This time on Roadkill, you asked for it, you got it,
finally, it is a showdown between Blasphemi
and my F-Rod in an 8-second quarter-mile showdown.
And we made 1,100 HP in this car
and road-tripped it nearly 800 miles.
-Big win. -Still runs.
[theme music playing]
[David] Blasphemi is back.
Our 426-based Hemi in a '55 Chevy
has been with us since season 1 of Roadkill.
Can you even believe that?
-Has it been that long? -It has been that long.
And I haven't seen it in, I don't know,
two or three years.
And a whole bunch of stuff has changed.
Here's our plan. We're gonna start here
at Wild Horse Motorsports Park in Chandler, Arizona,
make some passes, I guess, tune on it,
figure out what's gone wrong.
[both laugh]
And then we're gonna road-trip the thing
to San Diego, California, right along the border.
We have to change the supercharger at a dyno shop,
tune it up to make it quicker,
then road-trip it to Famoso Dragstrip,
which is outside of Bakersfield, California,
where my own Model A called the F-Rod will be sitting there.
And my Model has gone 8.501 in the quarter-mile.
[Mike] This car's never been that fast.
It ran a bunch of 60s in Vegas.
But since then, it's pretty much been broken.
And, um, currently, that supercharger's wore out,
which is why I ordered a blower and sent it ahead of us,
hoping that we can pick up power.
The car got heavier over the last couple of years
because I got tired of, say, the fiberglass trunk lid blowing off.
[David laughs]I remember that.
[Mike] So it has a steel trunk lid on it now,
which is way heavier than I thought it would be.
So I got rid of 19 pounds of battery cable
by moving the battery up front.
-Um... Yeah. -Really?
[Mike] And that battery was over here,
but then I was having oil pressure issues with it.
Every time I pulled the parachute,
I'd lose all the oil pressure.
So everything is different. The motor plates,
the oiling system, the fuel system,
the electrical system.
The blower, though, is the same blower from 2019,
and I'm pretty sure it's wore out.
Was it on the '85 when you won Drag Week?
-Mmm-hmm. Yeah. -Yeah?
But these headers are different.
[Mike] These are slightly bigger.
When was the last time this road-tripped successfully?
2019.
[Mike] Let's talk history of Blasphemi.
This is my favorite Roadkillproject car of all time,
and it all began with a $2,300 body of a '55 Chevy Bel Air
that we bought out of a backyard in Hemet, California.
And we hauled it all the way to Oregon
to Jim Meyer Racing,
slid one of his cool gasser chassis under it,
then we cut the wheel wells, put some cool wheels and tires on it.
But the key to this whole car is Freiburger's fault.
It was his idea to put a Chrysler 426 Hemi under the hood.
So that's what we did. We thought, "Why not?
Hemi in a Chevy,
you're either gonna love it or hate it."
So, in the beginning,
all I wanted was a cool street car,
kind of like what the guys in the movieTwo-Lane Blacktop drove.
I loved the look of that car,
which is why this car is flat black.
And in the beginning,
I didn't really care about how fast it went.
I just wanted it to look cool.
And then somewhere along the line,
I lost my mind
and just spent every waking moment
and most of my money
making it faster and faster
until, finally, in 2019,
Tony Angelo and I won Hot Rod magazine's Drag Week event,
going as quick as 161 mph in this thing.
The problem is it's really unreliable
and it hasn't gone that fast since.
Let's go test it. Let's go find out where we're at
in terms of track performance.
And then we'll figure out a way to make it more powerful and faster,
hopefully before we get to Bakersfield
and I have to line up with the F-Rod.
[David] I was doing the nut and bolt check underneath the car,
and I found a couple things that needed to be snugged.
It wasn't that bad.
However, I've spotted a really bad thing about tire clearance.
Mike had the rear end narrowed
and, unfortunately, with these different wheels,
they're too far inboard
and they're hitting the inner wheel well.
[Mike] So before this car went on the chassis dyno last week,
I switched wheels.
And I thought, "Oh, they clear the inner fenders just fine."
They're not. They hit the inner fender bad.
[David] That was painful to watch,
but it's probably gonna save disaster.
[Mike] Yeah, I'm totally okay with it.
