A Vette-powered stepside truck. Nitrous oxide. Honda Trail 70s. Drag racing
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MotorTranscript
00:00 This time on Roadkill, it is minibikes and the muscle truck,
00:02 and we race them all.
00:04 And there aren't any Priuses in this episode.
00:06 [ENGINE REVVING]
00:09 [GUNSHOTS]
00:19 [TIRES SCREECHING]
00:21 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:24 [ENGINE REVVING]
00:28 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:39 A few episodes ago, Finnegan completely
00:44 surprised me with that little Jeep hot rod.
00:47 And this time, it's him who has no idea
00:50 that I've got these little Honda Trail 70s in the garage
00:53 waiting for him.
00:54 Are you ready?
00:55 Dude, I'm excited and scared.
00:58 The big secret is in the garage.
01:00 That's not a very big garage.
01:01 No, it's not.
01:02 But, you know, big enough.
01:05 I'm utterly clueless.
01:06 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:08 [LAUGHTER]
01:09 No way.
01:12 Those are awesome.
01:13 Yep.
01:14 We're going to die.
01:15 What do you think?
01:16 These are cool.
01:17 That's yours.
01:18 That one I borrowed from Joe, who
01:19 runs the minibike reunion show.
01:21 This is a 70, I think.
01:23 And this is street legal.
01:24 And that one's a 78.
01:25 Yeah, they're the smallest bikes I
01:26 could find that had plates on them.
01:28 I'm glad we're not riding doubles.
01:30 Well, you never know what could happen.
01:34 Here's the plan.
01:35 We are going to ride these back to the shop,
01:37 fix the muscle truck, drive it down to San Diego
01:40 to Barona to race.
01:42 It's going to be too fast for the dragster
01:44 on its very first pass.
01:45 So when we get thrown out, we can go head to head.
01:48 All right.
01:49 I mean, I like it.
01:50 I like it a lot.
01:51 Let's see if they run.
01:53 Oh, yours fires right up.
01:57 Now it smells flooded.
01:58 Come on, man.
02:03 Get out of the way.
02:05 It's in gear.
02:07 Maybe it's the flip-flops.
02:09 Maybe the flux capacitor needs recharging.
02:12 Like down the hill here.
02:14 This is where Fry Burger gets killed in the street.
02:16 Hey, look at that.
02:19 He got it running.
02:21 That's a start.
02:21 Now we can have an episode.
02:22 Oh, speed wobbles.
02:30 Got a little speed wobble.
02:31 Oh, here comes an actual motorcycle.
02:35 My back brake is killer.
02:36 Watch this.
02:36 Uh-oh.
02:47 Perpetual track.
02:48 Oh!
02:50 Look out, dude.
02:51 Oh, we're so dead.
02:56 Stop.
02:57 Oh, shit.
02:59 Hold on.
03:00 This is going to be a race, right?
03:05 I hope I'm in first instead of second.
03:08 Ready?
03:09 Come on, baby.
03:15 Go!
03:17 Oh, man.
03:19 Am I pulling you bad?
03:21 I feel like I could catch you, but I don't want to die.
03:25 Victory!
03:26 Making the bed.
03:33 Yeah.
03:33 Come on, girl.
03:34 Go, go, go.
03:35 I hate to break it to you, but I'm actually closing distance.
03:39 Oh, yeah, I'm catching you.
03:41 Oh, man.
03:42 The arrow was all I needed.
03:44 Oh!
03:47 Death.
03:49 Hey, are we going to get gas at any time?
03:51 Oh, yeah.
03:51 We should probably do that.
03:53 I'm guessing it's bad to all of a sudden lose power and traffic
03:56 on one of these.
03:59 This one look good?
04:01 Oh!
04:01 [LAUGHTER]
04:04 [LAUGHTER]
04:06 I pulled in trying to do a brake stand in the gas right here.
04:09 But I'm doing the brake stand.
04:10 I burn through the gas, and it hooks up.
