Category
🚗
MotorTranscript
00:00 Hey I'm Finnegan and this is the Hot Rod Garage. This is the spot that Hot Rod
00:04 magazine gets together inside of to wrench on their projects, test out new
00:08 parts, and pretty much blow stuff up. There's one big difference between this
00:12 shop and other ones though. We got a punk band.
00:18 [Music]
00:21 So here's what's cracking in episode one. First we're gonna drop a blown small
00:43 block Chevy into a 1974 Jaguar XJ12. I'm serious. We're talking dual Holley carbs,
00:50 a Wyan 671 blower, aluminum heads, forged pistons. This thing is a beast and
00:55 probably when it's done it's gonna blow up the rest of the drivetrain. After that
01:00 we're gonna bring my wife Sel Camino in here and we're gonna swap out the 40
01:03 year old turbo 350 transmission for a late model Gearstar 4L60E electronic
01:09 overdrive transmission. We're also gonna swap out a bashed in set of headers and
01:13 when we're done we're gonna cause some mayhem and do some burnouts. But right
01:16 now we're gonna hook up with George Rabbit for a Lincoln Tech tech tip. Hi
01:21 I'm George Rabbit from Lincoln Tech and this is an engine dyno. A water brake
01:25 dyno is a service tool that applies a load to an operating engine. It makes
01:30 sure the engine has no deficiencies and it's ready to run. It's also a valuable
01:35 tuning tool enabling us to extract maximum performance from an operating
01:40 engine. A dyno operates in a controlled environment that we call an operating
01:45 cell. Weather conditions inside the cell are constantly monitored by a computer.
01:51 The computer establishes a standard that we can use to compare this engine to one
01:57 being tested in New York or anywhere in between. Beyond making sure the engine's
02:02 ready to run, the dyno is also useful in trying out new parts and making tune-up
02:08 adjustments. Once the dyno testing is complete and the engine's been given a
02:12 clean bill of health, it's now ready to install in the vehicle. Lincoln Tech can
02:16 teach you how to have a career working with cars. See LincolnEDU.com
02:23 [Music]
02:41 For our first Roadkill Project Car Update, we're giving you the Draguar. And
02:46 you've been begging for this for a long time and frankly we've just been lazy
02:49 about it, but we are finally going to repower our 1974 Jaguar XJ12. Oh, correct
02:56 pronunciation even. Minimizing the hate mail. Okay, if you guys don't know what the
03:01 Draguar is all about, this was in episode 7 of our Roadkill show and as he said
03:06 it's a '74 XJ12 which apparently is kind of a rare car and it offends Jaguar
03:12 people or Jaguar people that we tore it up. But we flew up to San Francisco, bought
03:17 the thing from the guys from White Flag Racing and already a small block Chevy
03:20 in it and so we threw a Wyand 671 blower on it in the parking lot at Gatelli
03:25 Speed Shop. But that didn't end so well because you see our worthless bone-stock
03:30 old boat motor that was in the thing ended up going into nuclear meltdown. I
03:35 think the Japanese nuclear plant probably has a cooler core than that
03:39 thing still does. And so the Draguar became junk, but then Finnegan put
03:44 together a new motor for it. Yeah, this is the greatest bad idea we've ever had.
03:50 This is a Blueprint Engines forged 383 cubic inch long block that is rated for
03:58 600 horsepower. And so? So I went to the dyno and turned the wick up until we
04:01 made almost 700 horsepower. But we're not gonna put it in the car like that because
04:06 that's a recipe for explosion on the stock block. Yeah, this thing at 8 pounds
04:11 of boost makes about 640 horsepower. I flopped the pulleys, you know, little one
04:17 up top, man style, the way it should be, and it only picked up 50 more horsepower
04:21 with all that hot air. But it made 696 horsepower at 6,000 RPM and then we came
04:26 to our senses and turned it back down to 8 pounds of boost and it makes
04:31 640 horsepower still, which is plenty to blow up the stock transmission. Oh yeah,
04:35 that thing is a complete goner. So this thing isn't gonna be pretty, but it's
04:41 gonna be fun. Yeah, let's put it in.
04:45 This is our custom will blow transmission. It's our turbo 350, it's a goner.
