Challenger near the haunted house

September 18, 2014September 18, 2014 / challenyee / Leave a comment

Back in the 1970’s where the current Google headquarters is in Mountain View, California, was all farm land. There were many flower nurseries, ranches and dairy farms. My father rented part of a quanset hut for storage of his electric cars and roofing materials from a dairy farmer named Mr. Holthouse. We used to make frequent trips from home in Palo Alto to the Holthouse farm which was only about 10-15 minutes away, taking those memorable drives down the old farmland roads.

One of those roads to the farm was Stierlin Road (which is now Shoreline) and the west side of the road was lined with farm properties and on the east side a largely desolate, unkept, open farm land with an old Victorian house sitting in the middle of nowhere (an area close to the now SGI site). The old white 3 story house we all thought was haunted and it looked menacing as it appeared in a dilapidated state sitting out there all alone along with a few trees.*

It was on that road that my father first let me drive his Datsun mini pickup. This was a couple years before I got my license, I think when I was only 14. My dad used to let me shift all the time from the passenger side, but this was the first time I ever drove a full sized car. I drove it down that old country road perfectly, shifting gears and then pulling off to let my dad take over. I impressed my dad with how well I drove a stick shift for the first time – I attribute that to countless rehearsals in my mind in anticipation for that moment.

This worked out great for my dad, not long after this, he used to let me drive all over the place for work, before I had my license (don’t tell anyone, okay?).

It was along that old Stierlin Road, just about across the road from the old haunted house, that I noticed a “tree find.”

There was a sublime 1970 Challenger, with a tow hitch, which was neglected under a tree in front of a farmer’s yard. I saw that car every time taking Stierlin to and from our shop. I thought for sure this neglected car might be something I could afford without help. I mean, who would leave his Challenger, for what seemed like forever, rotting under a tree? Maybe the guy would ask for $500 or something.

One day my dad and I drove our little four speed mini-pickup over there to pay the unknown owner a visit. Upon closer inspection, the car was an R/T, with a 383 Magnum and a four-speed. My heart started thumping again with the prospects of getting this one for cheap. We knocked on the door and the owner, a young man, maybe in his mid twenties, came out and explained that he was interested in selling the car. To get my adrenaline flowing, he started talking about how fast the car was and how “it just wants to go faster all the time.” (it didn’t make any sense but I was willing to believe anything and it sounded good). I still had a paranoia about powerful four speeds, but I figured it would be something I could get over for the right price.

The guy tried to start the 383, but the battery was dead. Without a thought, my dad asked me to move our truck closer so they could hook up jumper cables, which I did without question. But then the most unexpected thing happened as I tried to nudge the truck closer to the Challenger’s battery… I pressed the clutch in and suddenly panic overcame me. The truck started rolling on its own!

My foot neglected the brake pedal. (Oh *%$#!) To this day, I remember the owner’s expression, a look of complete unadulterated shock as he sat at the Challenger’s driver’s seat watching helplessly as I glided the truck right smack into his fender!

Thankfully, I don’t remember my dad yelling or getting really insane (being a paratrooper in the War, it seemed like things had to get a lot worse before he blew his top).

The guy still asked if we wanted to buy his R/T, for $1850. But it was too much. Maybe, I was just too embarrassed to deal. My Dad helped pay 150 dollars for him to get his dent repaired. The guy said he was going to get the car painted anyways, which he did, painting it black before selling the R/T for about $2400.

Too good to be true. Maybe it was the haunted house.

* The old “haunted house” became a historical site and has since been relocated and renovated. It stands at Shoreline Park, Mountain View, about a mile away from its original location.

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The Dodge Kid in his youth about 1976.

Simmering over 440 overheating issues

August 28, 2014October 5, 2014 / challenyee / Leave a comment

Mo-Ideas about heated issues – part 1

Some random thoughts in no specific order related to high speed overheating of my Challenger since I got it back from the shop.