All right, way better clearance.
It's still gonna tag it a little bit,
but it's not gonna cut the tire.
We've gotten through our safety checks
and we're ready to go put it on the track for the first time.
You gonna go all out?
Or are you gonna take it easy first time down?
Nah, you know me. I'm just gonna go.
-[David] Okay. Yup. -[laughs]
[David] He'll lift when it gets ugly.
Oh, this is exciting.
I have not driven down any drag strip in this car
in over a year.
[David] For the first pass in Blasphemi in a long time,
a ton of stuff has changed on the car.
Different throttle body, different injectors,
coil on plug ignition, dry sump,
different clutch, different transmission,
different rear tires. Let's see what happens.
[Mike] Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!
That was fun.
[David]The tires were brand-new,
so we gave 'em a little bit of extra heat.
It's typically a good process
for a fresh-out-of-the-box tire.
[David] All right, gettin' ready to roll under the beams.
We're pre-staged.
Now we're staged.
[Mike] Okay.
A lot of cowbell. It did not hook.
[David] You can see the tire bounced pretty good.
Yeah. That's the same two-step I've always used.
So I could turn the two-step down if I had the laptop.
Wow. It hasn't spun like that in a long time.
[David] Thinking it through,
the 6-speed has a much lower first gear
than your G-Force did.
He's got the computer out. We're looking at the data, just what happened,
to make sure that the two-step rev limiter
was set where it needed to be.
There we go.
All right, burnout number two.
We've lowered the rev limiter.
Let's try this again.
No. Just smoked the tires again.
So it's smashes, but the whole rear end of the car
is squatting. It's not separating.
That is fairly low tire pressure.
Here's what's going on. You saw our first two hits.
The thing spun the tires real bad.
The first time, it actually hopped the tire off the ground.
Looking at the data,
we're realizing that the camshaft was advanced a lot
versus the last time he ran this thing.
And he just told me that it's making more boost down low
than it did on the dyno, which is unusual.
So it's making a lot more power,
so he's having trouble hooking it up
with his old combo.
Right now, I'm checking tire pressure,
which is below 12.
Mike contacted Pete Harrell, his engine guy and tuner,
and sent him the file out of the computer,
the tune-up on the car,
and he went ahead and pulled some ignition timing down low
to take some power out of the car
so that it would launch.
Sun's goin' down. We're about to run out of track time.
The folks at Wild Horse and Radford Driving School
have been super-cool to us
and they gave us some more time.
So it's a nice cool evening now
after everything that we changed,
which includes the tune-up, the shock settings,
the tire pressure, and new spark plugs.
So let's give this a shot.
Okay, here we go. Pre-staged.
Staged.
[chuckling]
Well, finally he got down the track.
That was a 10.09 at 146 mph.
The mile an hour tells you that the car should be way faster.
That's a very slow ET for the mile an hour.
It didn't fully hook,
and he hit the rev limiter in first,
and he obviously was granny-shifting the thing.
But we're headed the right direction.
I think he'll probably come back
and give it another shot kind of as is.
10.09, 146.
Okay.
146 is okay.
I short-shifted one gear. I hit the rev limiter another one.
-That was a mess. -Yeah.
[Mike] Now we're gettin' somewhere.
I know it wasn't fast
and it really wasn't pretty,
but I learned a lot.
The problem with using the clutch when you shift
is, every time you use the clutch,
it restarts the launch process over
and pulls ignition timing out of it, about 9 degrees.
So, you clutch, it pulls 9 degrees,
then the motor's trying to accelerate
with only like 17 degrees of timing in it.
It's not accelerating as hard as it could.
So for this pass,
I've lowered the launch rpm another 200,
and then we just pulled another half-degree of timing out of it
for the first second of the run.
Hopefully that makes it stick.
Hopefully I can remember not to use the clutch and not granny-shift,
hit my shift points,
and go much faster down this drag strip.
[David] Aah!
He's using the clutch.
That was better, but it went left.
I guarantee the 60-foot was better on that one.
[David] Well, that was cool and violent.
It left pretty hard.
But, man, this thing goes left like mad.
Unfortunately, it seems to me like he was stepping on the clutch again.
When he does that, it reactivates the ignition retard for the launch. So...
