Mopar Mania Pt. 3

Wow,

man, that car is really you.

Hi, welcome to Horsepower TV. Where today it's a Mopar

mania here in the shop.

You know, I guess nothing symbolizes the Mopar

muscle car era like a 70 Superb. This one happens to have a 440 big block under its hood. Now, in its day, winged warriors like this one dominated the streets, the strips and even the round racetracks of America.

Of course, when you're talking Mopar Muscle, you can't leave out the awesome a bodies like this 67 Barracuda.

Now this convertible is one of only about 4200 built.

It's got a 380 horse, 360 under the hood and like the super bird, this Kona was brought back to life by John

Balo Muscle car restorations.

Recently, we got a 67 ka

of our own as a horsepower project. And after today,

it's also gonna have a 360 turn in its tires. But wait, let's back up just a bit.

Chuck and I started our a body project with a magnum 360 short block from Jegs

and then added a roller valve train from Comp CAMS,

Edelbrock performer heads

and one of their air gap intakes along with a 750 demon car.

We buttoned up the bottom end with a moroso oil pan

to make the 360 swap possible. We went to Steven's performance in Alabama where we found a used correct K member and bolted it up to the coa

frame

before dropping the new motor in though. We had to take the one that was in here out. It was a 440 RB, ok, for drag racing. But our goal was a much more balanced drivable street machine that takes the curves as well as the straightaways.

I see you guys also had to remove those headers that were poking their way through the fender. Well, and that master cylinder just get the big block out of there. Now, the nice thing about this small block is once we get it in place and there's gonna be plenty of room under the hood to work, it's gonna take about 100 and 50 pounds off the front end.

And if we give a little whiff of nitrous and it'll make as much horsepower as that big block ever did.

But before we can bolt in place, we've got to have the right mounts to made it up with a K member

and I got them right here. These are factory style brackets from Schumacher

Creative Services and they allow you to retain all your accessories. Even ac if you got

it, erasers will be glad to know, they got a steel version of this for the driver's side.

Of course, we're going with the rubber mounts since our abo

is destined for the street. Now, while we were at it, we ordered this urethane transmission mount and this adjustable torque strap kit. What do you think of this? Hey,

that's a pretty cool piece. All right.

And it sure beats the old chain welded to the frame to help eliminate engine movement. Now, check this out, it's got a spherical rod end up here and threaded adjustment and urethane bushings on the other end.

The best part though is that it bolts right up and there's no welding or fabrication required.

These brackets go right up to the lugs on the block using hardware from the kit.

Now, when you install your mouths for both the transmission and the engine, make sure they're finger tight only at first. That's because the slots and holes in the K member have built in adjustable

so you can position the engine for maximum clearance.

Of course, after you do have the engine in place the way you like it, you can go ahead and torque all the boats to factory specs

while Joe's getting that engine ready to install here. I'm gonna go ahead and reinstall the master cylinder and get that job out of the way.

Now, you might be wondering what we're gonna do with this big hole where the headers used to go through the fender wells and quite honestly, we're not gonna do anything right now, but in a couple of weeks, we're gonna show you how to bend some sheet metal and make a permanent repair there. But right now let's get the engine in.

Yeah, but before we drop that engine in, we're gonna lay our headers inside the engine compartment.

Now, for

our C A here, we chose these equal link step headers from tube technology.

Their design increases both bottom and torque and high end horsepower by starting with a one and 58 inch primary that feeds into a one and three quarter inch secondary and that dumps into a three inch collector.

We also specified this polished ceramic coating on the outside and a thermal barrier coating here on the inside of each one of the pipes. Now, here's another feature that I like a leak proof seal is virtually guaranteed by virtue of this 38 inch flange and the surface ground welds. Now to help us install this header, the driver side features a removable tube

right here on the number seven cylinder

and you position it between the torsion bar and the frame

before it slipped back together.

You know, I'm about as great as that Barracuda there when it comes to bow

pars, but everything looks good so far. Well, you know me, I'm Mr Chevy, so I guess it'll be the blind leading the blind in the shop today.

But you know what even a blind man can see that, that hood needs to come off before you can go too much further.

How you looking you loose over there?

Come on, let's go. All right.

All right. We're looking good up here, Joe. You clear it. Yeah, I think so.

Oh, yeah, we're looking real good.

That's about it. Now, I think we're about ready to come down with it.

Yeah.

Not bad for a couple of Mopar morons. Huh?

Well, you know what they say? Ignorance is bliss.

Don't you do anything stupid? Like leave us. We've got more of this a body engine swap right after this.

Welcome back to the shop and more of our a body engine swap. Now, if you're just joining us, Joe and I have already dropped a 360 magnum into our 67 Barracuda here and we're leaving everything loosely bolted up until we can get the transmission in

that way we can position the engine to give us the clearance we need

around the headers and other accessories before we cinch down all of our mounting bolts. Now, obviously, the next step is to bolt up our automatic behind the block. You know, the torque flight is Mo

Park's heavy duty automatic transmission and well, it's lived behind hemi

so it shouldn't have any difficulty living behind our small block,

especially with the modifications TCI S made on this one.