04:12 It does the full wheelie.
04:13 It was really hard while I'm in the wheelie
04:15 to concentrate on turning the gas the wrong way.
04:18 It was fun.
04:19 I rely on you to constantly show me what not to do.
04:23 Get a mini bike?
04:24 Don't do that.
04:25 We mobbed 15 miles north to the Hot Rod Garage
04:30 in El Segundo, California to revive the muscle truck, which
04:33 had been sitting for over two years.
04:37 That was fun.
04:39 And we lived.
04:40 Remember the last time we drove this thing?
04:41 Yeah.
04:42 We spent more time on the side of the road
04:44 than we did in the truck.
04:45 It was sagged out so bad that the tires started to rub.
04:49 The pinion angle got bad.
04:50 The drive shaft crammed itself into the gear vendors.
04:52 I know the answer to this, but we
04:53 could at least try to crank it before we
04:55 put the charger on it.
04:56 Oh, you're delusional.
04:57 That's not going to happen.
04:59 It's a whole lot of dead.
05:00 The muscle truck is a '73 Chevy short bed.
05:09 In around 2006, my buddy Chad and I
05:11 dropped in that LS6 engine.
05:13 And it has a turbo 400 and a gear vendors overdrive,
05:15 Ford nine inch rear end, 513 gears.
05:18 It's got a spool in it.
05:19 Should be pretty quick, but we've never really
05:21 gotten it down the track, despite trying a bunch of times.
05:24 The last time was two years ago, and it sat for that long.
05:27 So everything that we're dealing with here
05:29 is essentially undoing the neglect.
05:32 All right, making the list.
05:34 Bad gas.
05:36 Fuel pump and filter, air shocks, funky wiring,
05:41 dead battery, nitrous.
05:45 Draining the really old gas out of this,
05:47 and it smells horrible.
05:49 It sat so long that the red anodizing, that's
05:53 what it should look like.
05:54 That's what this one looks like now.
05:55 It's turned pink.
05:56 That's not even pink.
05:57 That's bare.
05:58 And that is sitting in the shade under the truck.
06:01 It's not like it's exposed to the sun or anything.
06:04 I am slowed down on the air shocks
06:05 because the shock pin here is too big of a diameter
06:08 for the steel sleeve that's in the shock.
06:11 And that sleeve is vulcanized to the rubber.
06:14 I say we just cut the mounts off and weld new mounts on.
06:16 It'll be quicker than going to the parts store
06:19 and trying to find the right bushings.
06:20 We have to go to the parts store to get
06:21 new mounts or even bolts.
06:23 Oh, yeah.
06:24 Yeah, at that point, we could try and make a solution to this.
06:27 Well, you know what?
06:28 We need a battery.
06:28 We need a gas.
06:29 We might as well go to the parts store.
06:30 On the mini bikes.
06:33 We could.
06:34 You can carry a battery home on your mini bike.
06:36 Sure.
06:37 Right in your lap.
06:37 [ENGINE REVVING]
06:45 Hello, LA rush hour traffic.
06:47 I know, seriously.
06:48 [LAUGHTER]
06:51 [TIRES SCREECHING]
06:53 [LAUGHTER]
06:55 I love this bike.
06:56 Chicks are digging us.
06:57 You can tell by the way she's averting her eyes.
06:59 I think she just doesn't want to actually make eye contact.
07:01 I think that's a dude.
07:03 Really?
07:04 With boobs?
07:05 He needs to work out.
07:08 Whoa!
07:08 [LAUGHTER]
07:10 We both did the swerve.
07:11 [LAUGHTER]
07:14 OK.
07:15 You could probably sit on that, huh?
07:16 Probably.
07:18 Oh, yeah.
07:19 Nothing could go wrong with that.
07:21 Maybe we should crisscross another one.
07:24 Oh, you think?
07:26 This is comfortable.
07:28 Cars!