I think he just needs to figure out
how to shift it without the clutch.
Guess what the 60-foot was. 'Cause it was way happier.
[David] Oh, yeah, it was way better.
-Although you went hard left. -Yeah.
That's like a ladder bar adjustment.
-Yeah. -Or a real tire pressure problem
or a brake dragging.
[Mike] We have a little bit of time left.
I'd like to make one more pass at least down the drag strip
to find out, you know, where we're at
in terms of this car's performance.
[David] Well, that was the best run of the night,
9.805 at 148.79, but the 60-foot was 181.
-So... -Yeah, I don't know why it spun so bad that time.
It was really bad.
And I suck at driving right now.
-So... -Drive to the hotel as is. Slicks, open headers?
-Sure. Let's party. -Let's do it.
It's road trip day.
We're fully tested and ready to go across the entire desert
between here and Santee, California,
which is like 300 miles
with nothing really in between.
We need to take the slicks off
and bolt the Coker tires that we had on here.
[David] Let's hope it doesn't rain. It won't.
[Mike laughs] Yeah. And then we're going to switch the fuel lines in here
'cause under this trunk floor are two different fuel cells.
We're gonna switch the two in the ECU.
We're gonna take the little blower pulley off
and put a bigger one on just to slow the blower down,
and then put the side pipes on so we go less deaf,
and then go.
[David] We're cruising through Gila Bend, Arizona,
and, all of a sudden, I realize this is where we were
for the very first episode of Roadkill ever.
Last night, we stayed in a hotel
that I swear looked like they had spray-painted over a triple-homicide.
It was so bad.
And we paid $45 for the privilege of staying there.
Yeah, the room was over there in that corner, behind that dumpster.
All right, all right. That's a bad memory.
But, wow, 12 years,
-our first episode. -[laughs] Yeah.
All right, good times. Let's go.
[Mike] I think we're close to the highway.
[David] We are probably gonna need to fix that
-[Mike] Yeah, would you throw that spring on there for me? -Yeah.
[David] Yeah, we got a problem with the throttle sticking,
so I'm gonna go put another throttle return spring on this pooch.
Maybe it's fixed.
[Mike] It's gotta be better than it was.
-Hmm. -How come?
I don't know. These are new issues.
[David] One block later, next problem.
The throttle is sticking,
or at least the thing's idling way too fast.
Now, we got two springs on here.
Show 'em your port plug trick.
This throttle body is a prototype made by a guy named Phil Rohr.
Incredible machinist.
And one of the things he did was, to improve drivability,
was he machined these plugs that are O-ringed
that should go in here and cap off one hole
so that you don't have these giant throttle blades
when you're going down the road.
When you have throttle valve area that's a whole bunch,
you move the throttle just a little,
and there's a lot of air going in.
So it's like just barely tip into it
and it goes... [yells] So that helps slow that down.
[Mike] Well, that's not enough spring to do it.
This is not a car where you want the throttle to be stuck.
[Mike] I think part of what's happening is
the blower and the throttle body are all really hot
and the butterflies are sticking in the bore
because it doesn't return.
And so what I'm gonna do now is increase the spring rate
by adding another bracket, drilling some holes,
putting the springs at a little bit better angles,
stretching 'em out even further.
Ignition.
It's not returning all the way.
[Mike] I brought my old throttle body,
which is a smaller one
that makes less power than this one makes,
but the drivability is, you know, at least today, better.
So we're gonna take this off right now
and go to the old-school Hilborn cast throttle body that I used to have.
[David] Trying to get it started now with the new old throttle body.
[engine starts]
Yay!
Yay, us!
Let's go driving.
[David] We've now stayed here longer than we stayed in that hotel room 12 years ago.
My turn to drive!
[Mike] If you double-clutch, it won't clank
when it goes into the first four gears.
-Okay. -But you don't have to.
Okay, you're going 75 mph at 1,900 rpm.
At 7% throttle and almost 14:1 AFR.
[Mike] How are the blowers? It's really hot now.
[David] Now it's 200.
Are the fans and water pump plugged in?
I don't recall unplugging 'em.
I don't either.
It's still going up. 203, 204.
I lowered the timing. Let's see what happens to it.
