On this episode of Roadkill
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00:00 (engine revving)
00:02 This time on Roadkill, it's Freiburger versus Finnegan
00:07 in a muscle car shootout.
00:08 Now normally you'd expect us to be driving junk,
00:11 but I hope you don't feel that way this time
00:13 'cause they're both my cars.
00:15 I'll be in my Superbee, he'll be in the Crusher Camaro.
00:18 We're gonna roll 'em from LA to Salt Lake City
00:20 to see which one survives,
00:21 and then drag race 'em in a quarter mile.
00:23 And the good news is, I can't lose
00:26 'cause they're both my cars.
00:27 (engine revving)
00:30 (gunshots firing)
00:36 (rock music)
00:39 (engine revving)
00:51 (engine revving)
00:56 (engine revving)
00:59 - Hey.
01:01 - Are you ready for your ass whoopin'?
01:03 - What am I ready for?
01:04 - Your ass whoopin'.
01:05 You're going down.
01:06 3,488 pounds.
01:10 - Ooh.
01:11 - What is yours, Clay?
01:12 - 3850.
01:14 What is that?
01:15 362 pounds.
01:17 - It's Thursday morning, just got done scaling
01:18 the Crusher Camaro to find out how heavy it is.
01:21 Gonna make some last minute adjustments
01:22 because this car hasn't run in a while.
01:25 And in fact, the Super B and the Crusher
01:27 have never really run at the same time,
01:29 nor have they run against each other.
01:30 So this is kind of an epic trip for us.
01:32 (engine revving)
01:35 - There's a lot of history in both of these cars,
01:46 not only for Hot Rod Magazine, but with me personally.
01:49 The Super B is a '70 model,
01:51 and it's actually my very first car.
01:54 I've had it for 30 years.
01:56 When I was 15 years old, I paid 1,800 bucks for it.
02:00 The engine in the Super B is a 484 cubic inch Hemi,
02:03 which is based on the 426.
02:05 On the dyno, this thing made 675 horsepower,
02:08 but by the time I got it in the car with smaller headers
02:11 and a full exhaust system and a mechanical fan
02:14 and all this other kind of stuff,
02:15 I'm thinking it's delivering like 600.
02:17 (engine revving)
02:21 (upbeat music)
02:24 The Crusher Camaro is a '67 model
02:27 that has been with the magazine since about 1994.
02:30 At the time, the gas companies in California
02:33 had scammed the government into this program
02:35 where they were collecting old cars
02:37 and they were crushing them for smog credits
02:39 that allowed them to put out more pollution
02:41 from their offshore refineries.
02:42 So I remember going down to a junkyard
02:44 and I spotted this '67 Camaro and I thought,
02:47 no way is this guy handing that car in to get squeezed.
02:51 I ended up paying $700.
02:53 The engine in the Crusher right now
02:55 is a 489 cubic inch big block Chevy,
02:58 but the big deal is the belt-driven intake manifold,
03:01 the YM871 supercharger topped by two 850 Holley carbs.
03:06 Pushing like five pounds of boost through this thing,
03:09 it makes a brutal torque curve and 700 horsepower.
03:12 (engine revving)
03:17 Both of these cars have electric fuel pumps
03:19 and when you wire 'em normally,
03:21 they run all the time wide open.
03:23 That heats the fuel up in a fuel cell
03:24 and when you've got a fuel cell this small
03:26 and it's 100 degree day out,
03:28 you don't want hot fuel in here.
03:30 So we're putting fuel pump controllers in both cars
03:32 that'll slow the pumps down at idle,
03:34 keep from heating the fuel up,
03:36 it'll make the pump live longer,
03:38 keep the thing from vapor locking, all good.
03:41 - In theory.
03:42 - In theory.
03:43 So we break down on the side of the road today.
03:45 (upbeat music)
03:47 So you'll notice I'm already ahead of you.
03:59 Enjoy it while it lasts.
04:01 Besides, all the chicks care about
04:06 is who's got the bigger engine.
04:08 That would be me.
04:09 (engine revving)
04:13 (upbeat music)
04:16 Get out of the way, Escalade.
04:18 There's a whole lot of awesome coming through right now.
04:21 - Oh, the meter's on.
04:23 - It's like a Christmas tree.
04:24 - There's no question Finnegan's gonna boil the hides
04:26 away from the meter.
