I am taking nothing away from Jim’s Charger. The paint is gorgeous, the plating spot-on, the interior looks better than any factory photo could have promised, and if you’ve ever seen the video of this car idling around, it sounds like a freaking beast (lucky me, I can’t find the clip or I would share it.) But when you have a car as clean inside and out, as detailed and done as Jim’s Charger is…does that remove the ability to enjoy it as a car? I’d be scared shitless to drive his car anywhere other than to and from the trailer at an indoor show and maybe at a prestigious car show. On the street? Aw, hell no. I wouldn’t know what would scare me more: the drivers who aren’t paying attention to the roads or the drivers who are paying way too much attention to my car.

“How clean is too clean?” I ask this question after I’ve cleaned up another 20 pounds of ATF-soaked kitty litter up off of my garage thanks to my own Charger, hopefully for the last time (I’ve said that before). The car is on jackstands. Major components are blown apart and I’m about to break out a death wheel and start cutting. I’m pricing out suspension parts. I’m doing projects I haven’t done before, which always puts my stomach into a knot, and I’m doing all of this so I can put thousands of miles on the clock this year. Admittedly, the Charger is cleaner underneath than most anything I’ve owned prior to that was older than 1990. That doesn’t mean that I don’t look like a 1940s grease monkey when I’m done for the day.  And yes, the clearcoat peel my car is suffering on the hood is still driving me up the wall.

Would I like my car to be as clean as Jim’s, though? I don’t know. I can’t leave the car sitting long. I drive it as often as I can get away with it. The only time I actively don’t take the car out is when it’s a local trip and there is rain in the forecast…not mist, not a small chance of a quick shower, but legitimate rain. Even that isn’t a dealbreaker, as the car was left out in the hotel parking lot during a storm last year during my Carlisle trip. Oh well, that’s the breaks for insisting on driving the car. And that’s why I’m not 100% concerned about being as nice as Jim’s car. I’d love the interior. I’d love the paint quality to be up to that level. And a big-block with an attitude issue and a fat, lumpy exhaust note works just fine. But for now, I can survive with a few rock chips and a slightly grimy underside if it means I can hit the road whenever I want.

The post Unhinged: How Clean Is Too Clean? appeared first on BangShift.com.

This past weekend was the fourth-annual Holley MoParty. In case you aren’t familiar with the program, Holley takes the show formula that they perfected with the original LS Fest event in Bowling Green and applies it to the Chrysler-minded folk. There’s plenty of racing going on, there’s some extra events to make life more fun, there’s plenty of show cars to check out, a manufacturer’s midway, an off-road section for you Jeep and truck people to get muddy in, and more that I’m probably forgetting. This year was the first time I’ve just enjoyed the event for what it is. Photography when I cared to shoot, walking when I felt like it, talking when I felt like it. Haley and I set up our shade behind my Charger and we soaked up a great time.

However, if you were to judge this event based on the Internet alone, you’d swear that Holley contracted the same group of mental deficients that put the Blue Ridge Rock Festival together to sort this one out, and frankly, that couldn’t be further from the truth. There’s a lot of anger directed towards this show and most of it is complete crap laid out by people who are just wanting to be angry at every little thing possible. So, let’s give them their moment in the sun.

Full disclosure: as some of you might be aware, between 2020 and May 2023, I worked for Holley. While I chose to voluntarily terminate my employment this year, I hold no ill will towards the company. I actually viewed MoParty as a pet project, something where my idiot savant-level of knowledge could do good. The people behind these events bust their ass every year to put on a show that everyone can enjoy…which is why I’m on the chip about keyboard warriors this year.

The fine print: What you are about to read is my own opinion. Not Chad’s, not BangShift’s, certainly not Holley’s. Mine and mine alone.

Buckle up, bitches.

COMPLAINT 1: “Holley isn’t having the General Lee jump this year! (insert irrational “woke” screaming afterwards).”

Fair play on one hand: a couple of weeks before MoParty, word started to spread that the General Lee Jump, which has been a huge attraction at all prior MoParty events, was cancelled. Whether you agree with their decision or not, it is the prerogative of Holley (a publicly-traded company) to make that call, and they did. James Smith, the stuntman and driver of the General Lee, has said that Holley took care of him for this year even though he wasn’t going to be there, that Holley has been good to him in the past, and that they are working on something for next year. It’s just a Crown Victoria with a ton of AMD metal on it. Calm the hell down. Besides, there was plenty of General Lee stuff to see, from the burnout car to toys in the swap meet.

COMPLAINT 2: “The General Lee should’ve won the burnout contest! Holley rigged it so that the General Lee couldn’t win!”

You’re kidding, right?

If you are unfamiliar with how the burnout contest works at a Holley event in Bowling Green, it’s simple: the circle track is the Roman Coliseum. Chad is your emperor, and the audience determines who wins or loses by how loud they roar. It’s really that simple. Holley picks the cars that get to participate in the burnout contest, yes. But once those gladiators enter the ring for their turn, that’s it. Holley folk could stomp and scream all they want, and it will do them no good.

In the case of Sleeperdude’s Gremlin, his throttle linkage popped off before he even turned a tire. Chad asked the crowd if they would let him fix it, the crowd agreed. The driver of the General Lee Charger that was in the contest, Geoff Bracken, did put on a hell of a show. So did the mid-1960s New Yorker that nobody saw coming, as did Dylan McCool’s turbocharged Diplomat. But in the end, Sleeperdude fixed the Gremlin, fired that thing up and sent the tires straight to Hell in a burnout that even an Aussie would tip their hat to. The audience loved it, end of story.

COMPLAINT 3: “The judging system at MoParty sucks!!! They never looked at my car and the judge picked some crappy thing instead! Waaaaah!”