07:28 [ENGINE REVVING]
07:32 [MUSIC PLAYING]
07:35 Is it strange that I feel safer now
07:41 than I did before I had a battery strapped to my back?
07:44 [ENGINE REVVING]
07:47 [LAUGHTER]
07:51 [HONKING]
07:52 [LAUGHTER]
07:55 Nope.
07:59 What, like not even close?
08:01 Nope.
08:02 Same exact problem.
08:04 Yeah, I would just try pressing the slew up.
08:07 Hmm.
08:08 Just help that one out.
08:10 See, the press is going to force that sleeve out
08:13 of the shock pushing and into that deep wall impact socket.
08:17 [MUSIC PLAYING]
08:20 Look at that.
08:22 Almost as if we knew what we were doing.
08:25 Yeah!
08:25 That only took far longer than it should have.
08:31 I threw this truck together a few years ago
08:33 with literally just stuff I had sitting around.
08:36 But I haven't driven the truck a whole lot,
08:38 and it's been dead for a couple years.
08:39 So I'm really looking forward to firing it up again.
08:43 OK, first we can check fuel leak.
08:45 I don't know if it's picked it up yet.
08:48 OK, yeah, it's got pressure.
08:51 Oh, stop.
08:52 Rear float sunk.
08:54 A lot of gas inside the motor.
08:55 Like, don't crank it.
08:56 Can you beat it with a screwdriver?
08:58 The float's stuck all the way at the bottom,
08:59 and it's trying to fill up the float bowl.
09:01 It comes out there.
09:02 This is the surefire fix for that.
09:04 Except when it doesn't work.
09:07 Give it a shot.
09:09 Must be fixed.
09:10 It's got way too much gas in it to crank it over.
09:13 OK.
09:13 Yeah, we need to let it evaporate, go eat,
09:15 and come back.
09:16 There you go.
09:22 It's alive!
09:27 It's got four-inch exhaust with bullet mufflers about that big.
09:30 Pretty good for not running for like two years.
09:35 You want to drive it in the morning?
09:37 Sure.
09:37 Well, we got the thing running.
09:39 That's most of the way there.
09:40 That's roadkill good enough, right?
09:41 It's morning.
09:47 We got the thing running pretty good last night.
09:49 We have a few more little things to do.
09:52 But first, we're going to go run and do a test drive.
09:54 And then we're going to run down to Barona Drag
09:56 Strip in San Diego, which is a little eighth mile deal.
09:59 Kind of podunk, but very cool.
10:00 Test drive?
10:01 Yeah.
10:06 This thing has the best exhaust ever.
10:08 This is a full manual valve body, right?
10:13 Yeah.
10:14 Dude!
10:18 Oh my god, that's great.
10:19 You can't do that in a parking lot.
10:21 Oh, I forgot.
10:23 Dude, this thing's bad ass.
10:24 Oh yeah, we got to fix that.
10:33 Yeah, it's not happy.
10:36 It's got a pretty serious wicked bog at part throttle.
10:40 And it could be the timing, could be the fuel.
10:42 Oh, dude, look how rich the mixture was.
10:45 They were out four turns.
10:47 I have all of the stuff we need to tune this in my shop.
10:50 Which we also need to go to for the computer, right?
10:52 Yeah.
10:53 Much better.
10:58 On the rev limiter.
11:00 Much better.
11:01 After a minor tune up at the stop sign,
11:03 we packed up our bikes and racing stuff
11:05 and hit the road to Finnegan's shop in Orange County, which
11:08 is on the way down to Verona Dragstrip.
11:10 Allow me to play for you the music of my people.
11:12 That never gets old.
11:16 All right, getting on the freeway.
11:21 Here we go.
11:21 Moment of truth.
11:23 Drive shaft vibration, here we come.
11:24 No side mirror.
11:31 No real brakes.
11:33 But it sounds bitch, dude.
11:34 Yes.
11:35 I think we're OK, dude.
11:39 Feels pretty good.
11:40 Even with the gear benders.