There’s two things I wish they didn’t mess with, one is change my old thermostat in the process of detailing my engine and the other was change my ignition timing when they were trying to get it to idle (what was needed was to adjust/richen the outboard idle mixture screws). Messing with only one system at a time helps troubleshooting. Oh well, make the best of it. Before I had no overheating problems and I didn’t back fire through the carb at all.

Through tweaking the carbs and timing, I’ve been able to drive the car harder with almost no popping out the carb, but accelerating under load can still cause a pop or multiple pops, oddly enough, about once per drive, if I jump on it.

The cooling problem only occurs if I get into high RPM’s for a couple of sustained runs (usually hard acceleration) – then I watch the temp gauge drift higher out of the normal range which does not cool off until i park the car. The car runs well (doesn’t start high temp knocking), but I take the Challenger back home not tempting fate with it boiling over on the road.

BULGE HOODS NON-FUNCTIONAL or FUNCTIONAL?

Getting more air flow – Every little bit helps.

Just incase you were wondering, the bulge hoods as they come of the showroom floor are non-functional. However, with a phillips screwdriver, you can remove the outer sheet metal covers and allow air to stream into the dual scoops.

Behind the scoops under the hood are plastic diverters that allow air to slip over and into the engine compartment, but will catch water and route it off laterally to drip rails on the inside of the bulge.

For a cooler look, you can get some black touch up paint and help blackout the screw tabs if they are the same color as your body to make them less conspicuous.

In this close up of the R/T hood scoop, you can see how the Factory set them as “non-functional” bulge hood.

With the flip of your Phillips Screwdriver, you can remove the metal plates that block the opening that keep the low flying birds from getting sucked in and have a functioning ram air bulge hood.

Here is the under hood look at what is behind the hood scoop. You see a water deflector which allows air to pass over and directs water (and air) laterally to a hood rail.

If I were to cut a perfectly good piece of sheet metal (which I will not), the back of the bulge would be a nice customization spot to vent a hot engine compartment.

BULGE HOODS (continued)…

The reason I started looking at simple ways to get the under hood temps cooler is ever since I got my car back from the shop it’s been running hot after high speed runs (at least above 4000-4500 RPM). The guys at the shop replaced the thermostat in the process of detailing the engine. At low and moderate speeds the engine runs at a reasonable temp (according to my dash temp gauge) where coolant does not overflow when I stop the engine.

MILODON HI FLOW THERMOSTAT ON ORDER

We used a 180 deg thermostat, which is okay, but I’ve ordered Milodon Hi Flow unit along with FLUKE 62 MAX laser thermometer to see what the actual temps are on the engine and radiator (and on our kitchen frying pan!). I plan to replace the thermometer as well as check for any surprise objects that might be under or interfering the thermostat operation.

WHAT ABOUT REDLINE WATER WETTER?

I also plan on draining all the coolant and run 100% distilled water plus RedLine Water Wetter, which you must run if you run only water in order to lubricate the water pump and also help bring the coolant temps down more.

I ran this coolant setup on my 1965 Mustang that I used for open track. The other cool benefit from running only water for coolant is if you spew water, it doesn’t become a green toxic track mess. Open track coolant spills are a pain requiring special cleanup procedures, but if you’re just running a water and Water Wetter… no problem, it just needs to evaporate! It’s important that you change the coolant every year, because I’ve heard that old Water Wetter can begin gumming up your cooling system.

Changing coolant becomes less of an issue since draining water (with a little Water Wetter) is more ecologically safe compared to GREEN coolant. (At least I think so!).

THOUGHTS ON CARB JETTING

If the above ideas don’t help cool down the engine enough, I’ll need to check the plugs and see if the engine is running too lean. I retarded the timing from 36 to 34 degrees Total advance and I still have a problem. Running richer jets, will have some effect on engine temp also. I believe the stock jets on the primary carb are #62’s and I have a spare set of #64s and #66s.

Actually, I’ve run variations of jet sizes in my Mustang and have run timing off, and I don’t remember having to worry about overheating, but every little idea helps (and will make the engine run stronger).