Yeah, it might not like it.
Yup, it's cooling down.
So it didn't like the timing.
What day is today?
I have no idea.
Oh, it's Wednesday.
-That's right. -Yeah, yeah. We're doing good.
Yesterday went really well. What did you think?
Oh, I got to cruise the thing.
This car is actually way better than you think it is on the highway.
I was kind of blown away because I haven't ridden in it
or driven it since we drove it all the way across the country in like season 3.
That's ten years ago.
-[Mike] It's been ten years? -It's been ten years.
-Wow. -Yeah.
-You did great. -Yeah.
-Oh, we learned a lot. -Yeah.
We learned that it wants to overheat
if you lean it out on the highway.
That was interesting.
I think we both believe the supercharger's wore out.
Well, I had one delivered to my friend Andy Ralls' shop
like minutes away from here.
And Andy is really good friends with the dyno shop.
So we're gonna go to Andy's shop,
pick up a new blower for this.
Then we're gonna go to the dyno shop,
test it in its current configuration,
then put a new blower on it and see.
Does it make more boost? Does it make less heat?
Does it make more power?
This will be pretty cool
'cause I don't think we've ever done hub dyno
-on Roadkill. -No.
I've only ever seen one once.
[Mike] And now we're at Ralls Precision Machine in Santee, California.
The proprietor's a good friend of mine, Andy Ralls.
He's the guy that built my drag boat.
He does military stuff.
He does stuff for the marine industry.
And this is where we shipped our new blower.
But the guys at the blower shop mailed us one
that's wildly different than the one that's on the car.
Externally, it looks the same,
but there's parts and pieces here
for actually tuning where the boost is going,
how much of it's gonna come out,
and how quickly it's gonna come out,
which is pretty sweet.
This should make more boost and we should make more power.
Yeah. We won't know until we get to the dyno shop though.
-Let's go. -[Mike] Yeah.
We're gonna make it.
[David] One mile on slicks in the rain.
We can do it.
[Mike] We can do it.
[David] This it?
[Mike]We drove one entire mile
without crashing the car in the rain on our slick tires
and now we are at Dardantuned, a hub dyno shop,
right here in Santee, California.
I'm excited because I have very little experience
-with a hub dyno. -Same.
And, uh, we have lots of things we can test.
Not a lot of time to do it.
But, at the very least, we'll find out today,
is that blower worn out?
And so now, with the front clip off,
we put it in race mode.
So the air filter comes off,
we change to a smaller blower pulley,
we take the side pipes off, put the bull horns back on,
then go to the back of the car
and switch fuel pumps and tanks,
and make a hit.
[makes explosion sound]
That's not happening.
That's definitely not happening.
[David] Mike is consulting with Dardan,
who's our dyno operator today.
I'm changing spark plugs.
And there's the plug that we've been driving on
and it might be just a little bit fluffy.
I just showed Dardan our tune
and the data logs from the track the other day
to let him know, "Hey, this thing is happy.
It will make a pull."
All right, tune is in.
Okay. Street pulley.
This will be the same one that it ran on Pete's dyno.
-Okay. -So we maybe can compare.
Somewhat.
[David] We're done in the engine compartment here
and Noah and Adam did the exhaust for us.
So Mike's gonna go back and swap fuel lines,
and then I think we're good to go.
On our show, we've only ever used like engine dynos
or regular roller dynos.
I've seen these, but explain how it works.
[Dardan] I've been doing a lot of high-horsepower cars
and this takes all, um...
of the insecurities of running--
having to worry about slip
or having to worry about, um, a car flying off the dyno
or melting a strap.
Plus you also have roller noise,
so you don't have to worry about roller noise on this as well.
[David] And it's just gonna bolt to the hub
-and go. -Right. So we take the tires off,
connect straight to the hubs.
So if it ever tries to lift, this will hold it down
and you'll be good to go.
Is it gonna wheely?
-We hope so. -[laughs]
You haven't rebuilt this engine in a couple weeks.
Let's do this.
Ow.
[David laughing]
I was gonna say I was excited for this
because I've never compared a hub dyno versus a roller dyno.
So what was the number that it made on Pete Harrell's chassis dyno?