11:42 This is 26, 2700.
11:44 It's got 513s in it.
11:46 What are we doing?
11:47 This is probably 60 miles an hour.
11:49 Yeah.
11:50 513s are good.
11:52 You always have that passing power.
11:54 Yeah.
11:54 That's loud.
12:00 It's the greatest.
12:01 [ENGINE REVVING]
12:04 You ever think like you're driving past normal people
12:07 right now that are just driving around in cars that
12:10 are completely stock?
12:11 Yep.
12:11 They just get in their car and turn the key and drive.
12:14 And all they're thinking about is where they're getting to.
12:17 They're appliances.
12:19 They are appliances.
12:19 What else explains the fact that they're all just
12:22 shapeless blobs painted silver?
12:25 If you can't pull up to a gas station
12:28 and strike up a conversation with your fellow man
12:30 over your car, what are you doing?
12:34 We are at my shop right now, my happy place.
12:48 It's full of engine parts and drag boats.
12:51 And we're going to move this one out of the way
12:53 just to make it a little easier to work in here.
12:58 On the way over here, it was kind
12:59 of burbling on the freeway.
13:00 It has 513 gears in it.
13:02 And even with the overdrive, it's running at 2,600 RPM.
13:05 Even at that RPM, you can hear it's sort of missing.
13:08 We're just going to pull it off and have a look.
13:10 From sitting for so long with that bad new ethanol gasoline,
13:16 it literally filled the carburetor
13:18 with this green mold.
13:21 This is the carburetor that was on the Titanic.
13:23 It's as if you parked this thing at the bottom of a lake.
13:26 Look at that.
13:27 That boat goes in the water.
13:29 It's never had this much oxidation
13:32 inside of the carburetors.
13:33 I'm just blaming modern gas.
13:35 Gas that you buy today will be dead in six months.
13:39 Gas that you pull out of a tank of a car that's
13:41 been sitting there 20 years will usually run.
13:44 Who's to blame?
13:45 Obama.
13:45 [LAUGHS]
13:46 [ENGINE REVVING]
13:49 Stop.
13:50 Shut it off.
13:51 The corrosion on the little plastic float bowl sight
13:54 screw completely wiped out the thread.
13:57 So that just popped out and was leaking everywhere.
13:59 It's like, this is wonderful.
14:01 Trying to find a carburetor that has the sight screw that we need.
14:06 But see, all the modern carburetors
14:07 tend to have a glass sight in them instead.
14:10 So no.
14:14 Well, our sight plug was stripped out.
14:17 So we're making a new one out of a bolt that's too long,
14:22 an O-ring, two nuts to use as spacers,
14:25 some silicone to seal the whole deal,
14:27 and then Fratburger's going to thread that
14:28 into the bowl of the carburetor.
14:29 That is roadkill engineering right there.
14:32 OK, fire up that garbage.
14:33 [ENGINE REVVING]
14:36 Oh, sounds good.
14:44 [MUSIC PLAYING]
14:48 Ah, dog.
14:52 It's as if he's bipolar.
14:53 Nothing he owns has a nice paint job on it,
14:55 but suddenly he's cleaning the engine compartment
14:57 of this crappy old truck.
14:59 [LAUGHTER]
15:02 You know, the thing is, this truck,
15:03 even though it looks bad in all these different colors,
15:06 it's really pretty clean.
15:07 Totally rust free.
15:08 The frame was all fresh and powder
15:11 coated when I put it together.
15:12 So it has potential.
15:14 It just looks kind of rough.
15:15 [ENGINE REVVING]
15:19 We were really hoping to go drag racing today,
15:22 but this debacle with the carburetor
15:23 slowed us down a bunch.
15:25 The good news is that the drag strip
15:27 is holding their test in tune both Saturday and Sunday.
15:30 So we might get down there today.
15:31 But even if we don't, we're going to get to run tomorrow.
