Drift ’Cuda Hits the SEMA Show and Then the Track!! #fishtailcuda
On this episode of HOT ROD Garage presented by Lincoln Tech
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00:00 Welcome to Hot Rod Garage presented by Lincoln Tech.
00:02 In this episode, the fishtail cuda has made it to SEMA.
00:05 You did it.
00:06 Woo!
00:07 Woo!
00:08 [ROCK MUSIC]
00:29 Welcome back to another episode of Hot Rod Garage
00:31 presented by Lincoln Tech.
00:33 We're here with my fishtail cuda, the drift muscle
00:35 project that we're putting together for the SEMA show.
00:37 And if you caught us last time, we
00:39 did a full custom suspension, 6.4 crate Hemi.
00:42 We fired the thing up.
00:43 And it's time now to what?
00:44 Put it back together.
00:46 Tear it all apart.
00:47 We're going to tear it all apart,
00:48 and we're going to send the car off to paint,
00:50 get it totally painted inside and out.
00:52 And when it comes back, we're going
00:54 to reinstall all those parts, plus lots more, the interior,
00:57 the body, everything, and get this thing off to the show,
00:59 which is less than three weeks away.
01:01 No time to talk.
01:02 Let's start tearing this apart.
01:03 Go home now?
01:04 You can go home.
01:05 Now, come on.
01:06 Lower the car.
01:06 OK.
01:07 [ROCK MUSIC]
01:10 Tearing the car down for paint went pretty fast,
01:27 but most of that stuff was just temporarily bolted in
01:29 anyway, the hardest part's lay ahead.
01:31 [ROCK MUSIC]
01:34 So after a long night of tearing all the new stuff out
01:45 of the Cuda, putting it back on stock suspension,
01:47 we have dragged it to our favorite body shop,
01:50 Sam's Auto Land in Gardena, California.
01:52 I've been dealing with these guys for about 10 years.
01:54 They've painted some of my favorite drift cars
01:56 that I've owned.
01:57 They painted my Mazda Speed 787B-inspired RX-8.
02:01 And when I got the Scion TC from Ken Gushan
02:03 and inherited that thing, we wanted to revamp the look.
02:06 We did a whole different paint scheme on that here,
02:08 and it came out amazing.
02:09 They help out a ton of racers in the community.
02:11 They're good guys.
02:12 They're always hustling, but there's lots and lots going on.
02:14 So to do our best to make sure that this Cuda gets
02:17 done quickly, we will beg and plead and bribe
02:19 whatever it takes.
02:20 Did you bring a case of bribe?
02:22 I did.
02:23 Liquid bribe.
02:23 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:27 Good.
02:32 Yeah, I'm ready.
02:33 Thank you.
02:33 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:37 You just want to be able to throw around half a car.
02:50 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:54 One last thing.
02:58 Jim runs on Bud Light.
02:59 So if you ever come here and you need something to get done,
03:02 bring one of these.
03:03 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:06 So this is a ton of stuff.
03:10 We reached out to Classic Industries.
03:11 Those dudes do mostly restoration parts, fenders,
03:14 interiors, stuff like that.
03:16 They sent over a bunch of stuff we needed-- a front valance,
03:18 a rear valance, stuff that didn't come with my Cuda,
03:21 some interior parts, interior panels, windshield, bumpers,
03:24 all sorts of stuff we're going to need to get this car totally
03:27 back together and ready for the SEMA show.
03:29 Everything?
03:30 Everything.
03:31 It's in there.
03:31 Good.
03:32 Good night.
03:32 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:33 Good job.
03:35 This is glass.
03:37 Just throw that anywhere.
03:38 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:42 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:45 We're here at Sam's Auto Land.
03:54 Jim unfortunately had to run on a family emergency.
03:56 He hit me up.
03:57 The car's been here eight days.
03:59 We're hoping to get it back in about a week.
04:01 So he said, listen, I'm out of town.
04:02 We need some more hands on deck to get this thing going.
04:05 Car has gone through primer, but it's
04:06 got to be block sanded and ready for paint.
