Table of contents for April 2021 in Mopar Action

CYBER TUESDAY , Green Wednesday, Polish Monday—your head (and Visa account) is probably spinning from all the promotional sales that sucked hard-earned cash from your wallet at the end of 2020. Time to regain your equilibrium by cranking up that classic muscle Mope in the garage and blowing out the cobwebs—both in your head and that willing 440. Some Mo’fans, though, are hesitant to venture out and expose their beloved classic Mope to all the gnarly horrors that lurk, waiting to pounce on you and your ride just outside your door. ’Course, if you have a Mopar that’s restored to within an inch of its life, what we here call a Reference Restoration, or a pristine original, we can understand how a stone chip, splash of mud etc. can cause…

TOW ’N’ SLOW My 5.2L powered 1997 Ram pulls itself in OD at 70 MPH very well but the engine is loafing along at ~1750 RPM. Add a tall travel trailer and the 318 isn’t producing enough torque to keep a steady 70 MPH in OD (on flat road) at the 1750 RPM. A back of the envelope calculation indicates I need about 40 ft-lbs more torque to keep a steady 70 MPH. More displacement would be the answer if I don’t want to change gears but how much is enough? The easiest swap is to a 5.9L that I have access to, but not sure if the torque output of the 5.9L would be significantly higher than the 5.2L at only 1750 RPM. Not finding any real information on…

WHY? THAT’S THE QUESTION everyone seems to ask when they see a carburetor or TBI setup parked on top of Joe O’Cone Jr.’s 6.1L Gen3 Hemi or Joe Sr.’s similar 5.7L Hemi. The O’Cones have been doing Mopes together ever since Joe Jr. was in grade school. Joe’s dad had a regular job as a pipe-fitter, but he did body and paint as a hobby. Was pretty good at it, too. Before he left for work in the morning, he would tell his son to block sand this fender or that door of the car he was working on so he could shoot primer when he returned. That’s how Joe Jr. spent most of his summer vacations. Somewhere along the line, Jr. traded in his sandpaper for wrenches and started…

“MY CAR was purchased by me as a leftover in 2011 for $10,000 off the original sticker price of $41,000.00. From 2011 to 2020, it has gone through three different upgrades in power adders.” A New England-based custom-building contractor by trade, Darren Champney is aware that the customer is always right. After all, he got a smokin’ deal on his 2010 5.7L Charger from his Dodge dealer. There were plenty of ‘10s still available with the new 2011-up body restyling, which made a bunch of family guys into 4-door Charger owners and selling like mad. As built, the R/T package is an all-around nice driver, but Darren had the need for speed and tried time and time again to scratch that itch. “After going through all that, I knew I…

NOTE: The following is abridged from Zoo’s book HEMI: A History of Chrysler’s V8 in Competition, which is now out of print. Good luck finding one. CHRYSLER RACING BOSS Ronney Householder’s decision to hold his ground on Bill France’s rules change for 1965 would forgo the year-old engine from competing in NASCAR most of that season. However, while most visible in drag racing that year, the 426 Hemi did do circle track duty elsewhere. This would include not just in the stock car division of USAC, ARCA and IMCA, but road racing as well. Nonetheless, it began down at Daytona Beach, where the Hemi arrived to set records and win. Daytona Doings and More for Õ65 Actually, Hemi cars did race at Speed Weeks on the banks of Daytona International…

IF YOUR MOPAR’S POWERPLANT has over 200,000 miles* on it, you really don’t need anything that this document has to offer. Instead, you need a total and complete rebuild, which usually includes nothing less than at least a hone job, new rings, bearings, and a valve job, and often requires a cylinder overbore, oversized pistons, and a crankshaft ground undersized on both the main and rod journals (along with matching undersized bearings, sometimes new valve guides, or valves will oversize stems). Now add a new camshaft and lifters, a new oil pump, and a careful inspection of items such as rocker arms, valve springs, pushrods, and connecting rods (which themselves often need to have the big end resized and the small end either checked carefully or rebushed). Many folks take…

