'66 Charger Engine Mod

Hey, welcome to the horsepower shop.

Now, this is the kind of mo part that gives us a charge in here.

Timeless looks yet with a horsepower surprise inside.

It belongs to a buddy of ours. It's a 1966 Dodge charger and

it's still got the cool original looks from that massive grill hiding the headlights to the panoramic horizontal tail lights.

Well, he even added those understated hubcaps for an extra old touch.

Well, inside, he's got the original interior as well with all the factory fresh leather and chrome.

But under the hood, he's got a built 383 Stroker with 11 to 1 Ross racing pistons hydraulic roller cam shaft, manly valves and an Edelbrock performer RPM intake manifold. So, why isn't he happy? Well, he's dying to further modernize the motor in this old classic for EF I and hey, why not by now? I guess most people know the advantages of electronic fuel injection like tun

drivability, better start ups and so forth. But

the idea of changing from a carburetor might be kind of scary. Well, we found a new kit

that gives you all the advantages without any modifications or a degree in computer engineering. Now, this is called the Boss EF I for Retro Trek speed.

And it comes with these vintage style throttle bodies that fit up to any standard 4150 intake manifold flange and they've got adapters to make them fit everything. Now, this is the stage two engine management system that's self learning but can be adjusted with a laptop pretty easily. Well, more about the kit in a minute,

we got a little work to do under the hood. Now

with the battery disconnected, we need to remove the air cleaner.

Then after disconnecting the fuel lines and linkage,

we can remove the carburetor.

Well, now we can set the throttle body in place, which by the way has a rear vacuum port for power brakes if the car has them

and a front port for the map sensor that we'll deal with later.

Well, now we can connect the linkage and notice how this is just like the Holly linkage on the card we took off. That means no adjusting the kick down

and no changing the length of the throttle cable.

Well, it looks like we got no binding and full throttle. We're good to go.

We're going to use the lift for part of this installation, but right now we're going to mount this map sensor on the firewall.

The map sensor of course tells the computer how much fuel to deliver according to the engine load

and it should be mounted as close to the engine as possible.

Next, we can run our vacuum host to that front port on the throttle body

with the car higher, we can install the wide band 02 sensor that measures air fuel ratio in the exhaust. It should be mounted 3 to 6 inches after the primary tubes merge. And don't forget to use an I CS.

This car already had 02 bungs welded into the headers which made things pretty easy. The other route you would have to take is get a bung like this drill into your exhaust and weld it on or take the easy way out and get a band clamp like this from the kit with the 02 bung already installed.

Now it's time to mount our stage two box, which is, of course, the brains of the kit. A

good choice would be the glove box here. But as you can see the liners out, there's no flat surface. Another good choice though is under the dash on the firewall, we can mount it vertically so it's still out of sight, clean and dry and we'll still have access to the USB port

from the EMS. We've run our harness through the firewall and the passenger side wheel. Well,

and up to the engine. Now these wires are covered with a material called tech flex that's not abrasive, resistant to heat and

well, it's almost invisible for a neat look under the hood. All the wires are labeled too. So it's a no brainer figuring out what goes where like this throttle position sensor

that connects right here

on the throttle body.

In addition to the main harness, there's also this fuel injector harness that comes out of the throttle body and it goes to this four pin connector.

Finally, we finish up the connections and grounds including this one to the battery.

Unless you're making over 500 horsepower, you don't need to run a return line with this system which makes things a lot easier. But what you do need to run is their fuel pump. Now, this thing flows 255 L per hour at 45 P si and since the retro tech, ems controls the fuel pressure, we're going to run this pump in line with the mechanical pump and retain the factory fuel lines.

I'm gonna mount it here on the frame downstream from the stock pump using the supplied brackets.

I just made the electrical connection for power

and I'm using Russell fuel line from the high pressure pump

to the standard filter from the kit

on up to the throttle body.

Ok. We checked for leaks. We got the coolant back in the radiator. So all that's left is to fire up. This fuel injected charger hit it.

Like I said, the EMS is self learning. In fact, it's dialing itself in right now. So you don't need a laptop. But if you're one of those guys that likes to tinker with tuning, you can do it with the software.