Where do I begin. Holley’s judging system for the events switched up starting with MoParty 2022. Instead of a panel of judges, Holley put the power of the decision into the hands of two groups: a selection of influencers and professionals in the community who were attending the shows and a few people within Holley. Oh, and for one award, some kids. You want judges to come by and verify that your 1976 Plymouth Valiant has the correct paint marks, or that your 26,000-mile XJ Wagoneer is the best one in the country? Carlisle, Pennsylvania is a little over 700 miles to the northeast, and you’d better bring some water, because it’s a hot mother up there. Trust me, I learned this year. I’d rather see what a YouTuber who busts their ass to bring you free content every week or so likes, or what a 10-year-old thinks is cool versus the traditional choices. And yes, that Stratus was on the grounds, sitting like it was ready for another round of combat in Twisted Metal.

And hand-in-hand with this problem…

Complaint 4: “Why doesn’t Holley separate the cars by model/body/year?”

Because some of you [!]kers need to make new friends. Get over the historical car show mentality. You want to only be parked next to matching clones of your car? Go to Carlisle. Go to the Nats in Ohio. Go ANYWHERE but Bowling Green in September. We’ll have fun without your fastidious asses. If you require a trophy at every car show you attend to feel better about coming out, I can recommend a nice party store near the mall that carries little $5 “You did it!” trophies. Will that help?

Complaint 5: “It rained! It’s muddy! There’s no racing!”

Mother Nature can be a real bitch. Nothing we can do. Nothing you can do. Just be glad that it didn’t flood (like this poor soul got to experience in 2018) and that it wasn’t broiling-ass, swampy hot, like it normally is.

Complaint 6: “For the price I paid to get in, Holley staff need to do more for me!”

Like what? Holley has already created six major events for all kinds of gearheads (Ford, GM, Mopar, even EVs) to come play at in four different locations in the lower 48 States. Every September, the Holley team (and a fleet of extras like media, contract workers, track staff and more) bust their ass just for LS Fest East, MoParty and Ford Fest alone. It’s a whole month. Think of the logistics, the planning, the amount of  behind-the-scenes work that goes on with these events. I promise, you don’t want to know, it’s over a year in advance for each one. If you think that you should be seeing someone every hour on the hour with a fresh bottle of water, maybe you should’ve put more money into your restoration so that you wouldn’t have been denied a parking space at Pebble Beach.

For the most part, it seems like those who chose to attend had a great time, and for everyone who did, I hope you return in 2024 for the fifth-annual event, and if you’re close by, I also invite you to attend Ford Fest (September 28-October 1, 2023) and next year’s events. But for those who are still bent on crying about a show they don’t plan, don’t help with, and feel like owes them the world, stay home. I mean it. Keep your car in your garage, don’t come out. If you don’t know how to have a good time, then keep yourself in the only place you feel happy: behind the keyboard, bitching.

The post Unhinged: Hey, MoParty Crybabies – Stay Home Next Year, OK? appeared first on BangShift.com.

Common sense would dictate that I would’ve taken the luxury truck. Anyone in their right mind would have made that call. But my mind hasn’t been right…well, ever. My first major roadtrip was in the 1978 Chrysler LeBaron, in the winter of 2000, driving a car with a known broken front end and about 87 horsepower through the Midwest during ice storms and snow. Roadtrips in sketchy Mopars is a thing for me: that same LeBaron also took me to Fort Hood when I was done in training. A 1984 D100 took me on a Southwestern tour that saw Colorado, Arizona and Texas. The “Warhammer” Diplomat saw me rip across Texas from San Angelo back to base with a major moving violation or five committed. The SuperBeater Mirada was known for doing laps around the Pacific Northwest late at night as some kind of automotive therapy session, and its last major act was to drive from the Seattle area back to Arizona. That was the trip where bikers had to help me into a gas station on Highway 93 because I was probably minutes from heatstroke. Who knew driving a car with no A/C and whorehouse red velour interior was a bad idea in the desert?

This weekend was the Carlisle Chrysler Nationals, and yours truly had an invite as a featured vehicle. That meant thrashing on my ’76 Charger Daytona until literally two hours before I was to hit the road. That meant replacing major suspension components, checking everything with a fine-tooth comb, and saging the car so that I might have a hope in hell of not having to call AAA to come save my ass off of the side of the road. By the time zero hour had arrived, the car had just come from the alignment shop and was stuffed like a thanksgiving turkey so I could hit the road. I was so caught up in leaving on time that I forgot to put the front fender well covers back into the car.

For the first hour, I was pure nerves. I was listening for anything that sounded out of place – every clunk, every tick, another icicle of fear down my spine. Louisville was my abort line. If I wasn’t comfortable by then, I’d turn around, cancel hotels, and head back home. Happily, by the time I blew past Elizabethtown, Kentucky I was beyond comfortable…aside from the heat, anyways. As the sun started to drop below the horizon around Columbus, Ohio, I felt immensely better and kicked the lights on. Mile after mile, the Charger behaved wonderfully.

Anyone who was at the fairgrounds this year can tell you, it was one hot mother. We’re talking the kind of hot and humid that is properly dangerous. At no point did the car threaten to overheat. At no point did the car not want to start. Throughout the weekend, I talked with many show-goers who were curious about the Daytona script, who dug the Halibrand wheels, who had “I had one just like it” stories. Even as I was pushing my limits of heat tolerance, I drove the car in the Malaise Era Parade on Saturday and it was great to see the audience response.

The best part of the show was meeting people who I’ve known online for years, decades even, but have never met in person. And one of them had a gift for me. Michael Westfall had bought a part off of me back in 2012 and he felt like I deserved to have it back:

That’s the Tuff wheel that came from my old Mirada, one of two relics from that car I know exist. It needs to have the outer wrap re-done, but still…this is the steering wheel that was attached to the car that helped me get my head straight and, honestly, put me on the track to being where I am at today. It will get restored, then it will be put into the car that is the culmination of how far I’ve come since.

This weekend, I drove the Charger 1,522 miles, bought over 90 gallons of gas, and wound up getting about 15.9 miles per gallon. I drove the car rain or shine. I ripped across Ohio’s midlands doing 85 mph in as much comfort as you can have without modern amenities. No shit, I’d love air conditioning, but the sound of the 360 barking away with the windows down would be lost.

But the most memorable point came when I was driving back home through West Virginia. A Dodge Mirada, painted Graphic Red with a flat-black hood, wearing chromed mag wheels, ripped by me, sounding as pissed-off as ever before continuing on into the ether. Kind of “full-circle”, in my eyes.