04:08 So we came down today, and we're kind of fumbling our way
04:12 through it.
04:12 This dude, Alex, has been kind enough to show us the ropes.
04:14 We're block sanding the orange peel and the primer off.
04:17 And he's going to check it with this kind of cool black dye
04:19 he's got to show any high spots.
04:21 Once we get all the orange peel off,
04:23 he's going to go through with a DA sander, a more fine grit,
04:26 get it sanded down nice and clean,
04:27 and then it'll be ready for paint.
04:28 Hopefully tonight, maybe tomorrow morning.
04:30 Either way, we should have the car back tomorrow in the shop,
04:33 and that'll give us nine days to get it ready for SEMA.
04:36 [MUSIC PLAYING]
04:40 [THUNDER]
04:43 [MUSIC PLAYING]
04:46 We're back in the shop.
04:51 We sent the car off to paint, and I
04:52 figured I'd have some time to button up
04:53 a bunch of stuff in the shop.
04:55 But we've been having the roof replaced,
04:57 and there were a million holes.
04:58 And of course, our luck, Southern California,
05:00 it poured on a Sunday night.
05:01 I came in Monday morning, and everything was rusty.
05:04 Every metal piece, rusty.
05:05 All the electronics were ruined.
05:07 We had to spend three or four days
05:08 getting everything cleaned up, dried out.
05:10 It's been a disaster.
05:12 And Sam didn't have time to paint the car
05:14 under the hood, underneath, or inside,
05:16 so we decided we'd do it ourself.
05:18 Guess what?
05:18 It looked like it was going to rain again last night.
05:21 So we went out, we bought this little Harbor Freight pop-up
05:23 carport, and we painted the car inside there.
05:26 Carport?
05:27 Yeah.
05:27 Paint booth.
05:28 It's a paint booth.
05:28 Yeah.
05:29 Car's back.
05:30 We did the paint.
05:31 It looks great.
05:31 What Sam's did, the paint on the exterior of the car
05:34 looks amazing.
05:35 SEMA is six days from right this minute,
05:37 and we have to build the whole car.
05:39 We need help.
05:39 We do need help.
05:40 You know somebody?
05:41 I know a couple of guys.
05:42 I brought in two of my best buds.
05:44 First is my buddy Mike Edwards.
05:45 We call him Car Loot.
05:47 He was sort of the crew chief on my Formula D team forever.
05:49 And then I brought in Mike Scudlera.
05:51 We call him Scuds.
05:52 If you remember from the Mark Lennard in RX-7 episode,
05:55 he's a hell of a fabricator.
05:56 He owns a fab shop called Detroit Drifting,
05:58 and he is here to do all the hard stuff
05:59 that I don't feel like doing.
06:01 Or me.
06:02 Perfect.
06:02 [MUSIC PLAYING]
06:06 The first big step of putting the Fishtail Cuda back together
06:08 was to get the engine and transmission bolted back in.
06:11 Lucky and I started on that while Scud
06:13 started fabricating the mount for the Wilwood clutch
06:15 and brake pedal setup.
06:16 [MUSIC PLAYING]
06:20 Next up is suspension and brakes.
06:26 Mikey took the lead on that and reinstalled our custom
06:28 three-link rear suspension setup,
06:30 featuring a new set of new suspension
06:32 and brakes that are a little bit different
06:34 than the three-link rear suspension setup,
06:36 featuring the carry rear end Wilwood brakes and QA1
06:39 coilovers.
06:40 [MUSIC PLAYING]
06:43 All right.
06:56 We've got the car up on the lift.
06:58 Mikey and I put the rear suspension in,
07:00 the carry rear end, the QA1 shocks, the whole bit,
07:02 the three-link that we made.
07:03 Lucky and Scud's worked on fitting the Wilwood brake--
07:07 what, the pedals and the master setup?
07:08 I'm just tripping the two guys with the coolest names
07:11 working in the front of the car.
07:12 Yeah.
07:12 Scud's?
07:13 Scud's.
07:14 And now we are finally going to put this 6.4 Hemi back in.
07:17 It took a little bit of water damage.
