Innehållsförteckning för June 2022 från Mopar Action

HEIGH-HO, MOPARINOS, 2022 is shaping up to be a year of major happenings for Ma Mopar, so either cheer or cry in your beer. You probably already know that Pa Stellantis is dismantling the SRT program. Back in February 2021, Stellantis announced that all the core elements of the SRT performance engineering team were integrated into Stellantis’ global engineering organization. “Stellantis will continue to sell and develop the next generation of Dodge//SRT-branded vehicles, as well as Jeep and Ram vehicles that utilize high-performance SRT technology”— that’s the official line from the company, and it leaves a lot of room for conjecture, especially in light of the French’s (Peugeot) side of the organization, who are really pulling the strings here, and have a strong affinity for small, electric-powered cars. It’s plain…

CRATE CRUNCH Richard–Other than Indy, is there a company out there that still makes big-block crate motors for sale, like 440, 500 cubic-inch and 500 horse power range? There used to be lots of them, now only one. I called Muscle Motors, but they don’t answer the phone one week, next week operator says line no longer in service, I’ve finally saved enough money for one for my ’69 Road Runner, but I find no motors out there. Carter Cincotta Ossipee, NH Carter–As of this writing, the Mopar Performance stock-type bare big-blocks are pure unobtanium, and have been for quite a while. This means crate engines are also unavailable, unless the supplier builds an engine from a used cylinder block. If you can scare up a good used 440 block,…

BARN CRUSHED CHARGER Rick–I have a ’74 Charger that I have had since 1981. I’m finally in a position to get it back on the road. My issue is finding replacement body panels and glass. Could you tell me what other year Charger parts will interchange? I bought it in Louisiana when I was in the army. It was a Texas car and pretty rust free, but all these years of sitting a tree and a barn fell on it. Now I need stuff! Mark Harvey South Bend, IN Mark–Simple question, very complex answer. From 1971-onwards, the RWD Charger B-body shared the same basic platform, but there were many changes, and said changes were sometimes obvious, other times, not at all. Here are a few examples: • From 1971 to 1972,…

WHAT A DIFFERENCE a year makes. Especially when that year was 2020 and everything under the sun was being cancelled by the CCPlague (which was no fault of the oppressed people living over there, either). That in turn meant the long-running Muscle Car & Corvette Nationals would also not take place as usual. In mid-2021, manager Bob Ashton told us that he had gotten a personal letter directly from the Illinois Governor’s office stating that the 2022 edition of the show in its Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont would be allowed to happen. So, once again on its traditional weekend before Thanksgiving, cars arrived in both personal trailers and by the semi-load to fill the cavernous building, while fans filled up O’Hare Airport’s travel…

WELL, the white Hemi Charger R/T was a 33-year “call every year” around Christmas to have a nice chat and hope that someday you would get the car, but the answer was always the same, “no, son, not for sale.” Then, about five years ago, he drove down to Montgomery, Alabama, and he had stopped by the museum and it became a strong possibility that I would probably get it. When I asked him that day, the answer was still, “son, not yet, but when I do pass away, my daughter will have your phone number,” and that’s exactly how it happened. So, what does it mean to the collection? This is probably one of the most original 1970 Hemi Chargers existing. It important to me not just because the…

IS THIS NOT-SO-INNOCENT-LOOKING 2014 TorRed Challenger R/T a Hellcat’s worst nightmare? To some, yes—like those getting their photo taken in the loser’s circle, empty hand outstretched in what would have been a trophy. Or others at the track sitting in their Challenger and Charger Hellcats late at night after everyone has gone home quietly babbling to themselves, “How is this possible?” Does that R/T pilot throw marbles under the ’cat’s tires? Does he somehow alter the space/time continuum? Hang with us for a few dozen words or so and we’ll spill the beans. But first, the star of our saga—Pat Shields. Before video games (way before), young car guys (car lads) used to spend time hanging out at the corner gas station. That’s what Pat did way back when he…

