a few days in the London area. I suggested that they go to Greenwich, the London suburb where time starts (Google it). So he had been in Greenwich only a very short time before our cross-country Beeper trek. The reason I had recommended Greenwich (especially the Observatory) was that I had been there just a year prior (my third time there). So, when we were hammering across I-72/US-36 in Alexander, Illinois, and I saw a sign reading “90° LONGITUDE–1/4 WAY WEST AROUND THE WORLD”, instantly understanding the implications, I jammed on the brakes (and backed up to the sign, no doubt, illegally)—photo opportunity! So…

Trick Flow’s PowerPort 190 Smallblock Mopar Cylinder Heads Now Available TRICK FLOW ADDS REAL PERFORMANCE to your 318, 340, or 360 cubic-inch engine with a pair of PowerPort 190 aluminum cylinder heads. These heads are a direct bolt-on for all non-emissions engines used through 2003, meaning even Magnum builders can use readily available LA-type engine parts such as intake manifolds and valve covers. The PowerPort 190 heads feature 190cc intake runners that have been enhanced to increase airflow speed, and both intake and exhaust runners feature Trick Flow’s special CNC Street Ported treatment that combines premium quality CNC-machining with a standard resolution finish that is perfect for making more power. Upgraded rocker arm shaft mounting bosses are stronger than the OE design, while larger pushrod holes can accommodate 3/8 -inch…

RUST, ROT, ACNE, Dodge decay, Mopar-Measles—whatever you wanna call it, at some point in life, you’re gonna face it. Everything that’s been on the road for the past 100 years or so has its Achilles heel for rust. So, what are ya’ gonna do about it? Good question, right? I wouldn’t have asked it if it wasn’t. In the world of rust repair, the process usually depends on a few things, like the car itself, the budget, and lastly the dedication of its owner. So let’s get going. We’re going to start with the best case scenario first and work down from there. Scenario one, you have a Mopar that is your pride and joy, your vehicular “Fatal Attraction.” You match your wardrobe to it, dream about it with the…

WIDE RAD Mr. Ehrenberg–I just bought a G-code (318 2-Bbl -ed.) 1971 Coronet with no engine or transmission. The broadcast sheet decodes to 19-inch radiator, but the opening in the radiator panel is clearly for a 22-inch unit. What is going on, and what do I do? Mark Anthony Tallahassee, FL Mark–If you just want to drive it, use a 22" radiator. This also makes sense if you decide to equip it with a stealthily larger LA engine (360, et. al.) B- and E-bodies, built as Slant 6 or 318 w/o air, mostly made made do with a 19" core, as your broadcast sheet specifies. The radiator itself had a built-in “block off” side panel on the driver side—see photos, above. These had no provision for a shroud. Amazingly, they…

THE SUMMER OF 1961 . It’s a Wednesday afternoon. 19-year-old Mike Zagata is walking down Main Street in Oneonta, New York when he runs into Buzz Hesse. Buzz owns a ’60 383 Fury with the Sonoramic long ram dual-quad intake. “Hey Mike, you wanna go to the races?” “What races? “Drag races.” “What’s drag races?” “Hop in and see.” Mike hops in the Fury and watches Buzz get clocked at the track. He’s thinking, how can you lose a race if all you have to do is go straight. And so, the race bug bites. Mike starts reading everything he can get his hands on about drag racing and sees an announcement that Chrysler will be releasing a high performance package in the spring for drag racing. Mike starts bugging…

ROB SCHATZ of Hanover, Pa., has a Plymouth he calls “Performance King.” He called and said he and a couple of his buddies would run up at South Mountain Raceway, an 1/8-mile track about 15 miles southeast of Carlisle, for some exhibition racing on Friday evening. The PK is a ’65 Hemi tribute with an altered wheelbase; there would be three other altered-wheelbase cars on hand as well. Since the very first Chryslers@Carlisle event in ’92, South Mountain was remembered for Dick Landy and Ronnie Sox making laps in their restored 1968 cars here. The track is not as primitive as it was a quarter-century ago, and new owner Mike Natoli has done a lot to turn it around. There were a number of sportsman racers in addition to the…

THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE WINNER , and for some of his competitors, Jimmy Daniels has rubbed it in their faces. The second-gen driver out of Pennsylvania came into the 2019 NHRA U.S. Nationals with the same hope to win as everybody else, but when the smoke had cleared after the final round of SS/AH, his big smile was again in the winner’s circle photos. “Ray and Dave Barton provide us with awesome horsepower,” said the 23-year-old. “If it wasn’t for them, we would not be able to do this. I’m surrounded by my family here this weekend—my father, my mother, my girlfriend and my grandfather. This race is probably the coolest win of the four for me” Daniels’ victory moments earlier had been over an independent racer named Rich…

“IT STARTED IN 1968,” says restorer Roland Duclos of Florida. ”This doctor, named X from Miami, saw a picture of the new Dodge models for the 1969 model year and made plans to go to the new car auto show in Atlanta to see them.” Doctors were once a big part of how people viewed culture. In the era of Marcus Welby, M.D., they were respected like Perry Mason (a lawyer) and Lucas McCain (a sharpshooter as the Rifleman). Docs still get respect today, of course, even more than lawyers or gunslingers do, but I digress. Dr. X drove from Coral Gables up to Atlanta and saw this new 1969 Hemi Coronet R/T on display. He wanted one. This one. Only this one. At the time, the Dodge reps on…

WE’VE ALL HEARD about a cat having nine lives. Well, what about a Neon? If you think you’ve got troubles, listen to the tale of John Self and his 1996 Neon. John picked up this ride in 2005 for $300 after he left a note for the owner under the windshield wiper. The broken timing belt became the least of his problems, because while the car was at his brother Paul’s waiting on parts, the garage next to it burned down! After some insurance wrangling, the car was bought back in the first of what would be many buybacks. The melted plastic bumper covers and other parts were replaced from a white junker Neon that Paul sourced. The Neon was repaired and became such a reliable daily driver it has…