15:34 [ENGINE REVVING]
15:37 [MUSIC PLAYING]
15:42 [ENGINE REVVING]
15:45 Last night, we made it into town,
16:00 but it's about half an hour from town to this drag strip.
16:03 This is Verona Drag Strip, which is a little eight
16:06 mile on an Indian reservation here inland of San Diego,
16:09 California.
16:10 It's a really rustic track, but the people are cool.
16:13 There's a huge variety of cars.
16:14 Today is pretty much just a grudge match test
16:16 in tune type day.
16:17 So we won't be going heads up with anybody.
16:20 I'm just looking for that 735 ET
16:22 so that we can get thrown out for having no roll bar, which
16:25 will then give us an excuse to race the minibike.
16:27 Well, after finishing up some burnouts in the morning,
16:30 naturally we were like two hours late to the drag strip.
16:32 And we went straight to the tech inspection line.
16:35 The ground strip from here somewhere.
16:36 Oh, good call, yeah.
16:37 I don't know if I would let it run if I owned the drag strip.
16:40 But I'm still plenty happy to drive it.
16:43 I can't believe we made it through tech.
16:46 David's getting rushed to the starting line right now.
16:48 They just snuck him in ahead of a bunch of other cars.
16:51 We're running NA right now and on street tires.
16:56 So no idea how quick this thing will go.
16:58 But there's no way it's going to run a 735
17:01 and get him kicked out.
17:02 [ENGINE REVVING]
17:06 Oh, that's better.
17:08 8.57 at 82.
17:15 We're a long ways away from getting kicked out.
17:17 [MUSIC PLAYING]
17:20 We got a long way to go.
17:21 I hit the rev limiter.
17:23 Yeah, we heard it.
17:24 Either the tack is way wrong or something.
17:26 I want to--
17:26 I can move it up.
17:27 You want to stay on these tires or put the slicks on?
17:30 Slicks.
17:30 OK, so put the slicks on, raise the rev limiter, and go again.
17:33 Right.
17:33 All right.
17:34 Cool.
17:35 These are Mickey Thompson EP streets.
17:43 They're actually DOT legal to drive on the street,
17:46 but decided not to because they're really thin.
17:48 They puncture pretty easy.
17:50 And with the spool in the truck, they just
17:52 make it handle even weirder.
17:53 The rev limiter for this motor is set at 6,500
17:56 because it's got a hydraulic roller cam.
17:57 You can't wing it too high.
17:59 But he was saying that the tack only read 6,000
18:01 when it happened.
18:02 So if the tack's reading low, that's a problem.
18:04 I'm going to move the rev limiter up just
18:06 in case a few hundred RPM, give him a little more room.
18:09 What I'm working with here is the Caltrax bars,
18:11 which are the ultimate traction device for leaf springs.
18:14 I am tightening them up so they will actually be functional.
18:17 This is going to be our second pass.
18:19 If this goes well enough, then I'm
18:21 saying next pass is going to be on the bottle.
18:23 [ENGINE REVVING]
18:26 It's pretty good burnout.
18:33 All right.
18:33 Come on, truck.
18:34 [ENGINE REVVING]
18:37 [ENGINE REVVING]
18:41 It ran an 840.
18:47 It's going to need nitrous if he has any chance
18:50 of reaching his goal today.
18:52 [ENGINE REVVING]
18:54 There you go.
18:55 She's clean.
18:56 It was time to break out the nitrous.
18:58 But in standard roadkill style, I
19:00 didn't bring everything that was needed.
19:01 I'm on the hunt for either a dash 4
19:03 bottle nut, which is smaller than this,
19:05 or a solenoid inlet fitting, which is larger than this.
19:08 You have a spare dash 4 bottle nut?
19:10 Because I have a dash 6 with a dash 4 line.
19:13 How about a fitting like that that has a dash 6 on it?
19:17 Nope.
19:17 Thanks.
19:19 I knew before I asked.
19:22 Or a dab of Teflon sealer.
19:25 I don't know.
19:25 You tell me.