04:28 - Full shot.
04:29 So we're about to embark on a journey
04:36 in cars that are about 50 years old
04:38 with no air conditioning,
04:40 no electronic fuel injection,
04:43 but driving an old hot rod,
04:44 that's like pizza and sex.
04:47 Even when it's bad, it's still good.
04:49 And let's see, we've gone less than a mile
04:54 and we're about to test the cooling system out in the car.
04:56 - LA traffic in a big way.
05:00 I'm guessing the crusher's still at 160 degrees.
05:05 - 171.
05:07 - I just crested 180.
05:09 - Yeah, we maybe have to take the hood off
05:10 your car at some point.
05:12 This is where those fuel controllers are a really big deal.
05:15 - This is really weird 'cause I've got a seatbelt,
05:19 a side mirror, and four and a half gauges that work.
05:24 - Now, if you're really sitting down, wait for it,
05:27 registration and insurance.
05:31 - On both cars?
05:33 - Why, yes.
05:34 - Wow, you've gone pro.
05:36 We're fully legal.
05:37 - So when you rear end the Superbee with the crusher,
05:40 I'll just have my insurance company pay itself to fix it.
05:43 Okay, I hit 200.
05:50 - At about 188 degrees here.
05:54 - No hood works.
05:55 - No hood for the win.
05:56 - Okay, 220, we should probably get off.
06:00 - I will follow you.
06:02 - Hemi, not known for running cool or getting good mileage.
06:09 I got up to 220 at one point in that traffic,
06:13 but that was after 45 minutes of sitting.
06:16 So I'm gonna say it wasn't that bad.
06:17 You get rolling and it comes right down to 180.
06:19 But what's really funny is that I got seven miles
06:22 to the gallon.
06:23 Proud of that number.
06:25 - Probably getting worse than that today
06:27 because I'm taking every available inch of the highway
06:30 and doing burnouts.
06:31 I think that means it's done.
06:36 Nobody lied a match.
06:38 - Well, Finnegan got six, so once again, he did win.
06:40 But he continues to gloat about my car
06:45 being superior to my car.
06:48 And I don't think he gets that.
06:49 (upbeat music)
07:08 - Well, it's 11 o'clock.
07:09 We've made it to Barstow,
07:10 which is roughly a two hour drive
07:12 that we've accomplished in, let's see,
07:14 three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 left.
07:18 We really been on the road seven hours?
07:19 - Yeah, we're right on time.
07:20 - Yeah, the socket is worn out on the tail light
07:24 and isn't grounding.
07:25 And so he sometimes has running lights, sometimes not,
07:28 sometimes brake lights, sometimes not.
07:30 It's kind of like a disco.
07:31 What he's trying to do is make a wedge
07:34 so that when the socket goes into its hole,
07:36 that these tabs will keep in ground with this thing.
07:39 Problem is the socket goes in
07:41 and then dangles around freely and doesn't ground.
07:43 - What if we install it halfway and just tape it together?
07:45 - I'm good with that.
07:47 This here is why we can't have tight things.
07:51 Only I have the skills to make the bulb light
07:53 with no ground.
07:54 Until, ready?
07:58 Ta-da!
08:00 - All right.
08:02 Still on?
08:02 - If we were here any longer, we would have to pay rent.
08:04 - I survived the slam test.
08:06 Ready?
08:07 - Yeah.
08:08 - I would have paid 10 bucks to see one of those lights
08:13 go out when you did that.
08:14 (upbeat music)
08:20 Yeah, 12 hours to get to Las Vegas.
08:32 Should be a five hour drive.
08:33 We're gonna go cruise the strip a little bit,
08:35 listen to some bums scream at each other,
08:37 maybe score some meth.
08:38 - I gotta do something 'cause you're in Vegas.
08:41 - Oh, okay.
08:41 Perfection.
08:43 Maybe get ourselves a friend for the night
08:45 and see if we can find a hotel
08:47 that will park the cars right out front
08:49 so they don't get jacked with overnight.
08:50 And then we're gonna sleep for 45 minutes
08:52 and hit the road again in the morning
08:54 because it's supposed to be six hours to Salt Lake City,
08:57 which for us means 12.
08:58 Vegas, baby.