Uh, I believe 850.
All right. Let's find out.
[David] That's a lot of smoke.
-[Dardan] 940. -[Mike] I'm not entirely surprised.
6,400 rpm. We're gonna go one more.
-[David] 'Cause 7,000 rpm? Yeah. -7,000.
It sounds really happy.
It does.
[David] On the second pull, we ran it all the way to 7,000 rpm.
It made 972 HP at the axle
and 862 pound-feet of torque.
More importantly,
Finnegan and Dardan are going over the data right now
and just making sure that the air-fuel ratio looks good,
that there's no anomalies
and even, like, oil pressure and things like that.
Uh, the boost is where they expect it to be.
It's making about 13 pounds.
[Mike] So the reason we're spending all of this time
tuning an engine with a supercharger,
we know we're going to take off
is because we want to make sure the tune is right,
the engine is happy, so that we just take the blower off,
put a new one on, make a couple more pounds of boost,
hopefully, with the same tune,
and see if we gain power.
[engine revving]
Okay. We are headed in the right direction.
Our tuning gap in the beginning was this much because we were so rich,
and as we started getting leaner,
our tuning got smaller and smaller
to the point where, like, the motor tells you,
"Hey, I want this AFR, and I want this type of timing,"
and there's nothing else you can do to make more power,
except change boost pressure.
So now we're going to change the blower.
We're going to load up a richer tune just to see how the motor acts first,
then we'll lean it back out and see what the motor, uh, makes,
and how it responds to it.
You ready? Up and over.
Let's talk tech. These are both roots style 871 superchargers
from The Blower Shop.
One of the innovations on both of these
is the ports in the side of them
where the electronic fuel injectors go.
And you really have to have fuel going through one of these superchargers
to keep it cool and sealed.
There are some differences between the two blowers, though.
So this is going to be a direct AB test
of just a worn-out blower versus a nice and fresh one.
First of all, look how this has a got a center divider in the top right here,
and this one does not.
It's also been machined for this special insert that goes right here,
and restrict the opening while also sealing the rotor a little bit more over here,
you tend to get the boost rise earlier in the RPM band.
There's also a difference in the discharge side of the supercharger.
You can see how this actually has a longer opening,
and there is a bar down the middle of it.
This doesn't have that bar,
and the distance from here to here on the opening
is actually less, and you might be thinking to yourself,
"Well, that's less flow because it's a smaller hole,"
but in fact, what this is doing
is keeping the air sealed to the rotors for longer.
Remember, as the rotors turn,
they press the air to the outside of the case,
and right here, as soon as the rotor clears the case,
it's going to discharge the air into the engine.
In this case, it's hanging on to more air for longer
before it discharges, and so that can be a benefit.
Also, Blower Shop has found that this version
helps with cylinder to cylinder distribution.
So that's kind of the difference between the two blowers.
The throttle doesn't open all the way.
No, I know.
That bolt fell out.
-That bolt fell out? -That bolt fell out last year at Drag Week.
And I think this got put in.
And then we never had wide-open throttle after that.
Hmm.
[David] The scientific method is now completely out the window.
Remember I told you we were going to try and do an AB test
between the old supercharger and the new one?
And then I showed you some little differences
between the old one and the new one.
Well, now, there's way more.
In addition to us adding this little spacer back here,
we swung our throttle body in here and noticed
that that spacer completely blocks off the air flow from this throttle body.
While doing that, I also noticed that this throttle body
doesn't even begin to go to wide-open throttle
because there is a little bolt on it that those guys changed at Drag Week last year
that prevented that from happening.
So once we realized that,
we started looking at this gasket
that has been between the throttle body
and the supercharger the entire time.
Then Dardan says I have seen turbocharged cars
kill 20 PSI with a screen like that.
And so we decided that we're not going to run that screen anymore.
But then, remember the problem with this blocking the throttle body?
We realized that The Blower Shop had already
given us a solution to that with this spacer.
So now that spacer's going to go there.
This is going to go there.
So now we've changed the style of the discharge,
the style of the inlet,
the screen, the spacer,
and having wide-open throttle.
So there's no more scientific method,
but now we're going to make a lot of horsepower,
which is all we really care about, let's be honest.