04:52 It's a will blow 350. It will blow. Alright, so we're gonna put the converter in and
04:58 you want to make sure this thing is all the way seated into the pump, otherwise
05:03 it will blow. And you're gonna hear several clunks, three right? Yeah, you want
05:08 to do the spin and wiggle while you're pushing it in to make sure it's well
05:11 back from the bell housing flange. There you go, two, one, three. And you smash your fingers like I'm doing.
05:18 You know why? That's because this is the unacceptable 12-inch converter. If you
05:23 had the proper 9-inch or 8-inch converter in it, you'd be fine. But you'll
05:27 also hear the pump click when it turns. Ready.
05:33 [Music]
05:40 So we've got to build new plug wires and we've got these eight and a half
05:46 millimeters superconductor wires from MSD. And they were kind enough to include
05:50 this plastic stripping and cripping device, which is really cool. You just
05:55 slide the wire in there, grab yourself a razor blade, spin the wire, and just like
06:03 that, all stripped to the exact length you need. These are dual crimp terminals.
06:08 They grip the sheath of the wire and the conductor at the same time. And you
06:15 should really use a set of needle nose pliers to crimp the first end of it, but
06:19 I don't have those on me, so I'm gonna cheat. There we go. And then you just set
06:26 that in there and smash it in the provided tool. And then dip it in some
06:34 spark guard here to protect it from moisture and to make installing the boot
06:39 that much easier. All right. It's crimped. The boot is on. It's ready to go on the
06:44 car.
06:46 [Music]
06:48 [Music]
06:57 When you don't have a high-dollar set of wire separators, zip ties are an
07:02 excellent substitute. All you do is take one tie, wrap it around the wires you
07:08 want to separate, then take another tie, run it between the wires, and wrap it
07:15 around the zip tie you just installed. And just like that, wire separator. Cut
07:26 the pails off and you're all done. Impress your friends. Go drag racing. Look
07:32 at that. It's rare that something this stylish is also functional. Usually you
07:39 pay extra for that.
07:41 [Music]
07:43 [Music]
07:45 [Music]
07:47 This is where we show you stuff you had no idea that you could do with a spray
07:51 can. Duplicolor makes all kinds of things like that. Check this out. Spray-on
07:56 carbon fiber. Makes your junk lighter and faster. Actually, it doesn't. This just
08:01 makes it look like carbon fiber. And sometimes you got to do that if you have
08:05 like a carbon fiber hood and you want some trim near it to look right. And so
08:08 we're gonna find out how well it works. It will work on both plastic and metal.
08:12 What I've got here is your standard cruising model Taiwan chrome air cleaner
08:16 lid. I've already sandblasted and metal prepped it so that it's grease-free. To
08:21 prevent fish eyes, I always like to just fog sort of a light coat on and let that
08:25 dry and stick before I really lay it on heavy. So I'm gonna break out the
08:31 Duplicolor dimensional effects template, which looks a lot like that stuff that
08:36 you use to line your kitchen shelves. I feel like Julia Child right now. So you
08:40 use this as a template to conform to the shape of the thing that you're painting
08:44 because we're gonna spray paint through this to put on that carbon fiber pattern.
08:49 The unveiling. Whoa! It worked mint! You should look at this. It's actually perfect. Wow!
08:58 I'm genuinely impressed.
09:02 Here's where we're at. She's wired. She's not plumbed. And the front accessories
09:09 are only mostly attached because as Fryburger discovered, Chinese, Taiwanese,
09:14 and US-made parts don't all jive together. Ever. The amazing thing is, they've
09:19 only made small block Chevys for 60 years and the aftermarket has not
09:25 figured out how to make a water pump that fits with an alternator, that fits
09:28 with a power steering bracket, that fits with a stock pulley. So once we get all
09:31 that working properly, we'll put the radiator in it, put some fuel in it, fire
09:35 it up, break the transmission, and go to the drag strip. In that order? Yeah. Let's go
09:40 to the drag strip then break the transmission. Yeah.
09:44 Do you have the ignition on or are you just gonna crank fuel? I'm not quite sure.
10:01 Okay. This might suck.
10:06 What did you do? Didn't do anything. You're ready to lose your arm hair.
10:21 It runs! Let's race it before something breaks.