09:04 (upbeat music)
09:07 The Super B will never, ever top the Crusher
09:17 for the ability to just blaze tires at will.
09:20 - I think you just need to try harder as well.
09:23 - It's so realistic,
09:26 I feel like I'm actually in New York right now.
09:30 - The cab drivers in Vegas are every bit as salty
09:33 and crazy as the ones in New York.
09:36 Now it is Friday at 1.30.
09:42 We got into Vegas at 5.30 in the morning last night
09:45 and we had to sleep this morning
09:46 'cause now we have nine and a half hours
09:48 to drive to Salt Lake City
09:50 where we're gonna attend the Midnight Drags
09:52 at Rocky Mountain Raceway and they open at 11 p.m.
09:55 It's 104 freaking degrees in the desert right now.
09:59 (beep) roadkill.
10:02 I'm gonna need it, thank you.
10:04 - Good luck. - Thanks.
10:06 - You know it's bad when the homeless guy
10:08 wishes you good luck
10:09 after he takes one look at your automobile.
10:11 - I'm glad that I have the vinyl seats here
10:18 so that the sweat just sort of pools around my butt.
10:21 - Yeah, I got Yeti sweat now.
10:24 Soon it'll be swamp ass.
10:25 - This is really like when Fat Elvis
10:27 had his comeback at the Las Vegas Hilton
10:30 and he was on stage doing the karate chop moves.
10:33 I'm thinking the level of sweat down his back
10:36 was about similar to what I have right now.
10:38 - Not to just kick you in the nuts
10:39 with the whole age thing again,
10:41 but I don't believe I was alive
10:42 when Fat Elvis was doing the karate chop you speak of.
10:46 That's a little better.
10:52 Oh, that's still hot.
10:53 I now understand why pimps in the desert
10:55 favor white upholstery.
10:58 They just gotta stay cool.
10:59 (upbeat music)
11:01 Oh, this isn't good.
11:16 Remember we put those fuel pump controllers on these cars
11:19 because we knew it was gonna be hot like this.
11:21 It's 107 here right now.
11:23 I'm actually having a fuel boiling problem.
11:25 It's like percolating.
11:26 You can feel it when you're driving down the road.
11:28 It sort of surges sometimes and the carburetor is so hot,
11:30 you can't even begin to touch it.
11:32 On day two, the heat was even worse,
11:41 but we kept moving pretty fast on the highway,
11:43 which solved the overheating problems for the radiator.
11:45 The poor fuel pump was suffering so bad in the heat
11:50 that it started to groan and the car was actually surging
11:53 from fuel starvation on the highway.
11:55 (engine revving)
11:58 If I lift and let it fill the fuel bowls,
12:04 I can drive it normally for quite a while
12:05 and then it starts to stumble and then I lift
12:08 and then I'll drive normal again.
12:10 And it sounds bad.
12:11 You hear how loud it is?
12:12 - Yeah, it's overheating.
12:13 I say let's buy like 10 bags of ice for the trunk
12:15 to get around the fuel cell and then prop it up with towels
12:18 and bungee cord the trunk shut,
12:20 let it cool off and hit the road again.
12:21 (upbeat music)
12:24 - All right.
12:25 Hopefully there's drain holes in here somewhere.
12:31 - Here where we can make a kegerator out of the super beat.
12:34 All right, five more ought to do it.
12:41 That's what you get for building a drag car
12:44 and pretending it's a street car.
12:46 - Well, but this is actually not really a drag car.
12:49 It's neither fast nor streetable.
12:51 You put the gas tank and the fuel pump inside the vehicle.
12:55 Not a street car anymore.
12:57 - Is that what it says?
12:58 I think this is gonna fix it.
13:00 Finnegan's argument is that it's a tuning problem.
13:02 I think that this alone is gonna solve it.
13:04 So we'll find out what happens.
13:05 - $100 for ice.
13:08 What the hell?
13:09 That's gonna be fun to expense.
13:11 (upbeat music)
13:14 (tires screeching)
13:17 - I realized that an added benefit to the ice in the trunk
13:32 is that it's helping eliminate that stink bug stance.
13:35 - It's a twofer.
13:37 It's the gift that keeps on giving.
13:39 Actually, that's a three way
13:42 'cause it's also keeping the vehicle.
13:44 - It's 9.09.
13:51 We wanna be there in 51 minutes.