19:28 Hope that works.
19:29 Awesome.
19:30 Thank you very much.
19:32 After three days of prepping for this, finally, our very first
19:34 nitrous passed.
19:35 Hopefully, I can put this together, because today's
19:37 getting short.
19:38 We might only get one or two runs.
19:39 [ENGINE REVVING]
19:43 There we go.
19:48 I think the tires are clean now.
19:49 [ENGINE REVVING]
19:53 Yeah.
19:55 All right, well, that was worth 2/10 of a second.
20:01 That was a lot of tire spin.
20:04 How far?
20:04 All the way down the track.
20:06 You got out of the groove a little.
20:07 Yeah, that was enough.
20:08 Last hit, he basically had 100% of the nitrous
20:15 within 1 and 1/2 seconds of going full throttle.
20:18 And the truck was skating all the way down the track,
20:20 because it was just spinning the tires.
20:22 So we just used the progressive timer to delay it.
20:25 He's going to have 100% of the nitrous three seconds after he
20:28 hits full throttle.
20:30 Should give him more traction.
20:31 Should go quicker.
20:32 Moment of truth.
20:38 This might be the last pass we get.
20:40 [ENGINE REVVING]
20:44 OK, nitrous is on.
20:46 [ENGINE REVVING]
20:57 There we go.
20:58 Went straight.
20:59 Yeah!
21:01 Wow.
21:02 Oh my god, we just picked up almost a full second.
21:08 He's going to be stoked.
21:10 752 at 93 miles an hour.
21:14 Yeah!
21:15 Perfect.
21:18 You know, people ask, how many episodes
21:20 can you make with leftover vehicles
21:22 that Freiburger has sitting around?
21:24 So what can we possibly do to top it?
21:26 Drag out more junk from the Freiburger fleet.
21:29 Yep, it never ends.
21:31 I needed to run a 750 or a 735 to get thrown out
21:34 of this place.
21:36 But it was getting hot, and lap after lap,
21:38 we just could not improve that 753.
21:41 And we ran out of time to race the minibikes, at least
21:43 on that day.
21:44 [ENGINE REVVING]
21:47 We are going to run these things from here
21:49 to the top of the parking lot and back.
21:52 Oh, sneaky.
21:53 [ENGINE REVVING]
21:56 Oh, shit!
22:00 [LAUGHTER]
22:04 Yeah!
22:05 [LAUGHTER]
22:07 Yes!
22:08 [LAUGHTER]
22:11 Oh!
22:13 Dusty up here.
22:14 [MUSIC PLAYING]
22:17 [LAUGHTER]
22:22 Oh!
22:28 [LAUGHTER]
22:34 [LAUGHTER]
22:37 I almost ate the front end of a Buick or a Monte Carlo,
22:39 or whatever the hell that was.
22:41 [ENGINE REVVING]
22:42 That was fun.
22:44 That's the best day work ever.
22:47 The best part about going to the auto parts store
22:49 is all the crazy stuff you're going
22:51 to see in the parking lot.
22:52 This is a mid '80s Irox-y Camaro done up in a Twix motif.
22:57 But that's not the cool part.
22:59 There's an alligator on the dash.
23:04 Look at it.
23:05 The cup holder's nice.
23:07 I mean, one of the greatest things you've ever done.
23:09 Yeah.
23:09 They hold the big gulp, too.
23:11 Like, I know you made a baby and everything,
23:13 but that cup holder's pretty damn good.
23:15 Yeah.
23:15 It's right at the perfect spot for the reach.
23:18 If you're ever going to lay claim
23:20 to creating something in your lifetime, I don't know.
23:22 I don't know if you go, ah, my son, or this cup holder that's
23:25 hand-fabbed.
23:26 I mean, it's kind of nice.
23:28 Yeah.
23:29 Edited Hot Rod magazine for 15 years, but--
23:32 [BLEEP]
23:32 --cup holder.
23:33 Right?
23:34 [LAUGHTER]