I’m looking forward to the next cross-country excursion.

The post Unhinged: The Charger’s First Major Roadtrip And The Chryslers At Carlisle Experience appeared first on BangShift.com.

Disregarding Jeep products, most AMC products are in that “too rare or too valuable” region for me. I’d love a Javelin, AMX, Rebel/Matador “Machine”. My top pick would actually be a Hornet SC/360, with a 1971-74 Javelin in second place. A 1980 Concord DL sedan should be right there with a Pacer covered in twenty years’ worth of grime and an Ambassador that hasn’t been driven since 1984. But there is something about this particular gem that has my attention.

1980 is a crap year for new cars. The Fairmont, Malibu and their siblings are popular with hot-rodders now, but that’s after they outlived their original purposes. Mopars of this time period were still shaking off the disaster that was the Aspen/Volare recall. And despite AMC’s best facelifting efforts, there was no hiding the fact that the Concord was just a plushed-up 1970 Hornet sedan. It was an old platform. But did that mean bad? Put frankly, compared to the tin-can Fairmont and the Spartan-trimmed Malibu, the AMC was a solid choice.

Maybe I’m used to seeing these as Eagles instead of Concords. Not seeing wood stickers on the sides and seeing it lower helps. Buff up the suspension and the brakes. This might be the car where I suggest skipping the stroker six and jumping straight to the Gen III Hemi swap. Re-stance the car so it sits like an SC/360. No fender flares. No Eagle or Spirit AMX grille. Leave the looks alone, just make it perform. Nobody is bothering to restore these anyways, so why not take this very clean example and build a proper machine out of it? Oh, yeah…money. That’s right.

eBay Link: 1980 American Motors Concord DL

The post Unhinged: An Unhealthy Fixation On An AMC Concord Sedan appeared first on BangShift.com.

All images are raided from their respective websites after I’ve “built” my dream machine.

I will be skimping obvious “ultra” brands like Aston Martin, Ferrari, Bentley, etc. because let’s face it…precious few have six or seven figures to nuke on a car payment alone. Let’s get started, shall we?

Acura:

I was ready to accept the Integra because of the six-speed manual transaxle, but when I went to build a copy on the website, that option was MIA. Instead, I was offered roof racks and all-weather floor mats. Pass.

Alfa Romeo:

Gulia Quadrifoglio is tempting…until you see a price in the low $80K range. Pass.

Audi:

Audi’s A5 series of two-door coupes are handsome, it must be said. While the RS5 would have my attention, in reality the A5 Coupe would do just fine. R8 is dream material, and I wouldn’t turn down an RS7 either. But if it’s my wallet, I’ll stick with an A5 Coupe as a premium option.

BMW:

M4 Coupe is too pricey, M2 too small. 8-series cars are just right size-wise, but again, pricey. Pass.

Buick:

我宁愿不.

Cadillac:

CT5-V Blackwing is $90K…too far. CT4-V Blackwing it is then…six-speed, climate package (ventilated seats) and little else. $67,890. Could do better in the used market, I think. Maybe a nice CTS-V…

Chevrolet:

Silverado, Tahoe and Suburban don’t inspire desire like older models did. Corvette and Corvette Z06 would be fun if the dealerships didn’t try to lottery them off like gold lots. Everything else, including the “how is it not dead yet?” Malibu, doesn’t cut it. My pick here would be a Camaro 1LT coupe with the V6, six-speed manual trans, RS package, heavy-duty cooling package and Brembo front brakes. At $35,825 for the example I built online, there is your fun-to-drive daily driver that can be good on fuel if you drive it sanely. Shame it dies next year, I’ve had a lot of fun in the sixth-gens.

Chrysler:

300C V8. Comfort group, skip SafetyTec Plus group. $48,030…and I’d take it over an equal 5.7L Charger. Shame it dies this year, bigger shame that only a tiny handful of cars got the 6.4L. The Pacifica is competent for a van, but it just doesn’t do it for me.

Dodge:

Last year of the Challenger? Ok, here’s how I’d lay it out: Challenger Scat Pack Widebody with the T/A appearance package, six-speed, Harmon Kardon sound system, and Mopar front strut tower brace. $64,925. Will shed a tear when the Challenger and it’s Charger sedan mate is finally retired for good. On that thought, I wouldn’t kick a Hellcat or Scat Pack Charger out of the driveway, either. Until they start building Hornet GLHs from the factory, not interested.

Ford:

Ford is a mixed bag: There’s still quite a bit to like, like the S550 Mustang (Mach 1, anyone?) and most of the F-series/Super Duty trucks, but then there’s a lot of “no”. You pay to play, but that’s no shock. I’m intrigued by the Bronco lineup, but since the 7-speed manual is on hiatus, that forces my hand: Maverick XLT with FX4 Off-Road package, 2.0L engine with all-wheel-drive, the 4,000-lb. tow package, and the 17″ machined-face wheels. Add in a spray-in bedliner, a tri-fold tonneau cover, and splash guards, and the damage comes to $33,360. No wonder Ford can’t build them fast enough.

GMC:

Remember when GMC meant “work truck”? Nah, me neither, but I’d rather have a work truck than a leather-lined luxury Chevy. Using the 2WD Sierra 3500HD regular cab (remember those?), the decisions were: 6.6L gas V8 and Allison 10-speed automatic, the 14,000-pound GVWR rating, cargo tie-downs, a spray-on bedliner, and the chicken lights for the roof. Toss in “Downpour Metallic” paint, and you’re out the door for $50,080. Nice. You want a foofy truck or SUV? Go find a Land Rover dealer.

Genesis:

Who would’ve guessed that Hyundai would build an ass-kicking luxury brand?! While the Genesis X and Speedium X concepts have my full attention, “concepts” means unavailable. The SUVs even look good, and that’s not something you’ll see me say often. My choice would be the G80 3.5L AWD Sport. Only option: paint mine Hallisan Green. That’s 375 horsepower and one exceedingly comfortable interior for $65K. If you don’t want AWD, you can step down to the 300hp 2.5 turbo engine and save yourself $12,000.