07:19 It just really got dirty.
07:20 We scrubbed it.
07:21 We've got everything bolted back on,
07:22 that Tremec T56 six-speed Magnum.
07:26 It's going back in the car for the last time.
07:28 And hopefully, we'll get this thing rolling pretty soon.
07:30 What about the clutch?
07:31 Who made that?
07:31 Hayes.
07:32 And it is the dragon claw.
07:35 It's all that matters.
07:36 All right, let's do it.
07:38 Oh, and quick time.
07:39 Quick time.
07:39 Quick time.
07:40 [MUSIC PLAYING]
07:43 The drivetrain, suspension, brakes, and fuel system
07:52 are all back in place.
07:53 But there's still a ton to do before this car is ready for SEMA.
07:56 So we had to divide up the task and come up with a plan.
07:58 With just a few days left, it's essential
08:00 that we work fast and efficiently.
08:02 [MUSIC PLAYING]
08:05 Welcome back to another Lincoln Tech Tip.
08:07 Today, we're going to talk about 3Links.
08:09 The 3Link in the back of the Cuda
08:10 has gotten a ton of attention online,
08:11 and there's lots of questions, too.
08:13 So let's talk about why 3Links are awesome.
08:15 3Links make for a great performance suspension setup.
08:18 They've come OEM on a few performance sports
08:20 cars in the last 10 years or so.
08:22 And if you're ready to do a little bit of fabrication,
08:24 they make a great system for your custom hot rod.
08:27 In this type of rear suspension, all 3Links
08:29 are running parallel to each other.
08:30 And there's a panhard bar to keep
08:32 the axle centered under the car throughout suspension travel.
08:34 One of the things this thing does well
08:36 is that it makes sure that the axle does not
08:38 rotate or twist as the suspension travels up and down.
08:41 It works especially well under hard cornering or hard
08:43 acceleration of the drag strip.
08:45 Some of the advantages of a 3Link
08:46 are that they allow for the most articulation in a live axle,
08:49 period.
08:50 They're usually built with rod ends or heim joints.
08:52 And that makes sure that there's just about zero bind
08:54 as this thing goes through its travel.
08:56 All suspensions have compromises,
08:58 but the 3Link really has the least amount of compromise.
09:00 It's lightweight, it's simple, and it works well
09:03 on street, track, or drag strip.
09:05 Some of the disadvantages are, although the 3Link suspension
09:08 is really common in race cars, you don't often
09:10 see it much on the street.
09:11 And the reason for that is packaging.
09:12 That upper center third link usually
09:14 has nowhere to go in a street car.
09:15 You're going to have to cut into the floor and make that mount.
09:18 And there's going to be fabrication
09:20 skills needed and a bunch of work.
09:21 And again, space is going to be taken out of that interior
09:23 and usually have to have some kind of compromise
09:25 for a street car.
09:26 Now, if you go for it, you're not
09:27 afraid of some hard work and a little bit of fabrication.
09:30 You build yourself a 3Link, you will wind up
09:31 with an awesome system that's good at the drag strip,
09:34 the road course, and the street.
09:35 Lincoln Tech can teach you how to have
09:37 a career working with cars.
09:39 See LincolnTech.edu.
09:40 It's just five days until SEMA, and today we're
09:50 working on getting the interior exhaust accessories back
09:52 on the car.
09:53 Scuds has finished the Wilwood pedal install
09:55 and has moved on to fabricating a Mishimoto fan
09:58 shroud with electric fans.
09:59 Lucky has bent up the hard lines for their clutch and brakes,
10:02 and Mikey and I are working on the driving environment.
10:04 That means getting the seats, pedals, steering column,
10:08 shifter, and e-brake lever all lined up and within reach.
10:14 OK, so you could kind of piece this swap together
10:17 off the shelf and make a modern Hemi work in an e-body.
10:19 But what we wanted to do was put a rack and pinion
10:22 steering in the car to make it handle awesome.
10:24 And to do that, we had to make our own headers
10:26 and basically our own oil pan.
10:27 Now, I was able to remake the oil pan,
10:29 move the sump forward so that it would clear the steering rack.