What we just did can easily be done in a day's time. And according to independent results, fuel mileage improves by about 12%. Not to mention a little more horsepower and a little more torque. And the best part about this whole thing, it'll cost you less than two grand.

Now, the throttle body on our charger here flows 750 CFM. But Retro tech also has this 1200 CFM version for cars making more than 500 horsepower like ours. It's got the built in fuel injectors,

linkage and of course, the TPS. Oh, by the way, because of a flow through design, you can feed it from the front or the rear.

Well, we're gonna take our rears to the drag strip.

It's another orsa shoot out and we'll see in the staging lanes. The boys go really fast.

Yeah. Who are cowards?

Hey, see the little GTO back there. Well, it's got a big block with five stages of nitrous and enough horsepower to be the top qualifier of this weekend's outlaw shootout.

It all started on hot Georgia Saturday when the year one,

Oska Series staged a hot mid season showdown

with the usual three rounds of eight mile qualifying

racers dodging the rain and trying to figure out a pickle track.

It's halfway through the season with the series points chase in full tilt

only 20 points. Separate the top five in the fastest outlaw 10 5.

Chuck

Walsh and his big block Nitros fed Camaro leads the pack partially due to a win last race in Montgomery.

But that was then

on this qualifying date,

Steve Kirk was getting a pretty good handle on the track running in the low 450

as was Ken Rainwater in his turbocharged mustang,

but it was Richard Sexton and his GTO

with the right recipe for this track. His top et of 450 earned him the number one qualifying position.

We might underestimate a little bit. I think we could have gone a little faster, but

the track was actually real good.

Richard along with his son Keith in the gray Camaro

and Chuck

Osh are teammates from Maryland with more than a few outlaw races under their belt.

We have raced together

as a team for about five years.

Our early race and we race Friday, Saturday and Sunday every weekend somewhere

while Darren Hoyle and his Camaro have dominated the limited street class

spring. Awesome Avenger made its

HSA debut

running a 485 to leave the package.

Mike Donohue put his 95 Dodge on a diet of Nitrous backed up with a turbo charger.

I start out with just the Nitrous leaving the line. No boost. Get on a train break. That, that, that allows me to stage first last slow.

Gives me a lot of options as opposed to having the stage last and try to build, boost. The advantage of all that is you can adjust to just about any kind of condition.

Yeah, if you're a good Tuer on Turbo and Nitrous

and you are, I guess.

Well, I've had a little experience with Nitrous cars, blower cars now. Turbo, I've, I've been doing a little bit of both. There aren't many people doing this are there. I think I'm the only one so far doing it.

But

there's others been over here looking from other teams that's for sure.

The

easy street class has been dominated by David Lynch running a pro charger in his 95 pony,

but this day belonged to rival Shane Stack

who ruled qualifying rounds with a 493 pass.

A

leave that held into the nut

in the new modified street class. It was a wealth of newcomer, Brian Murphy with a 552 leading the pack.

Some racers seemed anxious to fury and finished third round qualifying.

Could it be because of the post race bikini contest?

Well, this is where I get off type eliminations.

Donohue's moment in the sun faded during round two of eliminations here. Red lighting against Chris Daniels.

Another number one qualifier goes down in round two as well when Sexton breaks at the line giving the win to Chuck Sandy

fast forward to semi finals

in modified street. Glenn Jones gets a win after a rake straw red lights,

Murphy pulls ahead to beat Sturgeon Atkins by 1/10 of a second

easy streak.

Stack stays in contention with an easy win over Donnie Key.

Then David Rees sets the stage for yet another staggery

shootout by beating Brandon May

in limited street Cooner puts Dillard on the trailer with this win.

Points leader Hoyle earns a final spot beating Kyle Hat

with a 491.

Finally outlaw 10 5.

Jimmy Blackman fights off Samuel to win with a 479

and it's Steve Kirk over Bobby Cole in a close one setting the stage for

and here we go.

Ryan Murphy takes his first for

the win, beating Jones by 300 in modified streets and his crew chiefs at least as happy as the dry.

We've been working on it. Nobody is getting close. We just had, uh, some issues with the car that weren't wanting to go away. Finally got the bugs worked out

doing good,

tough luck with Shane Stack handing one to David Rees.