Hyundai:

I dig the Santa Cruze ute, but for me, I want the Elantra N. Any car riotous enough to have California cops threaten you with fines and impoundment seems right up my alley. 276 horsepower, a six-speed, and a limited-slip diff  for $32K works for me! Just paint mine black, please…that Easter-egg blue isn’t my style.

Honda:

2023 Rebel 1100 – just over $10K after a couple of accessories. Wait, was I supposed to stick to cars? Oh, well.

Jeep:

Wagoneer/Grand Wagoneer are eye-wateringly pricey. Cherokee dies soon, Compass is competent if you want a smaller CUV, and I’d avoid the Renegade like the plague. I was ready to build up a Gladiator Willys Sport for about $44K, right up until I saw that both the Pentastar 3.6L gas and the EcoDiesel 3.0L V6 have start/stop systems, even with the manual transmissions. What?! Nevermind. At least Jeep was nice enough to say something. Auto start/stop systems are the worst idea to have afflicted the automotive world since the 1974 ignition interlock systems.

KIA:

I said I’d rock a Stinger when I test-drove one back in 2018, and I stand by that. Paint my GT2 green and keep it RWD. $53,065. I’d also recommend the Carnival if you’re in need of a van. After that…it’s not that they are bad, just meh.

Lincoln:

Nobody wants a small Lincoln. $80K for a Navigator is not my style. Take a hint from Genesis, Ford. Pass.

Mazda:

Laugh all you want, you can’t deny the Miata’s fun factor compared to its size. A Grand Touring Miata RF for $37K is about what I’d work with, though in hindsight I probably should go for the roadster. And goggles. And a facemask. They do make other cars, but…eh.

Nissan:

The GT-R gets it done but that car hasn’t changed since the end of my second deployment. The Z is intriguing, but it’s a re-skin of the 370Z. I do have a positive track record with smaller trucks, so let’s look at the new Frontier. Take a bare-bones 4×4, add black paint, a sport bar for the bed, a tow package, wireless phone charger and remote engine start and the tally is $36,105. Shame there’s no manual trans option, or I’d be all about the rebirth of the Hardbody.

Ram:

Considering that I ordered and took delivery of a 1500 Laramie last year, this should simply be a “yes” and move on moment. But I’m going to take this opportunity to build my dream example, not the vehicle that both my wife and I agreed upon. Starting with a Ram 2500 Big Horn regular cab, the box for the 6.7L Cummins diesel was ticked, along with the limited-slip rear axle and 3.73 gears. A 20,000-lb. Mopar 5th Wheel Hitch, tow hooks up front, the spray-in bedliner and bed step, a package deal that ensures that the interior is a nice place to be, premium exterior lighting, a set of black tube steps, a 115-volt outlet inside, the smaller infotainment screen with maps available, and parking assistance and the bill runs up to $71,470. Which is right about where our nearly loaded-out 1500 ended up.

Subaru:

Skipping the SUVs, the station wagons pretending to be SUVs, and the basic Impreza and Legacy models, and you end up with two options: the WRX and the BRZ. Historically, the WRX would get the nod, but this time around the BRZ wins. Don’t bother with the base model…everything you could want is pretty much standard on the Premium. Adding one option, the “V-bar” (read: front strut bracing), brings the price to $30,045. Nice.

Toyota:

Toyota has plenty of solid options to choose from. The Camry is competent, the Corolla is a great entry-level option, the 4Runner is as granola-adventurous as ever, and the Tacoma is still a popular option. But…and I can’t believe I’m actually writing this…once the 2023 Prius Prime comes out, there you go, the replacement for the last-generation Chevrolet Volt. A hybrid that makes sense and doesn’t look like rolling birth control. Laugh, talk shit, do whatever you must. But for a daily-driver that you just use around town, trust the Volt owner: putting gas in the car maybe four times a year does have advantages. You know…like feeding that other beast in your garage. This build is an XLE (not a Prime), so you’re stuck with MPG figures that can only get into the low-50s. An audio package and a stainless-steel catalytic converter shield and you’re in it for $32,925.

Volkswagen:

Nope.

Volvo:

A fully kitted-out VNL. Because it’s my freaking list. And because the Polestar 1 coupe is out of production and in six-figure territory. If I’m going to spend that kind of money, then living in it and earning money from it sounds pretty good to me.

Conclusion:

Every vehicle selected was built to what I felt was the best mix of options, utility, fun and cost. But when the entry level price for this list either the Honda motorcyle or the 30K Scooby, maybe it’s time to re-think buying new. I’m not being facetious in the least when I suggest instead turning that $40K towards a project vehicle. Think about it…if you were in the market for a fast four-door that the family could ride around in, what could $40K do to a mid-1990s Impala or 1980s Caprice? Do you shove $35 grand into a second or third-gen Camaro and have more fun for your buck? I’m almost convinced you could buy two Dodge trucks for the cost of the Ram…one first-gen Cummins truck with a rotten body, and a 1972-1980 W-series with a solid body to roll that chassis under. Just some food for thought, BangShifters!

The post Unhinged: Are There ANY New Cars Worth Looking At In 2023? Let’s Find Out! appeared first on BangShift.com.

I’m pretty sure that I have never met Ken. If I did, it was for maybe two seconds at a place like SEMA, where everyone is on a schedule like you wouldn’t believe and they have to be somewhere else in five minutes. But that’s alright. Name another name, it’s the same thing. What hits home for me this time, is that an inspiration, a vindication, has gone. He didn’t ball it up on a rally stage. He didn’t get talked into a stunt that pushed the limit an inch too far. He was on vacation with his family when an accident occurred and sadly, that accident was fatal. The same thing happens to people everyday. What makes Ken stand out?