10:27 Last time in the Dupli-Color Minute we showed you stuff that you didn't know
10:35 that you could do with a spray can. This time it's gonna be more about, "Wow, I
10:39 can't believe how far spray paint has come." Remember the 80s? You used to buy
10:42 junk rally wheels and you'd fog them with like that aluminum color spray
10:46 paint. Well, I think this is gonna be a whole lot better than that. I still have
10:50 my Scongy rally wheel that I bought for dirt cheap and I still want it to look
10:53 good, but now I'm gonna find out how well it works with this Dupli-Color
10:57 Hyper Silver two-part coating system. I start off with a real light coat. Once
11:02 again, trying to avoid fish eyes by getting the paint to just get a real
11:06 light sort of settle onto the wheel. It's just been like 10 minutes and this thing
11:11 is already dry to the touch, just a little bit of tack to it, and it looks
11:15 really good. I would be tempted to just leave it the way it is, but the Dupli-
11:19 Color Hyper Silver kit comes with a glossy clear coat and they say not only
11:23 does this thing make it look deeper, but it's actually gonna protect the finish
11:26 and make it last longer. I should probably be wearing a respirator, but I
11:32 have no brain cells left to kill. I have not painted a wheel in a long time, but
11:38 this was easy enough that I might actually do the other three that go to
11:42 this set, and for me that's saying something because that's another hour
11:45 out of my life that I just don't have, but it would be worth it because that is
11:49 a simple way to spruce up your car in no time at all.
11:55 All right, this is our 1969 Chevy El Camino, which has a new engine but the
12:02 original transmission, which is leaking and I don't even know how it's still
12:05 shifting because I literally threw it in park in 10 miles an hour once trying to
12:09 stop it.
12:12 [engine revving]
12:14 We tried hard to blow it up but failed, but it doesn't matter because we need
12:29 overdrive. We're gonna throw in a Gearstar 4L60E, which is a four-speed
12:34 electronic overdrive, really common and popular swap. While we're at it, we're
12:38 gonna put in some Hedman mid-length headers that don't drag the ground like
12:42 the current exhaust system, and we're gonna control it all with a brand new
12:45 MSD Atomic transcontroller, which you can use from inside your car. Easy enough to
12:50 install it even we can do this. Well, let's find out. It might not be. I just cursed this.
12:54 Okay.
12:57 [music]
13:07 While Finnegan's pulling the headers out of the car, I'm gonna tell you a little
13:10 bit about our new transmission. This thing is from Gearstar. Every time we
13:14 have put a new automatic transmission in a roadkill vehicle, it's been a Gearstar
13:18 unit. We got them in the Superbee, the Ranchero, the Crusher Camaro. It's good
13:22 stuff. Think of them sort of like a professional engine building shop,
13:25 except for they do transmissions. They have a one guy who follows the
13:28 transmission all the way through the assembly process and then they dyno it.
13:32 They put like a hundred miles on it on the dyno to make sure that the trans and
13:36 the converter are working before they ship it. This one is a 4L60E. It's really
13:40 just like a 700R4, except it doesn't use the throttle valve cable, which is a
13:44 pain in the neck. Instead, it uses an electronic control with a computer that
13:49 I'll show you later. The 4L60Es that go on a traditional small block Chevy have
13:53 a one-piece bell housing like this. The later ones are two-piece and those are
13:57 for the LS engines. And when these are shipped from Gearstar, they come complete
14:01 with a Yank converter. This one is a Billet 10-inch because this is the unit
14:06 that will handle 650 horsepower and 600 pound-feet of torque. This thing is like
14:11 $3,900. They make models of the 4L60E all the way down to 2,400 and that one
14:16 will handle 450 horsepower, 425 pound-feet. When they send them out, they
14:21 come not only with the converter completely installed because it's been
14:24 on the dyno, but they'll also send you exactly the right amount of fluid to put
14:28 in the thing. It'll have all the connectors that you need. If you ask for
14:32 it, you'll even get a dipstick, torque converter bolts. It's like a whole
14:34 tranny in a crate ready to slam into your garbage.
14:39 This is where we are gonna answer your questions that you post on our Facebook
14:48 page. Dale Cocking wants to know what car to get because he's 17 and only has
14:53 $2,500. Fox Body Mustang, sir. Dirt cheap and really fast. Pretty solid, yep.