No surprise in Lida

Street. It's darn

Hayle again, but it's a close one over Jeff Ker,

the big

Jimmy Blackmon taking on outlaw veteran Steve Kirk.

And last year's champ gets his first season win with a 456

at 163 miles an hour.

And we needed this race right here, man. We needed every point we could get at this race. We, we're about halfway through the season right now when we was down and

and uh the guys are sitting up in front of us. They all went out early and not wishing bad on them, but

we needed it.

All the balls rolled our court today and uh we're real happy.

So here are the faces of victory. We'll face more heads up competition in our next

orsa outlaw shootout.

Love watching your star

TV.

Welcome back to horsepower. Ever stop to think how the American motor has evolved in its history

in terms of efficiency, reliability. And of course,

of course, despite that, the good old internal combustion engine has always needed three things to live fuel and air to burn and make that power

and oil to keep the parts in here lubricated

until 1972. There weren't too many choices of motor oil but synthetics changed all that

and thanks to continued research and improvements. The advantages of synthetic motor oil in all motors has been well proven.

Well today, Royal Purple is producing synthetics for every application from mild street machines to high horsepower race cars.

Independent tests show their oils produce heat wear and, and emissions

while improving engine efficiency

and even torque and horsepower horsepower. Well, that's where we come in. In fact, today, we want to see if we can make any horsepower or torque gains from switching from an ordinary mineral based oil to Royal Purples five W 30. Now our test motor, well, it's a Chevy ZZ four that has a 9 to 1 compression ratio and it's naturally aspirated. It's got trick flow heads and Edelbrock intake and a ha

750 carburetor, a fairly basic engine for a daily driven street rod

after draining the oil and changing the filter that was on the motor. Here's a tip that applies to any oil change before installing the new filter, fill it with new oil. So there's plenty of lubrication for the start up. Also smear some around the surface to make the filter go on and come off easier.

Next, we add six quarts of the standard 10 W 30 oil

warm up the engine until the oil temperature reaches 100 and 60 degrees.

And we're ready to make our first

dyno ho

we're making both of our runs today to 6500 RPM and that's where we'll make our comparison.

All right, at 6500 RPM, we made 376 ft pounds of torque and 465 horsepower.

After the engine cools down, we drain the oil

and change the filter just like before.

Well, now we can add six quarts of the royal purple five W 30. By the way, the W doesn't stand for weight. It stands for the winter viscosity rating, which of course is five, the 30 is the rating at high engine temperatures,

which was the same in the other oil.

Of course, we're making sure the water and oil temperatures are the same for the second run

on this run at 6500 RPM. S we made 382 ft pounds of torque and 473 horsepower. All right, our gains were 6 ft pounds of torque and eight horsepower. Now, always remember the more heat cycles you put the royal purple oil through the more horsepower and torque numbers. You'll see.

Yeah. And if we were using nitrous or a big turbo charger on this engine, we'd probably step up to their X pr extreme performance synthetic

either way.

Eight more horsepower just for changing motor oil. Hey, I'll buy that anytime.

If you spend a lot of time cleaning and polishing your street machine, you don't want to cut corners when it comes to services like plastic and metal. Well, here's some stuff from mothers that'll make them go from dull to dazzling. It's their powerball polishing tools and polishes for plastic and metal.

The power ball is the first foam tool designed to revitalize billet, diamond plate, aluminum and stainless steel. When used with the power metal compound.

Now use it with power plastic and rejuvenate lenses, convertible top windows and a lot more

and big difference.

Now, for those tight areas and wheels and even engine components, you can also use the Powerball mini.

Well, all these products are available at your local parts store. Let's just say you need a custom fit water hose to fit for clearance under your car's hood. Well, here's a cool new alternative to prevent hoses. It's called the Unic Oil and it simply slips over hose and allows you to bend it up to 90 degrees without any kinking.

Now, it's available in quarter inch sizes all the way up to one inch. So next time you feel bent out of shape about getting pre vent hoses made, just check out your local o'reilly store and pick up a Unic Oil. Well, we got a cool show for you next week. Make sure you check it out. We'll see you then.