When Gymkhana 1 (“Gymkhana Practice”) came out in 2008, the video spread like wildfire among the shops that I worked in. We were all soldiers back from Iraq, many of us from our second or even third tours, and we were spending our quieter time watching this dude throw a Subaru around like it was a $500 used car. Prior to the Gymkhana video, that was something you did when you thought nobody was nearby, or if you were on a quiet road somewhere in the middle of nowhere. That was felony territory. That was the kind of stuff done in grass fields and gravel fire roads and iced-over parking lots when you thought nobody was watching. Ken made it into an art form. Ken made that something to aspire to. He wasn’t just screwing off…he was honing a craft. And he had a shit-eating grin a mile wide on his face the whole time.

We’ve seen him grow from those early videos. Haley and I watched him compete in the Global RallyCross Championship finals in Las Vegas in 2012, the year when his Ford Fiesta rally car caught fire and was burning, Ken driving until his ECU melted off of its perch. Lohnes willingly hopped into a rally car with him in 2015 at the Team O’Neil Rally School and had his world re-written. We saw the big builds, like the Hoonicorn Mustang, the Hoonitruck, all of it come together. We saw Hoonigan grow into the media powerhouse it is.

It’s what wasn’t public that really kicks you in the gut. Whipping donuts and drifts in a wet parking lot way out of sight on a Friday night after you and your friends get amped up watching the videos. Seeing the excitement on my friend’s faces when they were walking the pits at the Oregon Trail Rally hoping to meet him. Watching hundreds…hell, probably thousands of people walled-up at the pit in front of the SEMA show as the Hoonicorn was putting on a show.

Seeing the look on some kid’s face as they were meeting the man they looked up to, maybe as a celebrity, certainly as an inspiration.

Godspeed.

The post Unhinged: The Impact That Ken Block Had appeared first on BangShift.com.

This year, I was offered the chance to try something new. I’ve made no bones that I’m a fan of Dylan McCool’s ’77 Ford Mustang Cobra II. This is one of Dylan’s more in-depth from-the-grave builds, and it’s a car that Dylan has fallen in love with. He’s wicked up the 302 to be a respectable unit, he’s replaced the fuel system and brakes, he’s put on some neat Minilite-style wheels that look properly killer and fit the Mustang II’s diminutive size, and the last time we saw the car, it was hazing the rears of like a proper backcountry beater. It’s a great take on my vision of a smaller, violent Ford product, and when I wrote that article up, I made no bones about the fact that I wanted to drive the car.

Dylan thought that was a good idea, and at Ford Fest, he tossed me the key to the Cobra II. Read on to see what I thought about meeting this particular hero…

Let’s address the first question: “Do I fit?” The answer: Just. I would fit better if the headliner was gutted out, as I had one of the support rods carving a ditch into my skull. My right leg is fine. My left foot is either on or underneath the clutch pedal…there is no in-between.

Dylan’s list of things to be concerned about was surprisingly minimal. The brakes were currently non-powered, the cooling system would be fine unless I got caught in traffic and the clutch “sucks” (his term). What he didn’t mention: the only functional factory gauge is the speedometer, and the only other gauges are zip-tied to the wiper arm. Oh, and the “door ajar” light is permamently on when the power is on. Nothing to worry about.

I creeped the car out of Beech Bend carefully, learning what the Mustang would and would not tolerate. He undersold how bad the clutch was…it works, but the feel through your foot is about garbage. Other than the rattles expected from a Cobra II that’s been abused most of it’s life, the car drove fine otherwise. Turning off of Beech Bend Road and onto Highway 68, I let the car have it, through all four gears. The speedometer is accurate…and let’s just say I saw enough of what it can read. The grunt is all down low…and it screams all the way through the rev range! The fun-killer? The hood started making a very threatening fluttering motion. I was not about to endure a hood-up situation in a car I don’t own, so I spent the rest of the drive cruising it. The Cobra will tolerate it, but it prefers digging in and raising hell.

Do I have recommendations? Sure. All of the wiring probably needs to be re-done, having functional gauges would be nice, and the headliner would be trashed in a second. Subframe connectors would go a long way here too. But overall? The Cobra is a riot. I’d rock this sucker all day long, until the cords were showing and the neighbors were actively calling the cops. I’d love to see what it would do on a road course.

Ultimately, I had to give the Cobra back. Dylan needed to load the Cobra back onto the trailer and prepare his ’68 Charger stocker that’s really a Town Car for the trip back home. Dylan, thank you for….wait. He was here a minute ago. Dylan? Where the hell did he…?

Excuse me, sir. SIR.

The post Unhinged: Driving Dylan McCool’s Cobra II Around At Ford Fest 2022 appeared first on BangShift.com.

Yet, somehow, along the way, the corporations that have controlled the Chrysler nameplate have allowed the 300 to wither on the vine as Dodge has not only thrived, but grown far beyond expectation with the same car. As the Hellcat Charger came to be, the Chrysler SRT-8 was discontinued for the domestic market and left to the Middle East and Australians. When the Scat Pack Widebody Charger came around, the only way anyone was excited to see a Chrysler 300 was as an upgrade at the airport rental car desk. You can still buy a 5.7L Hemi-powered Chrysler, if you can find one, but the proud 300 name has largely been ignored.

Well, if you are like me and wish that Chrysler had kept the SRT version around longer than 2014, here’s your chance to own the car they should have been cranking out like mad. The 2023 Chrysler 300C will be a limited-production final send-off for the rear-drive sedan. It’ll have the 485-horse 6.4L V8, it’ll trap the quarter in 12.4 seconds, it’ll have the options list thrown at it, it’ll have the Brembos, it’ll have it all.

The downside? There will be 2,000 made, you need to put in a reservation to order one, and good money says that dealerships will do everything in their power to upcharge the hell out of them once they hit the lot. You know, the “I’ve got a guy willing to pay twice that right now and I can call him if you can’t” mentality that most dealerships seem to have right now.

I’ll be the first to applaud Mopar for keeping the fire going as long as they have, cranking out machines as powerful as they have. But this seems like leftovers, stirred, garnished with a new seasoning, and sent back onto the serving line.

Save yourself the trouble. Score a V8 300C that’s maybe a year or two old, score a Hellcat drivetrain, and go make magic happen.

The post Unhinged: The 2023 Chrysler 300C Is Too Little, Too Late appeared first on BangShift.com.

This is your language warning. From here on out, the story becomes completely accurate, honest, and uncensored.