For right now, it’s easier to check the thermostat, change the coolant and look for obstructions.

Here’s a close up of my steel fan and clutch and fan shroud connected to a 4 core steel radiator.

My O’Reilly Auto Parts Special. Before I put this in, my engine would spew coolant, now even with the engine getting excessively hot after high speed driving, the large can size is just large enough to catch the whole burp. Good thing I decided to by the larger overflow “can”

RANDOM ODDs and ENDs

My car has a 3 core-copper radiator, offset-bladed fan with a clutch and fan shroud. No, I’d rather just keep the factory stuff and not have to run an aluminum radiator if I don’t have to (although as fellow Linkedin member Erik Kenny notes, these symptoms are hot for a clogged radiator).

I had added the coolant overflow kit (the largest size available at your typical auto supply store) before this cooling problem and it’s a good thing, otherwise I’d have a driveway full of coolant every time I stop after a high speed highway drive. Right now it’s a self contained system that keeps all the overflow and sucks it back in when it cools down.

LASER CHECK YOUR BUTTERED EGGS, BEER and YOUR B-BLOCK MOPAR

I’ll give you guys an update after I check the thermostat and laser check the cooling system and my fried eggs in butter. By the way, you shouldn’t heat butter over 350-400 degrees when cooking. The next time you come over for a beer you can borrow my laser thermometer to make sure you’re not over-nuc’ing your eggs or your MoPar.

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The Dodge Kid in his youth about 1976.

When the rubber meets the Road

May 24, 2014May 25, 2014 / challenyee / 1 Comment

Observations on the suspension, tires and handling

With the updated suspension, the Challenger drives straight while staying pretty level and even around turns.

I’m running the standard arc Firm Feel Industries (FFI) HD leaf springs, 1.00 FFI torsion bars and Bilstein shocks. FFI 1.25 front sway bar with lower control arm braces, FFI factory style 0.75 rear sway bar, factory manual steering, and Mopar Performance frame connectors. If I had to characterize the new suspension in just a few words, I would say it feels like the car “acts as one unit” and not the front end feeling like it’s in one city and the rear end is in another.

The straight line road feel is good and reasonably comfortable. The suspension feels tight and a lot quieter with the new leaf springs. After having taken the car out for a few drives, the one thing that I found uncomfortable was the sort of bumpiness feeling of the tires when driving pulling some G’s around a constant radius turn.

One thing about my BF Goodrich Tires are they are NEW. Which is terrible for best traction. So I want to put some wear on them before I fully judge them. Yet this weird feeling with the tires jogged my memory from a past experience.

I remember from open-tracking my old 1965 Mustang was the tire pressure can have this effect.

When I first started open-tracking, I was under the wrong notion that having a higher PSI is better for racing or track driving, and some fear of tires coming off rims. On my Mustang (a red GT350 clone with white stripes) I ran 225/50×15 BF Goodrich Comp T/A’s and ran 40 psi in front an 38 PSI in the back. The result was the car felt a little bit like a sidestepping hobbyhorse going around turns. Instead of a nice smooth controlled slide/drifting around turns, the car seemed to be be stupidly bouncing sideways. It felt terrible. It felt like being in Bozo the Clown’s car at Sears Point Raceway.

A Ford Interlude

MoPar fans, please excuse the Ford photos ;), but that is what I had to do in the 1980’s, when my brother and I picked a Mustang for a platform, a car that had lots of available parts at the time to do what I wanted at reasonable cost. I still had my first Challenger up until about the mid 80’s, but sold it when it was idle in storage – I was serving in the Navy overseas at the time. My brother drove the Mustang while I was away. Also I want to give thanks to the influence of a good friend, Scott Douglas, who was one of my original car fanatic buddies in junior high school. He grew up becoming an expert on Mustangs and Shelbys and was always willing to lend a helping hand when I was home on leave.