13:54 And I think we're about two hours away,
13:55 but we've been booking 80 miles an hour,
13:57 right up to the point where we ran out of gas
13:59 in the crusher within sight of the gas station.
14:02 And also, you know, did you realize we lost an hour?
14:04 We didn't take that into consideration.
14:05 This is Utah.
14:07 It's mountain time.
14:08 - Oh man.
14:09 - Drive fast.
14:10 - Bag, ligamete, lost an hour.
14:12 I don't wanna be here.
14:13 (engine revving)
14:16 (upbeat music)
14:22 - After more than 20 hours of driving,
14:24 we finally made it to Rocky Mountain Raceway at midnight.
14:28 We were blown away when we got there
14:30 about how many cars were there.
14:32 They usually have to cut them off at 200 cars.
14:35 And there was a ton of people in the grandstands.
14:37 Stuff like this just does not happen in California.
14:40 - Anymore.
14:41 - It's like one o'clock right now.
14:44 They closed at two.
14:46 And the people here are super cool,
14:48 but there's a limit to what they're gonna let us do.
14:51 - We're trying to do some road trip maintenance.
14:53 New spark plugs.
14:54 Sooty.
14:56 She's not exactly tuned for highway driving.
14:59 - We wish we had arrived at like nine o'clock
15:01 so that we could truly be ready for this.
15:04 But as usual, we're jamming at the last second
15:07 to get in as many runs as we can.
15:10 - We got 30 minutes left to get this done.
15:13 I gotta rejet Dave's carburetor.
15:15 I have a bad feeling he's not gonna get
15:18 to make a nitrous pass.
15:20 - Are you standing here waiting for us?
15:22 Oh, I know.
15:23 Oh, wow.
15:24 The people at Rocky Mountain Raceway were super cool.
15:30 And they held the lanes open longer
15:32 than they really should have as we were thrashing
15:34 on these cars to get passes in.
15:36 But finally they were both ready.
15:37 And Finnegan hopped in the crusher
15:39 and took off out to the starting line.
15:41 And that's when the Super B wouldn't fire up.
15:46 I opened the hood and found out
15:50 that the secondary float bowl on the carburetor
15:53 was just a geyser of gasoline.
15:55 - He was right behind me.
15:58 I don't know what he's doing.
16:00 - Something must be wrong with the car.
16:02 These are jet extensions right here
16:04 for when the fuel's sloshing towards the back of the bowl.
16:06 You can see the witness mark where they were crushed
16:08 and holding the float down.
16:11 That wasn't good.
16:12 - All right, well, Dave has pretty much burned up
16:14 all of our time.
16:15 So now I think we're down to one pass.
16:17 - Just run him.
16:19 I'm 50/50.
16:21 This is probably not gonna happen at all.
16:23 (dramatic music)
16:26 (engine revving)
16:36 (dramatic music)
16:39 - It was a major drag that Freiburger
17:05 and I didn't get to race.
17:06 And honestly, totally my fault.
17:08 As I was slamming the carburetor back together,
17:11 the float in the float bowl actually got stuck
17:13 on the jet extensions and sunk it.
17:15 You gotta have a love/hate relationship with automobiles,
17:19 especially old ones.
17:20 As much fun as we had driving all the way here,
17:23 you get right to that last minute,
17:25 right to the mountaintop,
17:26 and get gut punched.
17:29 That's what Dave got.
17:30 - It was a big letdown to just be sitting there in the pits.
17:33 The Crusher went out there and ran an 11.19
17:37 at like 120 something miles an hour.
17:39 Also kind of a disappointment.
17:41 That car has proven to run 10.60s at Fontana.
17:44 But the problem is there was 6,000 feet of density altitude
17:47 at the drag strip that night,
17:49 reducing the boost from the blower,
17:50 which just kills horsepower.
17:52 Repair and maintenance prohibited in the parking lot,
18:00 but it doesn't say roadkill on it.
18:02 So my thought is it doesn't apply to us.
18:04 More of a guideline than a rule, right?
18:06 I can't deny I was really depressed
18:10 at not being able to get the Super V down the track.
18:12 We needed to turn it around,
18:14 make it another 700 miles home,
18:16 and find some way to put a capper on this trip.