Kevin Brown, the ginger-bearded revival guru behind the Junkyard Digs YouTube channel, and I, have been friends for a bit. We have plenty of things in common: we’re both Army veterans with aviation pasts (he worked on CH-47 Chinook cargo helicopters while I worked on OH-58D(R) Kiowa Warrior scout birds. We both have a strange habit of buying random junk cars in the hope that joy comes out of them, and we both somehow lucked out and wound up working in this field. My story is pretty well-known here…I met Chad in Bonneville and Brian in Las Vegas, somehow made a positive impression, and in 2014 they offered me a full-time gig. Kevin had made a batch of videos just before his National Guard unit got shipped halfway across the world to a place I’ve been twice myself, and shortly after he started uploading videos he started to notice that people were watching them. Throwing a pissed-off possum off of an engine will do that. Ever since he figured out that I was showcasing his stuff, we’ve chatted quite a bit but we’ve only met in person once before, at the Kentucky Speedway stop of the 2019 Power Tour. And that wasn’t quite the visit it should have been. I was constantly flying off to get photographs, while he was helping Dylan McCool and the guys from DeBoss Garage with their mechanical maladies while simultaneously playing the role of Professional YouTuber to fans.

Fast forward a couple of years, and other than playing Grand Theft Auto every now and then and a rare video call, we hadn’t seen much of each other. Originally, I was slated to take part in his recent Grand Prix Grand Prix, but the timing couldn’t have been worse: it was the exact same weekend as LS Fest West 2022, and there was no way I was getting out of that. But he did mention going to a NASCAR race and camping in the infield again, this time in a larger motorhome than the 1977 Ford-based Coachman Class C camper he used the last time he took one to a NASCAR race. I was down, so I put in for a four-day weekend, packed up the Chevy Volt (gas prices? HA!), and prepared for my first experience with NASCAR since the time I drove the stock car in Las Vegas.

FRIDAY, May 13

At 8:00 A.M, the Volt crawled out of the driveway and began its trek westward towards Kansas City. The route was simple enough, one I’ve taken many times over the decades: north to Evansville, Indiana, then west on Interstate 64 to St. Louis, where I’d move to Interstate 70 and ride it out until I was on the Kansas side of the Kansas City metropolitan. Outside of a text forty-five minutes into the trip asking if I was already on the road, Kevin seemed to be on-time as well…at least, on my end.

This was supposed to be our home on wheels for the weekend. But by Thursday afternoon, it was very clear that this 454-powered Class A Winnebago wasn’t going to do a damn thing except provide video content. Not only was the carburetor not having it, but the head gasket was popped, the brakes were questionable and the tires were, undoubtedly, and without question dangerous. Free or not, this thing wasn’t going to make it out of Kevin’s driveway without a major incident. Late Thursday, Kevin axed the big boy out of the picture and drug out the “Poopmobile”, a $500 1984 Chevrolet G30-based Midas Class C camper that (last I had seen) had structural integrity issues and and the RV equivalent of an impacted bowel.

About the same time Kevin and crew were gearing up to head out in the Chevy, I was having a heart attack while passing St. Louis Lambert International Airport. A Honda CR-V’s right-rear tire had popped and the outer hoop of the tire separated perfectly, moved into my lane, and had made a beeline straight for my car. After missing the carcass and managing to not get slammed from behind by a Super Duty that was locking its brakes behind me, a lunchtime stop was required. Once I made sure my shorts were still clean, I sat down to a burger and got a text from Kevin:

Kevin Brown: “Well we’re off to a late start, and on top of that right as we start heading out the driveway the water pump starts weeping. Fuck it. Here we go.”

Despite the best efforts of St. Louis’ psychotic drivers and the dragging, choked clusterfuck that is traffic between the center of STL and the west side of Wentzville, Missouri, I managed to arrive at Kansas Speedway ten minutes ahead of the Iowa crew. Since I had to purchase my entry on-site, I had to wait for Kevin, Mook, Phoenix and the mighty Midas to roll into view. As monster diesel-pusher mansions on wheels and Rams hauling huge fifth-wheel trailers that cost twice what my house cost cruised on by, there was no mistaking the sound of a smog-choked 350 turning the corner. The Chevy was pretty much a full-blown offense to every other RV on-site. After getting our passes, parking the Volt in overflow parking, and letting some poor drug-sniffing dog get a huge whiff of the Poopmobile while searching for possible contraband, we were on our way.

(Now that I’m writing this…did Kevin give a German Shepard PTSD?)

My first impressions of the Poopmobile were…surprisingly positive. Sure, it was a visual poke in the eye compared to expensive-ass Newmar motorhomes. But certainly didn’t smell like twenty tons of raw sewage and amazingly, it wasn’t boiling hot inside either. It ran like a champ and didn’t sound like it would collapse, and the roadside disco couch that Kevin had manhandled into the spot where a table/bed combination used to be would make for a perfect bed. At least, it had better, because that was my home for the weekend. Like every other old, sketchy couch found in the basement, it was unrealistically comfortable.

For those who aren’t familiar with how infield camping works at NASCAR tracks…well, research it, because I’m still trying to figure it out. The rough idea is that you rent a plot of land where you want to park for the weekend in some kind of lottery system. Kevin wanted to be as close to the inside of a turn as possible, and our first parking spot put us in the middle of Turn 3. Hindsight later showed that if we wanted to see just about every crash that would happen over the weekend, we should have stayed here instead of moving to Turn 2 on Saturday, but at the time they were just happy to make camp and get to what Kevin kept referring to the “NASCAR experience”, which had nothing to do with racing. So we set out the chairs and the funky “carpet” (really, plasticky floor covering raided from the dead Winnebago) and Kevin whipped up the first drink of the day, a “Beer Shot”.

“Beer Shot”: 3/4 shot of Licor 43 and float heavy whipping cream to create a mini-beer look. Tastes like a caramel milkshake, very smooth. Great for making friends, bartering amongst the locals or just enjoying.