HEY MOPARINOS , looking for a Viper? Well, look no further, your wish can be fulfilled right here. ’Course, you know that Dodge hasn’t made any Vipers since 2017, so any Viper you might come up with today is gonna be “used.” And you know how that can go. But do we have a deal for you—a one-owner, climate controlled-stored, 900-original-mile, top-of-the-line 2009 Viper ACR—being given away, plus 25 grand more to take care of the taxes you could be bit with. Too good to be true? Not when we tell you that it’s the latest giveaway from those giveaway fanatics at Dream Giveaway. This baby carries a sticker price of $107,170. That’s a hefty chunk of change in our book and probably in yours, too. Included in the MSRP…

BACK IN THE DAY , it was commonplace to see Joe or Jane Doe riding around with a nearly flat tire, or jacked up on the side of the road, with a spindly bumper jack and a spare, often also low on air, being swapped on. Two things have made the aforementioned scenarios pretty rare these days: Steel belted radials, and TMPS—the acronym for T ire P ressure M onitoring S ystem, which was installed, by federal law, on every MY 2008 and newer car sold in the US. Many Mopars had them as early as 2003. This system also significantly slows tread wear, improves cornering and braking capabilities, and saves, by US Federal guesstimates, 2 billion gallons of fuel annually, by prodding the driver to correct tire inflation. There…

WE GOT THE NEWS that singer Marvin Lee “Meatloaf” Aday had passed away in late January, and this column’s title paraphrases one of his best-known lyrics. Since I wanted to drive to Florida for the Mecum Kissimmee auction earlier in the month (coverage this issue), I had gotten ahold of my local rental place here in the mountains of east Tennessee and requested a mid-size vehicle for the week of the trip. When I got there, they were out of Camrys but had a huge Ford Expedition as an upgrade at no charge for me. As I contemplated this, my favorite employee, a car guy who goes by his first initial Q, drove in with a 2021 Charger SXT, a little road dirty and wearing Illinois plates. Sort of like…

SO WHAT’S THE DEAL with hot pink Mopars? To get the answer, we checked with Nick Taylor, who runs the pantherpink.com website. Focusing on Panther Pink (Dodge) and Moulin Rouge (Plymouth)—paint code FM3—makes Taylor’s the only site dedicated specifically to a single Mopar vehicle color. Now, Ma Mopar wasn’t the only car company to field pink cars. But the competition, such as the special-order-only Playmate Pink ’64 Mustang and even Ma’s own ’66 Barracuda, were always of a lighter, more feminine mauve hue than the shocking high-impact, eyeball-twirling shade of FM3, which is a complex tone that’s more of a magenta shade than a true pink. Not all Mopars dealers went along with the program. According to Nick, at least one dealer painted a pink Mope black because it wouldn’t…

ONCE THE FASTBACK DEMON arrived, Chrysler no longer offered a 340 performance model of the standard roofline 111" wheelbase Swinger. Except...in Canada, where two dealerships made a deal with factory to build them some specials. According to owner Joel Cooper, Windsor turned out 85 of these Swinger 340 Specials in the spring of ’71, and then did just 30 more in the late part of 1972’s model run. This ’72 car is one of 5 of that batch created for Pembina Dodge in Winnipeg (the other 25 went Crosstown Motor City in Edmonton) and is 1-of-1 as a FY1 / three-speed manual package. Built on June 16, 1971, it is likely one of the last 340 Specials built. Joel had a crowd of people checking it out over the weekend,…

WELL, I’ve always been a fan of the R/T SE and this happens to be the only R/T SE ’70 Charger I have ever owned. Luckily it came in what I call the tri-color color package. You know, the white butt strip, Vitamin C paint, and black interior and top. Add in all that SE stuff—the leather upgrade, little things like the different steering wheel, woodgrain instrument panel and door panels, pedal dress-ups. Now, when all that is added to a low-mile 440 Six-Pack with the A32 4.10 Super Axle option, a great survivor with no scratches, no dings, no nothing... man! That the way it was when it was delivered, and when you sit in the car, it still smells like new. Especially coming from Pennsylvania. This car was…