10:32 But I can't TIG weld.
10:33 I brought in my man Scuds, who's a great TIG
10:35 welder and a fabricator.
10:37 He's handling that.
10:38 And it's even harder than usual because the cylinder heads
10:40 have a D-shaped port.
10:41 I whipped up this little fixture piece
10:44 that we're using with the vise to sort of crimp
10:46 those tubes into the D-shape so they fit in the flanges
10:48 and we can get this knocked out.
10:49 Because SEMA is approaching rapidly.
10:51 [MUSIC PLAYING]
10:56 [BUZZING]
10:59 [MUSIC PLAYING]
11:02 [MUSIC PLAYING]
11:24 [MUSIC PLAYING]
11:28 Lucky, myself, Carl Luch, and Scuds
11:35 have been cranking on this thing for the last week.
11:37 We have two days until it leaves for SEMA.
11:39 It's on the ground.
11:40 The body parts are going on.
11:41 Suspension's done.
11:42 Engine's in, cooling.
11:44 We want to get the look just right
11:45 because SEMA is basically just a big, big car show.
11:48 So we'll do some stickers, fit the wheels,
11:51 get everything just right.
11:52 Our new poster came in.
11:53 That is the finished, finished product.
11:55 So we're going to work our way towards that as best we can.
11:57 [MUSIC PLAYING]
12:01 It's down to the wire and the car is finally taking shape.
12:16 We're getting so close I could taste it.
12:17 The interior and glass are in place.
12:19 Just about everything we need to get this car on the road
12:22 is bolted in.
12:23 Scuds is working on finishing the headers
12:24 and making sure that they clear the steering column
12:26 and everything else in the engine bay.
12:28 It's been a long thrash, but it looks
12:30 like we might actually make it to the finish line on time.
12:32 [MUSIC PLAYING]
12:37 [MUSIC PLAYING]
13:02 So here it is, the Fishtail Cuda, my 1972 muscle car Cuda
13:07 Drift build.
13:08 This thing has been a dream of mine for years,
13:10 put something like this together.
13:11 And it's here.
13:12 It's at SEMA.
13:12 We made it.
13:13 It's in my dreams now, dude.
13:15 Yeah, I bet, because we haven't slept in a long time.
13:18 This was a crazy effort to get this thing done.
13:20 We built it in about 40 days or so.
13:23 It was such a long thrash.
13:24 We had tons of help from a couple of my buddies
13:26 and lots of sponsors like Mopar and Tremec and Hayes
13:30 and Quicktime and QA1 and Wilwood.
13:34 Everybody came together, Curry, Wave Track.
13:36 Nexen.
13:37 Nexen, just to make this thing happen.
13:39 And it's been a labor of love, but it has
13:41 been lots and lots of labor.
13:43 We're here.
13:44 I'm stoked.
13:44 The car looks awesome.
13:46 I really wanted a Trans Am racer look from the '70s,
13:49 kind of infused with some drift style.
13:51 And that's what we have here.
13:52 Is that what the TA on the back stands for?
13:54 Stands for-- yeah.
13:55 Tony Angelo.
13:56 Yeah, you got it?
13:57 It's cool.
13:58 And you have Trans Am, too.
13:59 So to get the look just right, I enlisted a specialist.
14:03 I'd wanted to build a drift muscle car for years.
14:05 And I always wanted it to be like a '70s throwback,
14:07 but install some modern drift style.
14:09 And I think we've done that here.
14:11 The '70s Kudas, the actual Trans Am racers,
14:13 were always this sort of dark blue, black hood.
14:16 And sometimes they would run orange, yellow, and red stripes
14:19 on the hood.
14:19 So I wanted to bring all of those elements into this car.
14:22 We turned the hood stripe into the dashed street car
14:25 stripe that some of the AAR Kudas ran.
14:27 But I'm not an artist.
14:29 I have these ideas.
14:30 And I can't put them down on paper by any means.
14:32 So I enlisted the help of an actual sort of professional--
14:36 let's call him a prodigy.