Most of Friday night was simply chatting, laughing, and planning out how everyone was going to sleep. Then the decision was made to hike it out to a nearby restaurant called “José Pepper’s”, a place that Kevin and Mook adore. Phoenix, rightfully concerned about eating Mexican food before sleeping with three other people in a Chevy van with aspirations, just had two plain tacos. The rest of us didn’t think about that, enjoyed our food and margaritas, and after making our way back to the track, we walked a lap of the track campground. We found the guy who brought a hot tub, and we found the DJ booth and dance floor.

Once we got back to our spot, we sat around and chatted until we were ready for bed. With the generator running, the air conditioner chilling us out and everybody socked away to their assigned sleeping quarters, we crashed out.

Until sometime in the early morning hours, when José Pepper proved to be the ultimate asshole, at least in my book.

Saturday, May 14

Morning came early for Kevin and I. We both made our way out to the chairs as the sun was just beginning to lighten up the sky, leaving Mook and Phoenix to sleep. While slowly coming to terms with last night’s decisions, we were making progress right up until 6:30 A.M., when Kansas Speedway’s PA system started blaring out the classic tune, “Here Comes The Sun”, in a move that made us both think that someone at the controls had a vile sense of humor. Annoyed, we decided that we’d be better off with breakfast, so we dived back into the RV. I took refuge on the couch while Kevin started warming up sausage breakfast sandwiches on the propane stove for everyone. Phoenix rose long enough to accept and eat his sandwich, then proceeded to return back to his coma, cuddling the paper plate.

While we were in a great spot to observe early testing of the ARCA and Trucks, Kevin was in stir. The “NASCAR experience” that involved friends, food, and everything else he wanted us to have wasn’t anywhere near us. Instead, what I suspected was a modified MCI or Thomas bus sat two rows away, menacing us. We stuck around past a lunch of barbecued hot dogs and burgers, along with the occasional Beer Shot, but sometime in the early afternoon, after Phoenix and I had hopped back into the air-conditioned camper for a quick nap, Kevin had finally had enough and started to pack up to move. We left Turn 3 and moved over to Turn 2, where he had found friends from his trip last year. They had an open spot, we were welcomed to it, and judging from the sound of things, we were going to be in for a treat.

We spent the afternoon watching the ARCA race and NASCAR qualifying laps before diving off of the deep end. That evening, we were treated to the Truck race, but more importantly we were simply treated. One of the neat things about camping in the infield is that it seems like everybody is in a good mood, plenty of people are somewhere between “content” and “happy drunk”, and everybody becomes friends:

“Hey, we made burritos, come get one!”

“We whipped up some margaritas! Take one!”

“You look thirsty. Here’s a piña colada!”

“We made pasta! Get yourself a plate!”

And there was the music, too. Besides the PA music, we had thumping music in the form of a wagon with a boombox being towed by somebody’s mom who was dancing her ass off unabashedly. (I’d share the video, readers, but the YouTube algorithm doesn’t want you to hear bad 2000s pop music. Sorry!)

I kept up until about ten at night, when the responsible adult side of me (who is long past his brutal drinking days) decided to wisely retire for the evening. Phoenix didn’t do any of that and instead went full-tilt until sometime before one in the morning. I know that because I woke up and walked outside for a bit. Phoenix was in his cubbyhole in the back, deep in slumber, but one of the dudes next door was crashed out in his lawn chair, fast asleep.

SUNDAY, May 15

You know that really good early-morning sleep, the kind you can just fall back into without effort? Yeah…I was right there. I had woken up at six in the morning to hit the porta-potty, and had checked the weather. Rain was inbound, we knew, but at that moment it was one small cloud, barely a rain shower.

By eight in the morning, that happy little cloud became a real motherfucker and Kevin and I wound up scrambling to get everything out of the way before it pissed all over our parade.

The video does not do justice to what we got hit with. We got hail and about three inches of downpour within thirty minutes, followed by regular, heavy rain for another hour or so. Phoenix, true to form, remained in a coma until well after noon, a result of his socialization time earlier in the night.

By the time the rain had subsided and I was getting ready to step out of the camper and make my way to the portable shower trailers to make myself acceptable, there was standing water everywhere. There was also a shopping cart that somehow had magicked itself next to the port-a-john sometime overnight. Happily, the AdventHealth 400 was scheduled to run at two in the afternoon and the sun had come out. So as most of the water evaporated, we topped off the coolers, moved the chairs to the roof of the Chevy, and prepared to enjoy the race. As the burgers were grilled, the National Anthem played, and the A-10 Warthogs flew overhead, we settled in and for 267 laps of Kansas Speedway, we watched cars drive in circles.

Here’s the thing: most of the racing, from where I sit, was just “alright”. I really dig the tight pack racing you see at starts and re-starts after a caution. That shit is like watching forty drivers pretend to be the Blue Angels for a few laps. That rules. But then they spread out and until something happens, it’s just lap after lap. In fact, outside of those moments, the only other racing I paid much attention to was the final fifteen laps of the AdventHealth 400, when Kurt Busch and Kyle Larson were going for the win. Larson drove his ass off in a car that was loose (a few times we watched him smear blue paint onto the outer wall and once we saw him drift out of Turn 2 fully crossed-up) but Busch just had a monster under the hood and it was only a matter of time before he captured the checkered flag.

Instead, what I enjoyed about the weekend was the camaraderie, coupled with Kevin’s budget plan. We lived just fine in the $500 RV. We were comfortable. So long as you didn’t stick your head in the fridge, it was no worse than any other RV out there. (I did experience the fridge. The smell hits like a Butterbean right cross and gives you a glimpse into Hell for a moment, as if you were John Constantine.) We had air conditioning. We had hot breakfast sandwiches. And I’m pretty sure that Kevin didn’t need to bring nearly anything with him other than more stuff for Beer Shots, because that was how he made friends. We had Hailie Deegan and Chase Cabre swing by and say hello, and they walked out to our campsite and did photos with fans while chatting it up. I slept great on a couch found near a pizza joint on the side of the road. Everybody went out of their way to make all of us feel welcomed, and outside of a couple of people Kevin knew from the 2021 race, these were just random folk.