14:59 Another Goodwin square body Chevy pickup. You can pick those up anywhere, even if
15:02 it's a long bed. You can buy that, mess with it for a while, and hack the thing
15:06 down to a short bed later. Yeah, actually you don't have to hack it anymore. You can buy
15:10 bed sides and a floor now. You can bolt it together. But when you're 17, you should
15:14 learn to weld. I agree. What happened to you? I suck. High School Auto Shop didn't have a
15:19 welding program. Damn you, Burbank. I can stick stuff together. Oh, on YouTube,
15:24 Hemi 600 Crate asks what the F is going on with your Hemi 55 Chevy. And it sounds
15:30 like he at least has one. Brilliant things, actually. So the Hemi, which now
15:35 displaces 528 cubic inches, makes 700 horsepower and 700 pound-feet of torque.
15:40 It's in the car, waiting on you to finish it. What the hell are you doing, man?
15:44 What month is this right now? Are we still in April? And it's got to go on
15:48 power tour in June. That's what's going on with the 55, right? Yep. George Knight
15:53 from YouTube wants to know why does our beat-up garbage get more views than the
15:58 supercars that they review on Motor Trend? It's like watching a train wreck, I
16:02 think, with us, more than anything. You don't want to watch it. You got better things to do, but you can't help it.
16:06 Yeah. Because something's gonna fall off and we're gonna crash. Yes, there's no real risk of
16:10 death in a brand new supercar that's been delivered to you on a red carpet
16:13 along with a wine and cheese tour. Daniel Pedersen would like to know if we
16:17 build cars that are not on any of the shows we do. No. No, pretty much we don't
16:22 have any time for that. Yeah, you're watching our entire life on your screen.
16:26 There is no moment outside of making these videos for us to tinker with junk.
16:30 I tinker with my wife a little. That's on film too, but you just, it's not on YouTube.
16:36 So here's a couple more interesting things about this transmission.
16:40 Gearstar built it with a custom converter from Yank Converters. Dave
16:44 Meyer actually spec'd himself. Should stall at 2,600 rpm. It's perfect for this
16:49 car that'll spend most of its life on the highway and occasionally see the
16:53 autocross and drag strip. Dave told you before that you can tell this is an
16:57 early model case because it doesn't have a removable bell housing. You can also
17:01 tell that it's an early model 4060e because it's got a four bolt output
17:05 flange. The late model ones have six bolt output flanges. And it's been modified to
17:11 drive a mechanical speedo. Also has a VSS sensor to drive an electronic one if you
17:17 want to. And what this is gonna give us is overdrive. I think it's a 0.7 to 1/4
17:22 gear and it has a lock-up converter that we'll be able to control exactly when we
17:26 want it to lock with the little hand-controlled chingas. And it should
17:29 actually feel like it has 400 horsepower now because every gear is lower in this
17:33 thing. That's true. And then when we put the 373 in the back, we'll be a-okay.
17:38 Yeah. Install it. Alright.
17:42 The atomic transmission controller is in. Freiburger is working on the transmission
17:58 cooler. I'm gonna wrap up the wiring and right now it's a good time for some
18:01 music from the band and a message from Gumout.
18:06 [Music]
18:09 Did you know that the fuel that gives your engine life is also responsible for
18:33 slowly killing it? Combustion creates carbon deposits that can build up on
18:38 your engine parts causing performance issues and some parts are much harder to
18:42 clean than others. During combustion, engine temperatures can get as high as
18:45 495 degrees. Not all fuel additives can stand that kind of heat. Gumout
18:51 Complete Fuel System Cleaners can all-in-one, regain, regain high mileage,
18:56 and multi-system tune-up all use PEA. PEA remains stable in high heat, allowing it
19:02 to remove carbon deposits from hard to clean parts like direct fuel injectors,
19:07 piston tops, and the combustion chamber. But that's not the only way fuel
19:10 negatively affects your engine. Modern gasoline can contain up to 10% ethanol, a
19:16 solvent that attracts water and leads to corrosion. Gumout fights the damaging
19:21 effects of ethanol, helping to protect critical parts to extend engine life.