14:37 He had sent me this super cool rendering
14:39 out of the blue of my Demon as a drift car.
14:41 And I loved it.
14:42 And I was like, this is the kid who's
14:43 going to make this Kuda idea look just right.
14:45 So because it's the internet and you never
14:47 know who you're talking to, this is a 17-year-old dude
14:49 from Norway named Andreas--
14:51 Whois.
14:52 Whois.
14:52 Venno.
14:53 Venno, right?
14:55 He is an incredible artist.
14:57 This dude has designed eight cars.
14:58 He brought me into here to see him today,
15:00 which is staggering.
15:01 He's not even really in school yet, right, for design?
15:04 No.
15:05 So kind of a rising star, an incredible kid.
15:08 He did an unbelievable job.
15:10 I would say, hey, listen, I'm thinking about doing this.
15:12 I'm doing that.
15:12 Let's do X, Y, and Z. He would hit me with a rendering.
15:15 It would look-- every version looked super awesome.
15:17 Really, it just turned out incredible.
15:19 I really appreciate all the help.
15:21 You are a super talented dude, man.
15:23 It's been phenomenal working with you.
15:25 And I'm sure that we will be seeing lots and lots more
15:27 of you in the automotive industry.
15:29 [MUSIC PLAYING]
15:32 That's it for this episode of Hot Rod Garage,
15:34 presented by Lincoln Tech.
15:35 The fishtail Cuda is done, and it's just
15:37 about ready to hit the track.
15:38 I cannot wait to get behind the wheel of this thing.
15:40 Oh, that reminds me.
15:41 You know how many times you've driven my car?
15:43 I do.
15:43 A little payback?
15:44 Yeah.
15:45 Yes.
15:45 All right.
15:46 So I don't really know what's coming next.
15:48 We kind of blew all our good ideas on this thing.
15:50 You'll come up with something.
15:51 Yeah, we'll figure it out.
15:52 Anyway, don't forget to check us out
15:53 on social media between episodes.
15:55 Hot Rod Garage Show on Facebook and Instagram.
15:57 I'm Tangelo96.
15:58 I'm Mobile Tech Lucky.
15:59 We will see you guys next time.
16:01 Bye-bye.
16:01 You didn't really think we would build this whole car
16:08 and leave you with no action shots, right?
16:10 Come on.
16:10 [MUSIC PLAYING]
16:14 [ENGINE REVVING]
16:17 [TIRES SCREECHING]
16:22 [ENGINE REVVING]
16:26 [TIRES SCREECHING]
16:29 [ENGINE REVVING]
16:33 [TIRES SCREECHING]
16:36 [ENGINE REVVING]
16:40 [ENGINE REVVING]
16:55 [TIRES SCREECHING]
16:59 [ENGINE REVVING]
17:14 Ready?
17:19 And I'm saying what?
17:20 Something.
17:22 Hey.
17:23 Tony, you know, video dating?
17:25 Video dating.
17:28 I'm a cool dude, trying to have a good time, sedutorious.
17:32 I take life one minute at a time, ladies.
17:35 Rip it and I rip it.
17:36 Hope you can keep up.
17:38 Something like that.
17:39 Man, that is on camera.
17:42 [LAUGHTER]
17:46 You've seen those '80s dating videos, right?
17:48 They're the best.
17:48 My name's Tony, but they call me Magnum.
17:50 Yeah.
17:51 [INAUDIBLE]
17:55 For real?
17:57 What happened?
17:58 Door's locked.
17:59 How does it make my eyes look?
18:13 Dead.
18:14 Cold and dead.
18:16 Like a shark's eyes.
18:17 [LAUGHTER]
18:21 If they've got lots going on, we're
18:23 going to do our best to beg and plead and bribe our way
18:26 to the front of the line.
18:27 Because we need this car back.
18:30 It's one of the guys now.
18:31 Yeah.
18:31 They're moving.
18:32 They're hustling all the time.
18:33 The fishtail cuda has made it to SEMA.
18:36 Woo!
18:37 Ow.
18:41 Ow.
18:42 Ow.
18:44 Yeah.