[Mike] Full throttle body, but with new wide-open throttle.
Now with 25% more throttle opening.
[Mike] Blower swap is done.
Now we're going to fire it up, set the idle,
and then get out of the way
because this thing is going to make some beans.
[engine starting]
[engine revving]
-There we go, boys! -[Mike] It's finally working.
-[David] That's some steam. -[Mike] Whoo-hoo!
I got bad news for you, Mr. Burger.
-[David laughing] -So, yeah, she's happy.
[Mike] This car has never made that much power.
We're going to make one more aero pull.
We're going to put a little more timing in it.
We're going to take some fuel away,
and we're going to rev the engine another 300 rpm
because the last pull, we stopped at about 6,900.
We're now going to rev it to 72.
Most of the people standing around here think
it's going to make somewhere about 1,140, 1,150.
Yeah, it will, and I'll be totally happy with that.
[engine revving]
-Whoo! -Yeah, baby. [chuckles]
[David] That is beef.
[Mike] We came in here with a car
that made about 970 horsepower at the hub,
and about 850 foot pounds of torque,
and we are leaving with a car
that makes 1,136 horsepower
and 930 foot pounds of torque.
Car rips. We now have to put it back into street mode,
and then drive to Bakersfield,
which is, like, 250 or 60 miles away.
-That's a tomorrow story. -[Mike] Yeah.
-Don't worry about it. Right. -I'm not worried at all.
-I'm looking find to it. -Yep.
-Beers? -Yes!
-Yes, let's go celebrate. See you. -We can do that.
This car rules!
[Mike] Well, it's Day 4 of our adventure.
Day 3 was incredible.
However, changing the blower
and the way the throttle body mounts,
well, it necessitated a bigger hole in the hood and a taller hood scoop.
So we came back to Andy Royal's shop.
Andy is a killer fabricator and designer,
and came up with the idea for this.
Moment of truth.
-Whoa, that looks evil. -Yeah.
-All right. -Get out of my shop.
-Yeah. -[laughing]
Never return.
[David] Yeah, I don't blame you.
-[Andy] Great to meet you. -[David] yeah, you too. Thanks a lot.
[engine revving]
[Mike] We have driven 68 miles since we left Andy Royal's shop,
and now we're broke-ish.
I mean, nothing's falling out.
But the clutch doesn't want to release.
And so that makes it hard to sit in bumper-to-bumper So-Cal traffic
when the clutch doesn't want to release.
And I think the transmission needs to come out,
and we need to remove a shim from behind the throwout bearing.
Before we bother with all that rigmarole
of tearing the transmission out,
I'm assuming it's the throwout bearing shim,
we're going to go ahead and bleed the clutch
to see if it's just air in the system.
Up.
Down and hold.
So it's either got no air gap,
or it wasn't moving enough before.
Well, if I do this is there a gap?
Oh, you know what?
I've got my little camera.
-I could stick in there and see. -[David] Yep.
[Mike] All right. Definitely an issue with the throwout bearing.
So what we're going to do is take this $30 Bluetooth wireless camera,
shove it up through a tiny hole in the side of the transmission
to see when it's released, is there a gap?
We just bleed it and hit the road, and I think we'll be fine.
If there is no gap, we're pulling the trans out
and then taking a shim out from behind the bearing to give us a gap.
-Hey, David, uh... -[David] Yeah.
...when I tell you, go ahead and step on it.
-[David] Okay. -[Mike] All right. Go ahead.
-[David] Down and hold. -[Mike] Let off.
[David] Off.
[Mike] I think it's up against it and we need to pull the shim.
Well, we don't know exactly what's going on.
Maybe it's a combination of get the air out,
and adjust the pedal stop, and we'll be cool.
We're going to put it back down on the ground, fire it up,
and take it around the block, and see if it works better.
-[David] Coming down. -[Mike] Whoa!
-Oh, my God. -[David] That was not good.
[Mike] Tell me that didn't go through the oil pan.
[David] It did not, but it is stuck
-between the axle and the tie rod. -[Mike sighs]
[David] The jack didn't roll.
Boy, that's dumb.
-Sorry about that. -It happens.
[sighs] It's going to be a long night.
[David] Can you pull the jack out?