Photo at left is my first open track at Laguna Seca, using 235x60x15 Goodyear Eagles on steel magnum 500’s, and photo right is with the 225x50x15 BFG Comp T/A’s on Torq-Thrust D wheels plus side exit exhaust.

When I lowered the tire pressure to 35#(F)-32#(R) everything completely smoothed out and I had complete confidence in the ability to feel the car drift very smoothly around turns. Absolute control.

Okay, okay… and back to the Challenger!

Anyway, back to my Challenger. I checked the pressure on all 4 tires cold, and they were all at 36 PSI. I immediately lowered all of them to 33#. I’ll see what happens the next time I’m out. The max recommended pressure in 35#.

[one day later]
Okay, took the car out for a spin with my son and we mildly terrorized the local highway and cloverleafs and what did I discover? Ahh… I got that loving feeling back between me and the road. I can tell the bumpy drifting is gone and the BF Goodrich, while not sticking as long as a lower profile tire with racier tread, was acting consistently and predictably. I was able to control the drifting with the accelerator pretty easily without feeling like Bozo the Clown.

The E-body was staying very level around constant radius turns and the tires feel like they’re drifting with just a little oversteer. The manual steering is giving me some decent feedback and feel. Definitely would like to take on turns where I can stab the front end into a tight corner and see how it handles going through and out of the turn. Overall, I’m pretty happy with the handling of this big E-body that’s packing a 440.

I’m watching my 10 year old son riding shotgun. He is more interested in Minecraft, watching TV and listening to the local rock station, so he’s not too much of a motorhead yet, but I can catch him out of the corner of my eye when I’m getting on to the highway and bringing the RPM’s high enough to engage the outboard carbs, the exhaust is roaring while our bodies are getting pressed back on the seats. It gives me some sort of weird fatherly pleasure as he’s bracing himself in the presence of horsepower.

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The Dodge Kid in his youth about 1976.

Back to the Future

May 17, 2014 / challenyee / Leave a comment

A trip back to my past
PALO ALTO HIGH SCHOOL – Palo Alto, California

The Back Parking Lot of Palo Alto High School, where most of the students parked their muscle cars.

Where the street machine craze went real- Palo Alto High School, the back parking lot where between1978-1980 we practiced the loosening of our youthful daring, restrained by a world of academics and motor vehicle law. It was in this part of the parking lot where many a street machine came screaming at high R’s and high G’s around the end of the lot with tires laying down prodigious amounts of rear and sometimes front tire rubber across the barren asphalt.

Just look at the money they pumped into this high school football field. I guess, considering it is within a mile of Stanford Stadium where the Cardinal (once the “Indians”) play, they needed to spruce things up. Believe it or not, my two kids are hiding with their heads out of view in my car.

In the back parking lot os Palo Alto High School, the boys' gym in the background. Same building as in 1980 and many years before, but we didn't have the cool looking Viking Ship paint job back in then.

In the back parking lot of Palo Alto High School, the boys’ gym in the background. Same building as in 1980 and many years before, but we didn’t have the cool looking Viking Ship paint job back then.

Palo Alto High School and the current day entry gate to the football field. Man, they sure beautified this area since 1980. It looked like a dump with a cheap cyclone fence in 1980. Sure makes for a nice pick with my Challenger now.

Palo Alto High School and the current day entry gate to the football field. Man, they sure beautified this area. It looked like a dump with a cheap cyclone fence in 1980. Sure makes for a nice photo-op with my Challenger now.

Palo Alto HIgh School auto shop, where Mr. O.D. Mitchell awarded me twice as many units for taking Auto in my senior year because I did the work. I also won the Industrial Arts Award. Mr. Mitchell was one of most important mentors I had in my youth. He told me once, “Yee, most teenagers have one of three vices: sex, drugs or speed… yours is speed.” Apparently the beautification budget hasn’t got to this area of the school yet. It looks almost exactly the same as it did when I graduated in 1980.

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The Dodge Kid in his youth about 1976.