• Custom Shaker Hood by Kindig-It Design • Kooks Long Tube Headers & Green High Flow Cats, Q.T.P. Exhaust Cutouts, Magnaflow Mufflers • Diablo Tuner—Race Tune by Johan • 3.73 Ratio Gears, Blue Top Transmission Solenoids • 6200 RPM Shift Point Transmission Control Module • 3200 RPM Stall Torque Converter • Mickey Thompson Street Radials P305/35R18, M&H 4.5/26.0-17 • 85mm Throttle Body, BBK Fuel Rails, MSD 40,000 Volt Coils • Snow Water/Meth Injection System • Rear Strut Tower Bar, Petty Garage Front Strut Tower Bar, BC Racing Coilovers, Hawk Brake Pads, Front Brake Line Lock • AEM Air/Fuel Mixture, Water and Transmission Temperature Gauges • Altronics Weather Station, and Raceworks Software…

“NOW LOOK AT YOU , George Bailey,” Mr. Potter said. “A miserable little clerk crawling in here on your hands and knees and begging for help. No securities, no stocks, no bonds, nothin’ but a miserable little $500 equity in a life insurance policy. You’re worth more dead than alive!” Had George Bailey, of It’s A Wonderful Life , stuck around until 2022, he would finally have shown Mr. Potter a winning hand in Kissimmee, Florida. The top selling Mope at what ended up being the largest grossing car auction ever ($217M gross) was the 1919 Dodge Brothers Model 30 touring car (Lot U167) used in the classic Frank Capra Christmas story, hammering sold at $522,500 on Sunday as things wrapped up for Mecum’s 10-day extravaganza at the Silver Spurs…

THERE IS NO WAY to describe how each person deals with personal loss. For MSHS (Modern Street Hemi Shootout) regular racer Geoff Bracken, a tragic highway accident cost him a dear friend, while that same incident left Darla Kimak grieving for her own mother. But even though this situation occurred while attending a racing event, it was not the end of their story. Indeed, the legacy of Bobbi “HemiWoman” Kimak would be a catalyst that has since blossomed into an enduring interaction between the two. “You know, I rushed up there as quickly as I could,” recalls Darla now about the fateful night when Bobbi was fatally injured in her black street/strip Challenger while driving near Detroit, Mich., though no fault of her own. “It was about 4:00 a.m. and…

BARTH TUNING KING OF KINGS • Champion – Ron Polidora EAST COAST MOPARTS PENTASTAR BRACKET CLASS • Champion – Alan Scanlan • Runner up – Ron Polidora DIABLOSPORT AND HOLLEY HEMI OUTLAW CLASS • Champion – Al Gennarelli • Runner up – Kevin Helmick DEMON PERFORMANCE SUPER PRO CLASS • Champion – Ron Polidora • Runner up – Chris Harrigan THITEK HEAVYWEIGHT CLASS • Champion – Danny Mortenson • Runner up – Tommy Falk HIGH HORSE PERFORMANCE 10.00 CLASS • Champion – Mike England • Runner up – Brian Brunt GEARHEAD FABRICATIONS MODIFIED CLASS • Champion – John Roscoe • Runner up – Jessica Duger LEGMAKER INTAKES SUPER STOCK CLASS • Champion – James Burnthourne Jr • Runner up – Greg Green ALLPAR GARAGE STREET CLASS • Champion – Alan…

I AM ALL FOR TECHNOLOGY and I can appreciate advancements… but, man, when does it end? When is enough going to be enough? You talk to a tech at any dealership, and they all sing the same song. These friggin’ engineers keep packing more and more crap into today’s cars with no idea on how to fix them when they break. How much further do we really need to go with technology and the automobile? Safety is one thing, but c’mon, man! You guys and gals know exactly what I’m talking about. You work a long day, with many of you looking at a screen as part of your job. It really doesn’t matter what you do, blue collar, white collar, no collar, odds are you working with technology. (Even…

