Raunchy Rat Payoff

Oh boy.

Just when you thought it was safe to go on the street again,

the raunchy rat goes for a cruise. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the shop. Today we're going to pay off our ongoing labor of lunacy.

Last time we had it in the shop, we gave it some centered dump headers from Ankenbrandt with a pair of cherry bomb mufflers for tail lights. Well, we borrowed a pair from a 61 Impala that was parked outside the muscle car shop.

We installed a reproduction deck lid to be coated in natural rust. Of course, then Mike went to the lower 40 to rummage through tractor parts or something. We could make a grill out of

that was also the time we installed these deep style headlights that were used but

not quite used enough to match the rest of the rat.

So today we're gonna show you what we come up with to give these things some real character.

Yeah. But first, even though a rat rides a no frills ride, you don't want to get dirt in your eyes or bugs in your teeth while you're driving one. So we picked up this original model a windshield off of the internet, which we're gonna install on the raunchy rat

to install it. We just bolt in the frame hinge at the top

and attach the bracket to the stud using washers and wing nuts.

Now, this is what they called air conditioning back in the late twenties and early thirties. I guess there's no way to really be comfortable in a rat rod is there

since you last saw the car. We had our production assistant at resident artist Hutch, sketch out some artwork that was fitting for a horsepower rat rod.

Of course, the idea was to make our logo look like it was as old as the body itself.

After painting both sides, we turned it loose on the deck lid, painting the official name of the car and even a mascot rat who had apparently overdosed on 48 motor oil. Why Da Vinci himself couldn't have done better.

All right, the next challenge is getting this old Ferguson tractor grill. I picked up able to fit on the front of the rat. We've also got another little problem. We still have to powder coat these old spoke wheels in time to make it to a cruise in later tonight.

Looks like I'm gonna go grab tech Center Tommy for a little help,

Tommy get in gear by first cutting the grill insert out of its original assembly

while Tommy does his thing back in the shop. I'm going to go ahead and get started powder coat in these new wheels we got for the rat rod. Now there are 52 spoke street rod wire from Coker Tire. They measure in at 15 by five up front 15 by seven in the rear. Now we let Joe pick the color since he is so classy. He opted for cream.

They've already been blasted and wiped down with Acetone. So after giving each one a good coat of powder,

they can go into our oven for about 10 minutes after reaching a 400 degree cooking temperature.

Well, meanwhile, Tommy's fitting the old tractor grill insert into the hood and sides.

Then he clamps and tacks everything in place

before welding it all up.

Now he's taking measurements so he can cut the top of the hood to make a new grill assemblance.

Next, some relief cuts on the hood to clear the blower.

Finally, he uses boats and wing nuts to keep it all in place.

Well, Tommy sure did plow through that tractor metal in a hurry. And now we got two options. This look or

this look which I like because if you got a flathead might as well flaunt it.

Well, the wheels turned out pretty good too, but just wait until you see the retro rubber we're gonna have mounted on them. Now, I'm gonna go ahead and take care of that while Joe makes a little barter with our neighbor. So that's pretty much how you make a run. You got it ready for stop Green for go. Yeah, pretty simple but not that simple little trade off. Now you and Ryan can use the dyno Jet. Have your way with it. But man, you gotta help me make this thing look like the rest of the rat rock. Ok. Have you thought about

finna?

Not for a long time. I dated her in high school. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creating an aged look with new paint. Oh, yeah, let me show you what I'm talking about. I

think she had an age look too, you know.

Ok, this is super easy. All you're gonna need is some red scuffing pads to prep the surface. Some 600 grit sandpaper a shop tower you can throw away and three different colors of primer. A little bit of water to help you sand. So I'm gonna put you to work. Ok, let's go.

Ok, we're going to start with the black primer and put a pretty thick coat on

and we'll let that dry for a few minutes.

Now. We'll put a coat of red on and make it really wet and fat.

Here's where the fun stuff happens. Take your shop towel

and you just sort of make a mess

and finally we'll give a thick coat of gray primer.

Looks like you're ready for your next coat too. How come I got this old garbage can and

a box and you got that nice tool box and the box for yours. Well, it kind to illustrate the point that you don't really need a paint booth and it doesn't matter if dust gets up in the paint job. So, uh, stop, wh

now after your primer is dry, use water and 600 grit, sandpaper and wet the surface pretty liberally

and sand it down until you get the faded look that you're looking for.