All In A Name CAR NAMES CRACK ME UP . First there are those Asian car model names that seem to come from outer space. Like Sofia, Sapporo and Rooney Tunes. U.S. model names, naturally, are more understandable because we all speak the same language. But American carmakers have been known to come up with names for some of their models that call for some head scratching—even if you don’t have a dandruff problem. Take the name Dodge “Challenger,” for example. The new Challenger coming in 2008 is a real piece of work. We love it. The press hype for the model refers back to the original 1970 E-body Challenger that established the marque’s reputation. But the DC press corps seems to suffer from a case of temporary amnesia in…

MOPAR PURISTS may look aghast, clutch their chest and gasp for air at any Mope that deviates from stock, and we have to say that we’ve seen some examples that are straight out of a “Nightmare on Mope Street” horror movie. For the most part, though, most customs and modifieds we’ve seen are on the conservative side and enjoy wide acceptance in the Mope community as opposed to a polarizing rad ride that would turn any valet parking attendant into a mound of quaking Jell-O. Al Bartlett’s 1972 Duster fits nicely into the latter category, meaning it doesn’t come off looking like a bag of screwdrivers. His Duster originally rolled off the assembly line to end up in the dealership showroom of J. M. Beatty Automotive in Eau Claire, Pennsylvania.…

1970 WAS A PHENOMENAL YEAR for musclecars across the board. Besides our beloved Mopars, there was another standout from an unusual source: Buick. We’re die-hard Mopar fans here at Mopar Action, but we have to give credit where credit is due. The 1970 Buick GS 455 Stage 1 is one of the most potent machines to come out of the musclecar era. In fact, some would argue that it was the best one of all. An equally vocal camp would pick the 1970 Hemicuda as the valedictorian for the Class of ’70. You know which team we’re rooting for. Still, we’re willing to give the Buick firestarter a fair shake. After all, who doesn’t love a little friendly competition, right? The cocky, “Mopar-or-no-car” part of our brains thinks we have…

HEY , we all like show cars to some extent. Who doesn’t think the Sonic ’Cuda or Daroo were cool. No? OK, just put this magazine down and get a copy of Modern Gardening—we can’t help you. Of course, even if you hadn’t seen them, you’d dig them. However, the deep, dirty secret was that a lot of those gems were not for function. Most were for form, with little practical benefit for actual use beyond going on and off the trailer. The car here was a show car first, but its rebuilding was for a purpose—horsepower and hard-cornering. The story begins at SEMA 2014, where a company named Down’s Custom Performance debuted an all-fiberglass ’Cuda body. The one-off shell was mildly customized, with a unique but well-thought-out grille design.…

JOHN SINGLETON–Lakewood Pro JOHN’S CAR is a ’66 Coronet painted in a Sunfire Yellow tone. The Lynnwood, TN, resident would go six rounds in the 1/8-mile bracket, running dead-on his dial at 6.44 in round four, before coming up against Dale Smith’s Demon in the final. There, Smith ran dead on, 6.143, but Mr. Smith also left a redlight at the start. The Coronet clocked a slowing 6.67 on the 6.44 for the win. “There is a lot of history on me and my car. I have had her 36+ years, and my dad’s 2nd race car was a ‘66 Coronet 500 (I came home from the hospital in his 1st race car, a ‘63 Polara Stage III 426 Wedge). I did shows and cruised my car for 2 years…

HAAAHAAAHAAAA (CHOKE!) MOPAR ACTION readers know that we’re always up for a good laugh (happens every time we open our monthly pay packet). So when Rob Riker, from Orlando, Florida, sent us pix of his “Joker” 2016 Dodge Charger Hellcat (one of 255 Plum Crazy), we put him ahead of all the hundreds of “serious” entries. Rob says he’s always had a thing about flames. Probably played with matches as a kid. We didn’t ask him if he had a flamed toothbrush as we don’t usually get that personal. Rather than going with the usual vinyl graphic flame deal (on his Charger), Rob cajoled his son Brandon to paint flames outlining a custom green nose job. The thought hadn’t crossed anyone’s mind for a theme for the Dodge until Rob’s…