HEY , remember those old days of bench racing? For you youngsters, it was when guys sat around at night and chatted… err, discussed…err, ok, outright lied about fast cars they had seen, or once owned. It became really shovel-ready once it turned into “my company’s better than yours.” Every smallblock Camaro was a wheelstanding 9-second street car, and every ’67 Mustang came with a factory 427 nobody had ever seen. The smart guys just listened, knowing that when it came down to midnight’s “drag it out and show us,” they’d make like ZZ Top had crooned and “let the machine speak.” And then walked away with a stuffed wallet. So, when Dave Watt, who’s sort of in that quiet guy group of defenders, decided he’d go from his ’69…

THE 1970 MODEL YEAR saw Dodge offering what would become some of the hobby’s most desirable cars. Big-block Coronet R/T and Challenger R/T convertibles and Charger R/T hardtops all met the need for deluxe appointments for upscale purchasers. Truth be told, however, most guys who could afford them kept them only a few years before trading in on the next shiny bauble. The cars would often then go though a descending group of owners until primer and Bondo filled in paint and body issues and the original engines met a demise through some form of stupidity or another. Tim Wellborn, who operates his noteworthy car museum in Alabama with his wife Pam, is well-known for his ownership of 1971 Hemi Chargers. However, today Tim is more enamored with truly original…

TAKE ONE CLUNKER MOPE , stir on a fortified Gold Card, cook it in Weaver Customs’ fusion-power oven and…stand back! Okay, you want crazy? Okay, you GOT crazy. All kinds of crazy. That’s what’s required to work around here. And, what’s more, YOU gotta be crazy if we intend to write about you. The only way you get onto these pages is by being certifiably unhinged. Enter Randy Weaver. Randy is as stable as a cannister of Uranium 235 stirred with Schweppes and put in a paint shaker. We offered him a job, but he was too busy doing crazy things to cars. Maybe just as well. And you know what? Crazy begets crazy. We mean, like, attracts it, the sort of way the black holes pull in competing solar…

ABOUT 20 YEARS AGO , I penned one of the most popular, and presumably appreciated, articles I ever wrote, in which I explained how to diagnose and repair vibration issues. For several years hence, the slew of tech questions on this topic slowed to a crawl, then, bit by bit, they increased to virtually the pre-article level. Conclusion: Time for an update! Diagnosing vibrations isn’t terribly difficult—it just requires a scientific, planned troubleshooting approach. We say there’s two basic categories of vibration: engine, and everything else (chassis / driveline, etc.). Each of these categories has two sub-categories: Parts failures, and owner-induced problems. So, getting your malady localized to the problem area is a huge step in the right direction. Usually, the fix is then pretty straightforward. So—let’s get buzzin’! IS…

CLOSE TO FINISHED KEVIN AZAR didn’t have any pix of his own car, so he sent some of his best friend’s ride. He didn’t bother to give us his friend’s name, so we guess John Doe or Joe Blow from Kokomo (choose one) will work as a placeholder. Kevin is from Portland, Oregon, which has no bearing whatsoever on this writeup. Anyhow, best friend’s original ’65 Coronet 500 was said to be a 426 Hemi / 4-speed car. Something worth preserving? Apparently not. Now, according to Kevin, the Mope runs with an 8-71 Mooneyham-blown 440 with 440Source heads, 750 Dominators and MSD ignition. It still packs a 4-speed that hooks to a narrowed Dana 60 with 3.73 whirring inside. Kevin goes on to explain that this was Ken Blake’s racecar…

A FEW YEARS AGO , we joined the Motor Press Guild—a west coast organization of auto journalists and PR professionals. The fact that we were on the east coast made no difference to the overenthusiastic member-recruiter at the time, who wanted to impress the higher ups with how many new recruits he could bring into the organization. So, we became a member. For about five minutes. Once they realized who we were, and what we did, they politely asked us to leave. Actually, they just kicked us out—something about standards, character, height, and a bunch of other lame excuses. No big deal, we would never join an organization that would have us as a member, anyhow. Except one. The Southside Hacksaw Club of Louisville, KY. We don’t know if this…