Fixed.
[engine starting and revving]
-[car thuds] -That's not right.
Yeah, my foot's in the gas. It's still trying to move.
[David] If you crank it right now, what happens?
-[engine starting] -Yeah, it's moving the car.
What we just found is that it's still dragging.
When you have your foot all the way on the clutch,
you put it in gear, it grinds.
You, uh, put your foot on the clutch
and crank it without starting it,
and it pulls the car.
So the clutch isn't fully disengaging.
So the next thing he's going to do
is put a shorter bolt on the clutch stops,
so that the pedal has more travel,
to see if travelling the bearing more will disengage the clutch.
However, the balance you need to play
is that if you stroke the bearing too far,
then it comes apart, the O-rings seal,
and the hydraulic bearing pops out,
fluid drops everywhere,
and it's game over.
And even if we take it apart,
then we might not be able to get the bearing back together.
So, that's where we're at.
Listen here if it grinds in gear.
[engine starting and revving]
-Much better. -That's kind of normal.
Yeah, that's...
[Mike] I think we're good now.
That seems normal for a straight-cut trans to me.
I don't think we have to take the trans out.
We don't think we have to take the trans out,
or at least we're going to make that decision
another five or ten miles down the road.
-[Mike laughing] -[David] Great.
[engine starting]
[engine revving]
Oh, it's not squeaking anymore.
[Mike] Yeah, it's happier.
[engine revving]
[David] What do you think?
-[Mike] I think it's good. -[David] Secure.
We made it. So we're rolling into some, like, chichi little tiny hotel,
like, what is it? Motel 6, something like that?
And there's no parking lot there,
and so we're going to have to leave this on the street,
and if it's still there in the morning,
then you'll see us at Famoso Raceway
for the ultimate showdown versus my Model A. It's going to be great.
Nobody... Nobody told me there'd be no parking.
I'm advising you now.
-[laughing] -I like this car again
-'cause it's really, really powerful -It's been great.
[engine starting and revving]
[Mike] ♪ On the streets of Bakersfield ♪
[David] Let's go!
We made it. Blasphemi drove all the way from Chandler, Arizona
to here, Famoso Dragstrip, north of Bakersfield, California.
Well, normally, we rent the track,
but this time we were invited to Hot Rod Garage Day.
Hotrod Garage is another show on the MotorTrend Network,
and once a year they rent the track themselves,
and invite friends and family.
So you're going to see, like, 40 cars here,
some of which are the Hot Rod Garageproject vehicles.
And they are going to have a pause in the program
so Finnegan and I can run side by side.
So now we're here ready for the set up of Blasphemi versus my F-Rod,
my '31 Model A Coupe. So this is going to be good.
We're prepping Finnegan's car right now.
My car doesn't need a whole lot.
My buddy Sam is here who built the whole chassis on the thing.
He's sort of handling the wrenching on the side.
I'm going to help Finnegan move over from street mode to race mode.
[Mike] On the first day of this trip, we went to a dragstrip,
and properly broke in a brand-new set of Mickey Thompson's,
but we also broke them.
The inside of both tires
were rubbing the inner fenders of the car,
which is probably what would cause it to go left
every time I let the clutch out.
And so we're switching tires,
and I have a fresh set to put on.
And fresh tires need to be broken in.
They're never as quick, ET-wise, as, you know,
ones that have been broke in.
And the fresh set is also smaller.
They are not as wide as the ones that were on the car,
so I have a little less traction.
So for this first run,
I'm just going to let the clutch out,
and just cross my fingers it goes straight.
If it goes straight, I'm happy.
Then we'll work on the rest of that.
[engines revving]
Whoo-hoo!
That was my first burnout across the starting line ever!
Oh, that was so fun!
Finnegan's here for his very first hit.
He's got the larger blower pulley on it,
not the 1,100 horsepower tune,
but probably like the 1,050 horsepower tune.
[engines revving]
[Mike] Whoo!
Okay, that was bad.
Everything was going really well
until I missed fourth gear.
Finnegan made his first pass,
and it was a non-ET because it looked like the driver's door flew open.
So that's going to be a big pucker.
That was interesting. You missed fourth.
And then someone said, "No, his door flew open and he lifted."