The cost of the trip? Fuel, food, the right taillight of the Chevy that got broken when my size 15 stepped on it instead of the ladder to the roof (sorry again, Kevin!) and the damage that was sure to be endured when eating Mexican food. I might not be a fan of NASCAR racing overall, but bet that I am down to camp in the infield anytime. Where else will someone dressed as Elvis or Captain Obvious offer you food and drink and hospitality?

…and you thought I was kidding. HA!

Ultimately, though, everything has to end. As the post-race ceremonies got underway, we packed up the Chevy and headed towards the tunnel out of the speedway. After making sure that the Volt could escape the mud pit that parking had become, I split off from the Junkyard Digs gang and bolted back east, cannonballing all the way back to my house. A midnight trip through St. Louis while following a convoy of brilliantly lit-up NASCAR haulers just made this whole experience complete.

There’s my words. But just in case you need a visual, here’s the video of the fun:

The post Unhinged: Cheap-Ass Camping In The Infield At Kansas With Junkyard Digs! appeared first on BangShift.com.

Click here if you missed the first chapter in this series!

We had the Plymouth dragged to my house. We had folded what was left of the stock exhaust into oragami, pissed off my neighborhood with the sound of a dragging pipe, trenched part of my front yard, but the 1976 Fury Sport was on the work pad in my front yard, with a completely clean engine bay and an electrical system that had not gone up in smoke yet. So far, for a car that cost about as much as the carburetor that was put onto the Rough Start Fox’s 302, that’s a win. Notice that something is missing? That’s right, the 318 and 904 automatic did not make the initial trip. They were still sitting on the floor of the garage we’d bought the car from, which meant that I had to borrow my wife’s truck and on my lunch break, go get the engine and everything else that was left to pick up. I’m sure nobody blinked twice at seeing an engine and transmission strapped-down in the bed of a truck the rest of the day. 

That weekend, priority #1 was to jam 150 horsepower’s worth of Malaise-era muscle back under the hood of the Fury from whence it came. Actually plonking the engine back underhood would not be a big deal. It came out of the car…stood to reason it would go right back in with no fight, right? It did, but there were a bunch of ancillary issues that would need to be addressed before this thing was going to run under it’s own power. Questions needed to be answered…starting with, “Where the hell is everything else?” We suspected that everything removed from the car was shoved into the trunk…BUT, because my luck had to step into the way, the trunk key was missing. My neighbors got the treat of watching me use a four-foot-long drill bit to bust through the trunk lock cylinder. But it worked, and once I vacuumed up the metal shavings and installed a new, keyed cylinder, we got to work assessing what we had to work with.

The radiator, which had been left in the trunk, was crumbling like a piece of bread left out in the sun for days. The radiator cooling lines had been cut about a foot back from the radiator with what I suspect was either bolt cutters or large pruning shears. There were no “down pipes” to go with the stock exhaust…those were simply gone, they weren’t with the car at all…so we’d either have to get headers or custom-make down pipes to go to an exhaust, which had to be replaced because…well, because I had to hacksaw the old system off of the rear axle. We weren’t sure if we had everything for the kickdown, the water pump was seized, the distributor’s top end had been crushed, and a freeze plug was completely missing. On the positive side of things, the crank rotated with no issue, so add spark and fuel and this puppy should run. It’s the beauty of the 318…stock they don’t make power and aren’t that impressive, but a 318 will run at the last inch of it’s life better than most engines run on their best day. It’d live.

And that’s where our first mistake happened. Once the engine was in, other things stood in the way. I got busy working on the Charger’s HVAC system and Chris got busy acquiring parts to make this thing actually do something besides keep the concrete pad dry when it rained. We figured that we had time to get things together well before our goal of the first King of the Heap race in January 2022. We had things we wanted to get done while the weather was still good, because we both knew that we didn’t want to work on this big, ungainly bitch in the cold. We would do bits here and there, but it ultimately took bucking down on a couple of weekends to get things right. Chris took what was left of the transmission cooler lines to get cleaned up and flared so that we could run a bit of ATF-safe hose from the ends to the brand-new radiator he had bought. I replaced the water pump, flushed out the block a bit and put in a new freeze plug. Chris scored a new kickdown assembly and a four-barrel intake to replace the 2-bbl factory unit, which saved us a ton of time (and the weight of a small child off of the nose). A little bit here, a small bit there, and we got to the point where we had fuel in the bowls of the carburetor and we were ready to see what would happen:

Happily, nothing caught fire, exploded, or dumped seven gallons of oil onto my property, and none of the neighbors complained about yet another fully unmuffled car running on my property. We had hope. We needed to finish out a fuel system, get the timing sorted, get a set of tires that weren’t a second away from exploding onto the car, and verify that we had a functioning transmission. What we did learn was that the shifter linkage has so much slop in it we almost always need to have the shifter in Neutral in order to get past the neutral safety switch because Park is almost unreachable.

Sadly, this is where the project went off the rails. The first start happened in early December, and while the Plymouth ran, moving wasn’t an option, we hadn’t touched the suspension, hadn’t driven the car to see what could potentially be broken in the system, and had done zero tuning whatsoever. We had the components for an exhaust on-hand, but the exhaust manifolds were the hang-up…do we pull them and pray every bolt comes out to swap for headers, or do we wind up with a drill, the tap set out and tons of anger over a car that is just barely above “worthless”? So…we procrastinated. There, I said it. We had lost the initiative, we lost the will, and within days of the first start, the weather sealed the deal as Kentucky proceeded to endure what happens when Mother Nature uses a magic 8-ball for meteorological conditions. We had the tornadoes, then we had full-blast winter conditions, then mud, then the Holidays…you get the idea.

We weren’t going to make King of the Heap’s first event. I wasn’t sure we would make the second event, either. But there was no way this car wasn’t going to live…especially after Chris started to fall in love with it. This is the second time that we’ve drug home a sub-$1,000 car and he’s gone head-over-heels for it, the first being the Dirty Cougar project. This Fury shall live. Next update, you’ll see it drive.

The post Unhinged: Reviving A Fury Sport, Part 2 – Remove “Simple” From The Vocabulary appeared first on BangShift.com.