STUFF IT TORQSTORM REVEALS FIRST EVER SLANT-SIX CENTRIFUGAL SUPERCHARGER KIT IN THEIR EXTENSIVE LINE of billet aluminum superchargers, TorqStorm now has a kit for the Chrysler Slant-Six. Thanks to the design of the compressor wheel, it is possible to see an increase of 100- to 150-hp, approximately an 85% gain over the stock engine’s power output. The kit comes with a robust billet aluminum gear box housing and cover with straight-cut tool steel internal gearing (independently-lubricated), and ¾" mounting bracketing. This uses TorqStorm’s newly-designed blow-through carburetor hat, plus an automatic belt tensioner, crankshaft pulley, vacuum-controlled blow-off valve, and related plumbing and mounting hardware. The adjustable system works with the regular intake manifold, exhaust or header upgrades, original-style water pump and alternator. Covered by the limited life-time warranty, for more…

WE ALL LOVE OUR MOPARS , or else we wouldn’t be here, right? We love to race, restore, wrench, etc., but even under the best circumstances, things can go to hell in a hurry. Whether it’s someone who runs a stop sign, or you got your foot out of it too late on that 2-3 power-shift…there’s no two ways around it, accidents suck. Ok, so your dream car is now a nightmare, that pristine paint is still gleaming under that once straight sheet metal and the unibody “might” have scoliosis. So now you are facing several dilemmas—repair it or junk it; get a donor car and swap it over; part it out and start over? What to do? Hopefully, things are not as bad as they seem when the smoke…

20 YEARS AGO , we published an article which dispelled the myth that “late” (1976-up) big-block castings were inferior. This has become the go-to reference on the subject. The myth was perpetuated by factory publications (back then) which said that blocks of this era were, indeed, “thinwall,” and should not be bored over 0.040" O/S. In the two decades since, we have learned that the factory was actually referring to smallblocks (LA engines), which, in the early ’80s, had so much iron removed that the cylinder head capscrews entered the water jacket and required thread sealer! These mills made Vespa-like power, so there was no strength issue. We disproved the big-block myth by using a sonic checker. This procedure was once an exotic, offensively expensive technology in 2000, the Dakota…

HOT WHEELS! The guy who drag racers already knew as the Snake became part of American legend when he and business partner / driver Tom “The Mongoose” McEwen inked a deal with Mattel Toys in late 1969 to campaign colorfully-themed Plymouth funny cars and dragsters to promote the just-released diecast model toy line. If you got them first, you were almost cool just like Don Prudhomme (and, seriously, nobody was cooler than the Snake, not even Elvis). No? Squaresville, baby, and you’d have to try to convince your mom to spend the 69 cents for your own toy as soon as possible or wait until Christmas or a birthday to get an orange track set. Those Hot Wheels were made in the millions, but the car seen here is 1…

THE HOLLEY BRAND is certainly well-known among car guys (and gals). While a lot of street Mopars did not get them as OEM carbs, the Race Hemis did after 1964, and, of course, they’re best remembered for supplying the trio of 2-Bbl units on the optional 340 and 440 tri-carb engines of 1969-1971. In more recent years, Holley has hosted a couple of special races for Brand X cars, and in 2020, they decided to give the Mopar faithful a venue as well. Selected to host the event is the park-like Beech Bend Raceway in Bowling Green, which is also the headquarters city for the company and its multiple brand names. What is most important is that, since the company already hosts events here, very few teething problems appeared that…

IT WAS THE TV COMMERCIAL that got Doug Farden hooked. He was a kid at the time, but that TV ad for a special ’73 Chrysler Newport Navajo edition burned into his brain cells. “I love that car,” he said to himself, as there was no one else around to listen to him. “And someday, I’m gonna get one!,” he exclaimed, concluding the solo conversation. Doug was no stranger to ’73 Newports, as his dad drove a 4-door model and Doug was relegated to the backseat. Great riding car. Anyhow, Doug reports that all his life he’s been looking on and off for a Navajo edition (we should lead such an exciting life). He’s seen the more common 4-door versions but not many 2-door models. This beauty, located in North…