It's a street fighter 727 with improvements like carbon clutches, steel clutch plates, plus it features a Kevlar band and bolt in spread for increased reliability. Now, the valve body on this thing's also been upgraded for increased line pressure and firmer shifts and higher RP

MS.

With all those modifications, this baby will handle at least 700 horsepower.

Now for a torque converter, we're going with their 10 inch Super Street fighter with about a 3500 stall. This is a race ready piece with features like burns brace, fins,

Torrington bearings and an anti ballooning plate for reinforcement.

Of course, we need to install the converter before we can bolt the transmission up into the car.

Now, here are a couple of tips that are gonna help you do the job, right?

Pour a quart of transmission fluid into the converter to help keep things lubricated during initial start up. Now we like to use this royal purple for protection under extreme pressures and high temperatures.

You also wanna make sure to put a little bit right here on the snout to help protect the seal.

When you install the converter in the trans,

rotate the converter while you push it in

until the lugs engage the pump.

There we go.

Hey, that's some pretty fancy footwork you got going on there, Joe. Yeah, I got your footwork before he gets that thing jacked up too high though. I wanna give you a little tip. That's gonna save you a headache later on

with the headers already in the car, we wanna slide the starter up in a position before we both up that transmission.

Now we went with this mini starter from Power Master. It's about half the weight and size of the original, which is gonna give us plenty of room around the headers and it's gonna help keep this thing from frying.

Now, it's a gear reduction starter which means it's gonna have more than enough torque to crank over the highest compression engine

and it's got a billet snout here for added strength and to help keep this starter drive properly located against that flywheel.

There we go.

Now we're ready to line the transmission on the dow pins.

We're looking pretty good a little bit more there. All right.

Ok.

Well, now we can both the transmission to the back of the block

then using some block type,

both the converter to the flex plate

and torque the boats down to 30 ft pounds.

Finally, we installed the cross member with the new trans mount.

Ok. Now that we've got the engine and transmission loosely bolted in a place we can go ahead and check for all of our clearances,

move things around if we need to and then cinch everything down.

Well, ch finishes cinching down those bolts. I'll get started on the rest of our exhaust system.

Now, it too came from tube technologies and it's designed to make right up to the collectors on those headers we installed. Now we got ours with the three inch tubes that'll handle all the extra horsepower of any future upgrades we might make. Now it's fully illuminated with man

bins for maximum flow,

especially when they breathe through these massive dynamic super turbos. Now, the kit comes with all the mounting hardware we need including these original style hangers that mount right up in the stock locations,

replace the rear seatbelt boats with the ones supplied in the kit.

Then install the hangers with the offset here pointing away from where the drive shaft will be.

Next, install the tailpipe hangers to the frame

using existing bow toes.

Next, the head pipes slip over the collector extensions,

then support the mufflers and the hangars

before you slip them onto the head pots.

Now, we can slip the tail

pipes over the axle and into the mufflers

finally secure the tail pipe to the rear hanger

it.

Ok. After checking everything for clearance, the choice is yours. You can either clamp everything together or weld it. Of

course, if you don't have your own welder,

there's always the local muffler shop.

Now, while we get our Barracuda down on the ground, don't you go anywhere? Because when we come back,

we're gonna take care of the cooling electrical and ignition systems on our a body.

Hi and welcome back to more Mopar

Madness here in the horsepower shop. We're making some progress today.

So far, our everybody's got a new 360 small block torque, flight transmission, performance centers and exhaust. Now time for more work on the top side.

Yeah, I know. Just the place to start.

The wiring on this car is a major electrical meltdown. Just waiting for his place to happen. It's been sliced, diced and butt spliced to death. And who knows what wires go where? So we're gonna replace this whole mess with this reproduction wiring harness that we got from year one, check it out. It's got the right gauge wires, the proper connectors and even the right color coding on them.

After pulling out all the old wiring,

we start by plugging the new junction blocks into the firewall,

then snap the plastic retainers into place.

Well, now we can start plugging into all of our accessories. Of course, if your wiring harness was as butchered as ours was, it's probably a pretty good idea to get yourself a factory manual and start studying those schematics.

We installed that Maori Unite

distributor the day we built our 360 motor. And well, today we decided to fire that thing off with one of their high fire six multi strike boxes.

Now, it has digital circuitry which means it'll be efficient without drawing a lot of power

and it has a built in rev limiter that needs no chips plus if we wanna upgrade with a power adder later, this thing is easy to configure for boot retard, even multi stages of nitrous. Now, first step is to find a good place to mount it.

Let's see, right here on the fender wheel should be a good spot.

It'll be far enough away from heat

and give us plenty of access.

Plus the factory box was located right here, so we know wiring won't be a hassle.

Now, once we get power to the box with this red and black wire,

this yellow and black wire goes to the new coil.

the red one, well, that goes to the old coil lead.