18:19 (engine revving)
18:21 (engine revving)
18:24 So after a little bit of burnout mayhem
18:50 to sort of relieve the pressure,
18:51 we came up with a scheme.
18:52 When we're done with this show,
18:54 two days later we've got to leave
18:55 for the Bonneville Salt Flats to go race our Camaro.
18:58 And the problem is we didn't have a truck
19:00 to haul the thing up there.
19:02 As a matter of fact, the car isn't even together.
19:04 We'd found this really cool ramp truck before we left,
19:07 but didn't have time to go buy it.
19:09 And so we decided on the tail end of this trip,
19:11 we were gonna haul down to San Diego, California
19:13 and pick it up.
19:14 (engine revving)
19:17 (engine revving)
19:20 Everything's going great.
19:25 Get into Nevada, cruising down a big mountain.
19:27 All of a sudden I hear, "Pssst!"
19:29 Boom!
19:30 Blow a tire.
19:31 I immediately have flashbacks of the Gremlin all over again,
19:34 except this time I don't crash.
19:36 Pull over.
19:36 Tire actually came off the rim.
19:39 So this time we're smart.
19:41 We brought spare wheels with us,
19:42 but we weren't smart enough to bring lug nuts
19:44 that actually fit these spare wheels.
19:46 So I've robbed washers off of all the other wheels
19:50 on this car, and I'm now spacing the lug nuts
19:53 because they're too long with Craftsman wrenches.
19:56 That's right, folks.
19:58 11/16 and three quarter inch shorty Craftsman wrenches.
20:01 And we only have three.
20:04 This is what's gonna be holding this wheel on
20:05 as I limp down the road 10 miles to a hotel,
20:08 because I'm gonna go to bed.
20:10 I'm done.
20:11 (engine revving)
20:13 (engine revving)
20:16 Road kill.
20:19 It's beer time.
20:23 (upbeat music)
20:31 This thing is mint.
20:37 Well, I can tell already,
20:40 this is one of our better purchases.
20:42 This is way too good for us.
20:44 I think it's got 56,000 original miles on it.
20:47 It's got the good front end on it.
20:49 It's a 73.
20:50 Yeah, see, it doesn't have the flat front
20:51 of the later models.
20:52 This is cool.
20:53 And it doesn't have drip rails.
20:55 It doesn't have shoulder belts.
20:57 I seriously think 56,000 could be legit.
21:00 No more trailers.
21:02 You know what else that means?
21:03 No more 55 miles an hour in California.
21:06 Will it go over 55?
21:07 How about I don't know.
21:08 (laughing)
21:09 Probably not.
21:10 It's got a winch.
21:10 Oh, it has a winch.
21:11 The air conditioning works.
21:12 Two gas tanks.
21:13 The stereo works.
21:14 It has the FM radio communication for Baja.
21:17 Wait, a stereo?
21:18 Wow.
21:19 How much was this?
21:20 3,500 bucks.
21:22 We've spent more than that on a lot worse.
21:24 Oh no, this is a huge score.
21:26 Let's see if it'll run though.
21:27 I have to admit, it did have a dead battery.
21:28 Something had to be wrong with it.
21:30 You wanna...
21:31 That's a big block, 454.
21:34 Factory 454, yep.
21:36 With air conditioning and two batteries.
21:38 Do you wanna put the crusher on the truck?
21:40 We could.
21:41 Let's test it out now.
21:43 As a roadkill trip goes,
21:46 this really wasn't that much of a fiasco.
21:49 Yeah, we kinda failed at the drag strip,
21:51 but we did drive two of my cars 1,500 miles
21:54 by the time we were done,
21:56 and that's a pretty big deal,
21:57 especially when you're looking at stuff
21:59 that has this kind of horsepower
22:00 and that hasn't been on the road that much for a long time.
22:04 As it turns out, this ramp truck is way too good for us.
22:08 Having said that,
22:09 the junk's probably gonna blow up halfway to the salt flats,
22:13 and you'll see more of that on the next episode of Roadkill.
22:16 (engine revving)
22:18 (tires screeching)
22:25 (engine revving)
22:28 (tires screeching)
22:31 (engine revving)
22:34 (tires screeching)
22:51 (engine revving)
22:53 (tires screeching)
22:57 (engine revving)
23:00 (tires screeching)
23:03 (engine revving)
23:06 (explosion)