Well I’ve been out trying to enjoy the car as much as possible so I don’t spend too much time on here anymore but I thought I would make an update.
As far as mechanicals about the only work I’ve done on the car in the last 2 years is I replaced the clutch master cylinder. I had one of the real early Keisler ones and to get it to shift you had to jam your foot all the way to the floor as far as possible. So I finally replaced it with the setup from American Powertrain, which is much nicer, with the adjustable firewall bracket and much shorter pedal travel.
I repaired a leak in the A/C system and so I’ve been able to enjoy driving the car this last summer. The Vintage Air works good when everything is working right and it kept up even in the 110 degree summer heat (no humidity though). It sure makes a big difference being able to drive on the freeway with the windows up and the AC on.
The only issue I’ve had is I had to make a road side repair on the way home from Vegas from this years Mopars at the Strip (it’s ~450 miles one way). When we got to Kingman off the 93, we decided to drive down Route 66 and at the 2nd stoplight I look at my temp gauge and its at 210. That's not good since it never goes over 185. At least I had some luck, in that the car decided to break down in Kingman instead of the middle of nowhere between Vegas and Kingman. If you’ve ever been on that stretch of 93 it's really desolate.
So I check the electric fan and it's really hard to turn. Bummer. So luckily there was a NAPA 200 yards down the road for where I had parked. I pull the fan and head over there. The one NAPA employee was a hot rodder since he knew it was a Lincoln MK VIII fan as soon as he saw it and proceeded to tell me they didn't have any. The other employee nicely tried calling the other 2 auto parts stores that are open in Kingman on a Sunday but neither of them had one either. The NAPA guy says the Taurus fan is really good too, but they didn't have one of those either. So I knew Brad Richmond used a Chevy HHR fan on his Challenger, so I asked about that and luckily they had one of those in stock for $80 bucks. Sold.
I then proceeded to use wire ties to attach the fan to the radiator and I wired it up to my fan controller, unfortunately when the fan seized up it took out the controller too. So lacking anything else to do, I used some butt connectors and a spare piece of 10 gauge wire to wire it directly to ignition switched battery voltage meaning it would run non-stop. It worked fine and got me home with no issues. I was even blasting the A/C on high and it did OK. It did run like 7 - 10 degrees hotter than my Lincoln fan especially at idle. So when I got home I ordered a new MK VIII fan motor and just replaced the motor. The original fan I had bought used from eBay, so hopefully with the new motor I won’t have any more problems. I also re-wired the system to use a simpler setup of just relays and I use the FAST XFI to turn the fans on and off.
Anyway, since I never posted them here’s some pics from MATS this year.
Part of the Phoenix group meet. I like how the guy tows with his Ram SRT-10.
This is the Phoenix group trying to leave the first meet.
Here’s a view looking over the Air Grabber hood of a Roadrunner
Following the same Roadrunner
Friends from the local Mopar club built this old school gasser
Glad I have an overdrive transmission!
Following the wife’s Jeep outside of Vegas. I liked the scenery in this picture.
In the tech inspection line at The Strip in Vegas.
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Here’s kind of a boring video I put together showing some of what it’s like on the cruise from Phoenix to Vegas.
MATS 2016 cruiseHere’s a clip of me on the Strip at Vegas. I still can’t put one whole good run together. I either get a good launch and then blow the 2-3 shift, or I get a crappy launch and then a good 2-3 shift.
MATS 2016 outside view of Cuda passHere’s the same pass but with a view from inside the car. You can see how slow I am on the 2-3 shift. I also don’t powershift it.
MATS 2016 in car view of CudaThe last road course Track Day I did was 2 years ago. Here’s some video from that. This is what a full lap around the course looks like. A couple things, I only drive at like 80% because I want to actually get the car home in one piece, plus on the couple corners where there are walls on the track that you can hit, I take it even easier. I also generally leave it in 4th gear. Of course for a faster lap time I should be downshifting to 2nd and 3rd, but I leave it in 4th for 2 reasons. 1) to focus on my driving and 2) then I don’t have to worry about spinning out on the exit of a corner due to too much power. I know I’m a wuss.
Track Day at Inde full lapHere’s another video from the same day. My best friend and I were playing lead - follow switching off every lap. This time I was following him when we caught a Subaru WRX STi. If you watch the whole video towards the end the Subaru ends up going off course right in front of my buddy. It ended up tearing off the lower front facia of the Subaru from where he hit the dirt berm.
Track Day 12-6-14 at Inde Motorsports RanchOther than that I’ve just been trying to attend as many car events as I can. My favorite part of going to car shows is meeting up with the local Mopar club to cruise into the show together. Here was one big show in November where we had an early morning meeting.
I got to follow behind this all original Challenger T/A. Pretty sweet. Its fun to park by him too since his car is all original and mine is all modified.
Anyway, that’s it for now.
Travis
72 Cuda