All right, Mr Kevin, how

Patti and I do here. What do you think? It looks like you did good and you know, sanding through the layers, kind of creates the illusion that the sun has beat it to death for about 40 years. It does. It works, man. Thanks a lot. Let's go back on the car. I I gotta go back and help Ryan get the truck ready for the dyno.

Knock yourself out.

That's much better. Now everything's evenly aged and trash. Well, it won't be long until Mike's back with those wheels and tires. Then it's off to the local crews in for the raunchy rats public debut.

Hey, welcome back. Now. We got our tires mounted up on our 52 spoke powder coated wheels just in time for tonight's cruise in

for rubber Coker sent us these skinny ribbed Firestone dirt track tires to use in the front and then we capped it off with a V8 center cap, powder coated rust

and then the rear old style Firestone deluxe champions with a groove tread.

They're four ply tube tires

and they're an inch or two lower than the original tires we had on here for

Moca giving us even a cooler stance.

Well, here we are the weekly Friday night cruise and sponsored by the Murfreesboro Hot Rod Club.

All right, Joe said he had to go cover an

Oscar race down in Huntsville, Alabama. But I actually think he was a little afraid to ride shotgun with me. So we had buddy come along. Now we're gonna go see what we can find

and I didn't get this something like

that.

Yeah,

we got a woodwork on that thing. It's unbelievable.

Wow, that's, that's not pieced together. That's form

like most local cruisings. You can see a little bit of anything and everything here from Street Rods to classics, from the fifties. But obviously nobody's seen a car here that looks quite like a raunchy rat.

I like Rat rods.

One thing wrong with it.

It's not, mine

looks like it ride a little rough, but it looks pretty cool. I like super charge on it. You don't see that too much on flathead.

You know what? That is? A tetanus shot. That's what that is a tetanus shot

as with all events like this, there's no competition, but if they gave out trophies for attracting stairs, the raunchy rat would be a first place shoe in.

All right, the cruise in tonight has been a blast. But I've got a little problem. I can't find, buddy. Well, make sure you guys stay tuned and we'll see if Joe really did go to a heads up drag race. I'm gonna go find buddy and give people a little longer chance to look at the car.

Welcome back to Horsepower and into northern Alabama

where for generations, fields of cotton like this have covered the hot southern landscape.

And what does this have to do with heads up outlaw drag racing?

I don't know.

Oh,

well, I do know that here at nearby hustle

dragway, the fall shootout is one of the hottest events on the year one orsa

racing schedule.

Oh, yeah, we ready. I

hope we're gonna fly this time

with the usual eight mile heavy hitters like Chuck

s

who leads the outlaw 10.5 points chase with his Camaro on

Nis

and Turbo Tim Lynch who holds two world records

a

436 for et and 100 and 74 miles an hour for top speed.

Then there are the noticeable outlaw newcomers like Texan Billy Martone.

Billy brought a Barracuda with a 526 top alcohol funny car.

Hemi.

If that cua

can plant power on 10.5 inch tires race day, it will be one ferocious fish.

Meanwhile, with its radio tower rule,

Oska's easy street glass has turned out to be the showstopper.

How many variables with this easy street racing when you got stock suspension and a radio tire.

Lots of horsepower. There's, it's just tough man. The slightest little thing will

either make it or break it.

That's Tommy Brewer who drove his pro charge TRANS

AM to a number one qualifying spot

eventually running a 494 et

we've been in the trenches

all year trying to get this thing sorted out and

we just kept, kept digging and it finally came together for us.

Sunday's eliminations would be a day of surprises for the Orsa

fans. In fact, here's how it went class by class modified street points leader, Dustin

Morn

went out early in round three

top qualifier, Brian Murphy had another good day here with an impressive third round win.

What rookie Ryan Bras

draw in the Nova was the picture of poise and consistency

working his way through the competition with quick lights and ETS in the mid fives.

Finally, he faces Murphy in the finals and wins with a 557

at 100 and 27 miles an hour

all

good Friday night and

Saturday we f it all day and finally, I guess we made the right decision this morning and

went down the track every time.

Luck's a big thing and I'd rather be lucky than do it any day

in easy streak. Shane Stack survived the whole shot from the class leader David Rees winning this in my final race.

Same round Brewer has the lead but loses power at the bottom the end.

Then in the final,

oh no, a stack, red lights handing Shane Crow

in his first horse to win.