Oh, in case you wondered about all these wires. Well, therefore for those power upgrades we might make later on

the final piece of our electrical puzzle is this alternator. Now, we got this one from Power Master and it cranks out an amazing 140 amps. That's more than enough to run our high powered electronic ignition,

a big thumping stereo and it'll probably have more than enough left over to run the lights for a small city. Oh, and here's something else I like. It uses a simple one wire hook up. Now, when we got the Barracuda, it had a big block in it. So we had to get the right alternator mounts for a small block. And, well, we ordered these from year one

right about now, you're probably asking yourself, hey, where's that battery? Well, when we got the Barracuda, it was already in the trunk and since it'll help out the car's weight transfer and balance, we're just gonna leave it there.

Here's something else that'll take weight off the front end. This aluminum radiator from B cool is a lot lighter than the copper brass original and it transfers more heat thanks to an advanced fin design

and a cross flow configuration.

Now, the fans shroud module contains a pair of 10.5 inch electric fans automatically controlled thanks to a thermostatic switch. Now B

cool claims this configuration is good

for 1000 horsepower. That's a bunch. Now, before we both

that radiator, let me show you what we're gonna use to keep our transmission alive.

Did you know that for every 20 degree drop in fluid temperature, your transmission will double its life. Well, we did.

So we ordered the biggest cooler that TCI had.

Of course, our loose converter and those passes up and down, the drag strip are gonna add some extra heat. So this is gonna do the trick. It mounts real easily right to the front of the radiator using these straps that come in the kit. I'll flip this thing over and we get started. Good job.

What do you think? There we go.

Well, now that we've got our fans and our cooler mounted up, we're ready to drop this thing in

the mounting brackets rest right here on the frame rail where we drill a 516 inch hole

with the radiator removed, enlarge the hole in the frame to five eights an inch and then you can install the rubber grommet with the threaded insert.

Now we can tighten the radiator to the frame.

Then we'll drill a pair of holes right here through the upper radiator support into the core support.

Finally, we installed these two upper bolts and now we're ready to wire the fans. Well, you both par fans will see more of this a

project in coming weeks. Meanwhile, there's more show ahead. So stay with us.

Horsepower T V's Quick Tech is brought to you by

Wyotech.

How would you like to make some door panels for your street machine that pop with personality and imagination?

Well, listen up class is in session. We

just took this door panel out of the car and we're gonna do a covering that's gonna be real simple and easy.

We won't even have to use a sewing machine. Well, uh one that all of us could do just right at home. Correct? I love it.

How's this thing gonna look to you? We're gonna start out with putting some flames up on top,

doing what we call hard pleats in the center

and then doing some more flames along the bottom of the door panel. Sounds pretty fancy. What do you start with? We're gonna start with the hard pleats in the middle.

Dan is spraying down contact cement, which you can find at the local hardware store. Then he lays down rectangles cut out of eight inch panel board

using a piece of scrap wood for a spacer

time. Now to draw a design again, in this case, good old fashioned flame licks.

He's using quarter inch Landau foam that you can get at an upholstery shop cutting the design out using a 45 degree angle with his razor blade.

We're gonna start by putting some uh Landau foam on the top and bottom. It's eight inch thick.

We'll put them on here for two reasons. This will cover up the holes where our clips come through so that we don't have the clips visible when we finish covering.

And it also gives us the same height as the pleats. So we get a fairly consistent panel.

Remember with contact submit, you need to spray both surfaces, the foam and the panel plus, let them tack a few minutes before you lay them together.

Then you can trim around the edge of the panel.

Now put down the flames, of course, once you put pressure on them, they're there to stay.

Hey, this is nice but true. You got to cover it with dad. What is this? We got Black Elante vinyl here.

We were using it because it's very stretchable.

We can get in and out of our, our pleats here as well as on the flame legs.

Dan covers the pleats first working the material into the crevices slowly.

Then he covers the flame sections

before stapling the wrap allowance as he calls it to the back of the panel.

Finally, he trims the excess to make it less bulky and easy to install

and anybody be proud to install this. That's great work. The last thing we gotta do is cut the holes for the window cranks and door handles and it'll be ready to install. You know, we should point out that, uh, you can use flames or just about any design. The imagination comes up with

even a mustang. Huh?

I'm not sure Joe. That kinda looks like a three legged dog to me.

Three legged dog. What do you mean?

Horsepower TV S hot parts is brought to you by Jags. One call, gets it all. One click, gets it quick

since we've been in kind of a Mopar mood today. How about a starter for your vintage

hemi? Kinda hard to find, huh? Well, not anymore. Power Master makes a gear reduction mini starter for those early hemi

made from 51 to 57.

But don't let us diminutive size fool. Yeah, this thing cranks out more than enough power to spin a high compression engine or to give you a clearance around those tight frames and hitters.

Now, the billet snout. Well, it's not there just for good looks. It's there for added strength as well. The price. Well,

it's not too strong under 200 bucks.

Well, here's a hot part for your cooling system. It's a thermal clutch fan from Hayden that makes sure your fan runs at the right RPM. S, in other words, it gives you more air when you're going slow and at faster speeds, less noise and fuel consumption.

And since it takes a load off your water pumps, bearings, the pump should last longer as well. Comes in three designs, standard heavy and severe duty with prices varying according to application. Well, I guess we've done our duty for today and we're out of time but don't forget to check us out next week. See you then.