19:25 Find out more at gumout.com. This is a Hedman mid-length header and I love
19:34 these things. I had them on my Impala. Probably not the best for power
19:38 production because the tubes aren't really long, but these are the best for
19:42 not dragging the ground. Wow! Okay, and both of them dropped in from the top
19:48 with the motor mounts and everything hooked up. That is incredible. Here's the
19:53 outlet from our old header. It's a flat flange, uses a gasket to seal, drags on
19:58 the ground, gets warped, eventually leaks. It sucks. Our new header design has a
20:03 ball and socket receiver on the outlet. This seals much better and because the
20:08 headers are shorter that they're higher up and they're not going to drag on the
20:10 ground. But we've got to weld new pipes together to put that in there. So that's
20:16 what I'm doing right now. I'm going to weld together this section of 45 degree
20:20 mandrel bent tubing, add another bung in there for the O2 sensor, and the exhaust
20:24 system will be done. And all that leaves for us is to connect our shifter, do a
20:30 little bit of wiring inside, shorten the driveshaft, and hit the road.
20:35 [Music]
20:57 This is the best part of the show right here. This is when we get into CNC
21:05 machinery, TIG welding, titanium, all of the sexy stuff that goes into car
21:10 building. And we've got Colin Meyer from ToxicFab.com here to talk about his
21:14 amazing TIG welded stainless steel headers and these badass collectors. This
21:19 is one of the four to one collectors. That's a solid billet chunk that's been
21:22 machined on a five axis CNC machine. And this is kind of what the finished
21:28 product looks like using one of them. This is a just a standard Evo bottom
21:31 mount for a Precision Turbo, Garrett Turbo, and you know it really does cut
21:36 down on the manufacturing process. It makes it not only stronger, but more
21:41 consistent because it is the same part going into the fixture every time. And
21:45 you can really get crazy and creative with angles to, you know, change flow and
21:50 everything like that to increase power that you simply cannot achieve with a
21:54 with a hand fabricated part. I'm not welding like this because my welding
21:58 skills are, let's be honest, they pretty much suck. So I'm hoping today that
22:02 Colin is gonna give me a few tips here and how is this gonna help me weld
22:06 better. This is a Toxic Fab number 14 cup and really dispersing an even amount of
22:11 argon over the weld and you know it's shielding gas. The whole purpose of it is
22:15 to protect a reactive metal such as Inconel, titanium, stainless, anything like
22:20 that. The more gas you have the better. Yes, we'll start by showing a standard
22:24 number five. This is what everybody's used to seeing and the amount of
22:27 coverage, you know, of argon flow that you have over the weld to shield is
22:30 shielding gas. So we'll do a little fusion pass to show the gas coverage on
22:34 this and then we'll throw on the number 14 cup to show, you know, the bigger
22:38 coverage of argon pretty much. Here just doing a fusion puddle so kind of see.
22:45 As you can see it's kind of gray and nothing pretty but, you know, just a
22:49 fusion weld. Just kind of running over with no filler. Okay. Then swapping the
22:53 cup out. I have quite a bit more tungsten stick out for visibility and then
22:58 really just bump the gas up to right at 30.
23:04 You can see the arc is a lot more stable. It's not wandering around nearly as much.
23:12 When we let off you see how much is still shielded and then you can kind of watch
23:17 that. That's exactly what we're going for with a cup like this. So the more
23:23 coverage you have the farther you can run the stick out? Yeah you can run the
23:27 stick out more to get in, you know, like different angles and stuff so if you
23:31 can't really get into something like this exhaust hanger right here you can
23:34 really stick it out to see what you're doing but still maintain coverage where
23:37 that would be impossible with a cup like this. I've seen your photos on Instagram
23:40 and the welds are insane. What do I have to do, you know? I think I'll let my friend
23:46 Chris Davenport, I brought from Race Proven Motorsports, I'll let him do some
23:50 talking about that.
23:52 For me the main thing on welding I think like to get a really consistent weld is
23:58 feeding the rod like that's a big factor so how I do it I just pinch it. It's just
24:05 slight little dabs. Let me see. All right. Yeah and you've changed cups here it
24:11 looks like so what's the benefit of the titanium? You could just not worry about
24:16 breaking, you know, you could just throw the thing around.
24:22 What do you just sit at home on the couch and practice? Yeah. I can't tell if
24:36 it's moving forward. Is it? Okay yeah.