It was just a hard battle to get there, but we made it an end. So

thanks to everybody else's stuff breaking and red lighting, but wins a win. You know, we take it how we get it.

Limited streak

dominated by Darren Hole in the Rich

Barrel who seems unstoppable to round four when Carlton Thompson puts him on the trailer with a 494

in the finals. Thompson faces Jeff Hawk who leaves first and finishes last as the Mustang Stampedes to a 492.

You never thought we'd have won qualified 13 weren't even in the field for the last run qualifying.

It was just our day

outlaw 10 5. The top dogs went down early like Tim Blitch getting out of shape here just before the finish line

and even

in the left lane who loses to Jack Barfield by a few thousands

in the semis.

Tony Johnson can't get no satisfaction in his blown Camaro losing to Shannon Ragsdale,

Texan Todd Warrior wins as Barfield gets squarely down track.

Then in the final, it's Ragsdale and his Clint Turbow

running a 467 to Moor

476.

It's gotta be a good feeling. Getting your first real legitimate outlaw of 25 win.

Yeah.

Any win is good, but this is big. This is a this is a big event

next up Carolina Dragway for a season special,

the horsepower

orsa showdown in just a few weeks,

carburetors and high performance may be synonymous but electronic fuel injection is here and it's here to stay. Now. I recently got a tour of a place where EF I performance is all they do. Here's this week's speed Merchant segment

when Detroit rolled out fuel injection in the mid eighties, two gearhead brothers, Brian and Ken Murphy saw an opportunity to specialize in speed parts for EF I cars today with 100 employees, multiple facilities and nearly 100 and 50,000 square feet dedicated to design, research, production validation and distribution.

BBK is sticking to what they do best.

The 20 years, our focus has always been ef I performance,

you know, and uh we always consider ourselves what other companies are to carbo a performance. We are the EF I performance. Ken Murphy heads up the engineering team designing parts for the BBK brand as well as work they do for GM and MO part performance rush and mclaren,

he wouldn't share any secrets, but he did give me a tour of their multi access CNC cells where they machine throttle bodies, EGR plates under drive pulleys, fuel regulators and intakes for popular G MLS and Ford modular V eights.

And the new EF I hemi,

let me show you our pattern shop

here. They're finishing a new G MLS intake to replace the stock plastic piece Mike. This is our new tune port, uh lower intake manifold,

James. What do you got going on over there

here? I'm taking a uh measurement on a uh first article casting.

Good job. How's it looking?

It's perfect. It's right. The spec

BBK is best known for pioneering the high flow throttle body.

Today BBK is also building high tech drive by wire versions for LS vent and modular mustangs.

BBK is also cranking out their new dual stage intake for the 4.62 valve mustang.

It's a unique combination of a long runner for torque and a short runner for high RPM.

In addition to machining intake components, BBK also fabricates welded suspension pieces like these Mustang upper control arm assemblies.

But most of the welding facility is dedicated to exhaust H pipes, cap backs and headers

here. A giant production plasma converts four by eight sheets, 3/8 thick into hundreds of header

fangs first burning their inner and outer dimensions,

then punching out bolt holes,

precise, ready to weld pieces.

But there is more to building headers that it

because of tight clearance issues and maintaining things like an equal length header system just to make sure that this header is going to perform perfectly, it's going to fit perfectly and there's never going to be a problem with it.

BKS Well, team uses fixtures, jigs, even robots to achieve repeatable quality control

once it comes off a machine like the six axis robot. We know everything's going to be perfect from a wealth standpoint, but we're still going to test it,

testing to check for leaks in a pressure fixture is the final step,

believe it or not. A lot of manufacturers don't pressure test headers.

We take every header before it goes out to outside chrome or ceramic and it's actually pressurized for about 20 P si to make sure that

there's no leaks in the field. Well, that's awesome because nobody wants a leaky head out. Never

during production. The R and D department uses a fleet of vehicles to fit everything from this new cold air kit for the charger and other hemi

parts.

It all comes together, Mike. We're working on here, Brian

just getting ready to install and dyno test these long tube

he headers. Well, these things are pretty stout making 280 at the rear wheel from the factory. Let's see what these parts will do. Sounds good.

It's amazing. These guys can do just about everything in house to build bolt

ons that make power

23 horsepower, 4500 RPM. Not bad, man. Not bad.