24:41 [Music]
24:46 I'm probably overheating everything. Yeah. That's not easy but I can totally see
24:51 the benefit of doing that versus doing this over and over again. Well I need to
24:57 practice obviously. Yeah. Thanks for the tips.
25:08 So early model 4L60s bolt right up to the back of small block Chevys because
25:13 they're essentially 700 R4 transmissions with electronic sole noise and
25:18 actuators working the valve body. We had to shorten our drive shaft and then we
25:23 actually reused the stock crossmember. We just slotted the bolt holes in it,
25:27 moved it back, and used a couple of holes that were already in the chassis there.
25:30 The last thing we had to do to really fit this thing in there well is we beat
25:34 the hell out of the transmission tunnel right where the vehicle speed sensor
25:37 pokes out the side giving us just enough clearance where the wires don't rub. The
25:42 car came with a column shifter designed for a three-speed transmission and so
25:45 you got to do something to make the four-speed work. There's a couple of
25:48 options. You can get like an aftermarket floor shifter with a cable that's
25:51 designed for the four-speed. You can also get a little cable doohickey that goes
25:56 on the end of the column to control the transmission but we went way simpler
25:59 than that. Lokar makes this kit which is essentially a rod with rod ends on it
26:04 that connects the original steering column tab down to the transmission and
26:08 it has an adjustable length arm on it so that you can actually get all four gears
26:13 on the column. Alright the new pipes are in. I'm gonna throw a little bit of
26:17 anti-seize on this O2 sensor. Thread that in the pipe. That means the exhaust is
26:23 finished. Freiburger is working on the shifter linkage right now. Once that's
26:27 done we're gonna road test the El Camino.
26:30 Alright we're back at Fontana Raceway here with the Dragwar and I'm not gonna
26:41 lie all of this wood grain and imitation sheepskin is not making me feel good
26:46 about driving this car because the first time I went down this track with it it
26:49 tried to put itself in the wall. Oh god that's scary. Since then we fixed the
26:57 rear suspension, repaired the sheet metal, put some new shoes on it and now with
27:02 triple the horsepower we're gonna find out how quick this car can really go.
27:08 Alright here's the situation. It's got 700 horsepower and a rusty Jaguar. It's
27:21 already tried to crash one.
27:24 [Music]
27:30 Uh-oh.
27:32 [Music]
27:34 Okay I guess I left in second. That's high gear.
27:40 [Music]
27:42 There's something going on with the shifter. I'm gonna try to put it in
27:45 first on the way back. If I can then I'll come back and do another run.
27:51 [Music]
27:53 [Music]
27:55 [Music]
27:57 [Music]
27:59 [Music]
28:01 [Music]
28:03 [Music]
28:05 [Music]
28:07 [Music]
28:09 Alright it's a little scary when you get on the brakes.
28:13 [Music]
28:15 [Music]
28:17 So here's what we've learned. The Dragwar with triple the horsepower that it had
28:21 originally is now the destroyer of transmissions. The fact is this thing
28:25 slipped in first gear, second gear, third gear and gave up the entire ghost right
28:29 at the finish line and still managed to go 12.50. That's pretty damn good. This is
28:34 a $10,000 car that runs mid 12s and looks cooler than anything else on the
28:38 highway. We're gonna have to address the trans later on but at least we now know
28:42 the rear suspension and sheet metal and two tires are working. So we've track
28:49 tested the Dragwar and that went as expected. Now we're gonna hit the streets
28:52 in my wife's El Camino with its brand new Gear Star 4L60E.
28:58 This car rips now thanks to the Yank converter and Gear Star trans. The Elko
29:05 finally drives like it's really got 420 horsepower under the hood.
29:11 It still does a one-wheel peel but man it shifts good. It doesn't leak. The trans
29:17 has got a warranty. I fixed that open differential and my wife might actually
29:21 want to give me some nookie in this car or she'll just keep holding out for that
29:25 paint job she's been begging for for like the last eight years. Well that's it
29:29 for this edition of Hot Rod Garage presented by Lincoln Tech. We had a
29:33 killer time beating on poor defenseless automobiles like the Dragwar here and my
29:38 wife's El Camino. We'll see you next month.
29:41 [Music]
29:48 [Music]
29:55 [Music]
30:02 [Music]
30:09 [Music]
30:16 [Music]
30:23 [Music]
30:30 [Music]
30:37 [Music]