-Which one happened? -Oh, both.
-[David] Both. -Both things happened.
Yeah, I've never missed fourth.
That was a new adventure for me.
It was going so well.
I was, like, "Yeah.
Oh, no." [laughing]
[David] So you got an 065 light, not bad.
Uh, 135 60-foot time.
So you want to go back and make another hit before they break for lunch?
I can't guarantee I'll get it right,
-but, yeah, I want to go. -Cool. Let's go.
At least we don't have to pack a chute.
[engines revving]
[Mike] Oh, that was the best, boy! Whoo-hoo!
That was better, 889 at 153 miles an hour.
Now, remember, this car's best ever is 852.
His 60-foot was 1,345.
So pretty good.
Now we're going to take a quick break,
probably fiddle with the car a little bit more.
I'm guessing he's going to want to put a smaller pulley on it.
And, uh, we'll find out if he can do quicker than that.
-[man] 889, 153. -On the little pulley.
Oh, dude.
We're going to have a good race.
[David] This is my '31 Ford Model A
that's going to be running against Finnegan.
You've never seen this car on Roadkill.
It was built entirely on Roadkill Garageby my buddy Sam,
who'll you see in the background,
like, helping me out with this thing,
and also by Steve Dulcich and myself,
and the engine by my buddy James Bostick.
It's a '31 Ford Model A. It weighs 2,450 pounds.
The engine is a 572 Big-Block Chevy.
It's actually the same heads, crank, rods, block
that I used at Bonneville to run my fastest time ever.
This thing has been 261 miles an hour at Bonneville.
It makes 950 horsepower.
It's got a Gearstar Powerglide.
Moser 9-inch 4.10 gears.
31-inich rear slick from Mickey Thompson.
So when you put that much power with this much lightness,
you get a best-ever ET right here at Famoso,
of 8.501 seconds,
at 151 miles an hour.
Maybe it went 155 on that one.
Here's what makes this race actually personal for me.
Finnegan has supercharger,
EFI, like, strain gauge on the shifter, I think.
All sorts of rocket science.
I went exactly the opposite direction.
This has a no-power adder.
It's Carbureted. It doesn't even have an electric-fuel pump.
It's a mechanical-fuel pump.
So even though they're both retro-looking cars,
this is very much like new technology with boost
versus old technology all motor.
[engine revving]
-The time has finally come. -[Mike] Yes.
[David] Make it three yards, my friend,
and we'll have ourselves an automobile race.
Boom. Head to head.
You've been waiting for it, Blasphemi versus the F-Rod.
-Good luck. -I need it.
Special guest host Steve Dulcich here
for the battle of the Roadkill hosts.
Who's going to come out on top?
I'm going to be watching the action along with you.
[engine revving]
[Steve] All right, ladies and gentleman,
we are off to the races!
This is going to be epic.
Two eight-secondRoadkill cars.
lighting it up for the honor of the fastest car on Roadkill.
[Mike] Here we go.
[engines revving]
873 at 150 miles an hour.
Finnegan, however, had some kind of problem off the starting line.
[Mike] All right, well, that didn't work.
It just blew the tires off at the starting line.
I feel like my brakes are dragging.
[David] Something went wrong.
Oh, I don't know what just happened,
but it wasn't good for Mike.
[Steve] A couple of things were wrong with it when you took off.
[Mike] I kept letting on and off the clutch,
and the car didn't really want to move.
And I went to the starting line,
when it's time to go, I let the clutch on,
and it just barbecued the tires.
-It didn't go anywhere. -[David] Oh.
My car was a turd too.
872 at 150.
And I red-lit, so you won.
[Mike] 872, it's not a turd.
[David] Just to give you the numbers here,
Mike cut an 033 light. I red-lit by 025.
Um, 20 60 foot, 123.
Uh, your eighth-mile time, I mean,
you were just coasting at that point.
-So, what are we going to do? -[Mike] Want to do it again?
How are you going to fix your car?
[Mike] I'm going to take some compression out of the back shocks.
[David] And I just found out I can't let go of the button
as soon as I see the last amber.
[engine revving]
Oh! What a burnout!
[Mike] Whoo-hoo!
Yeah, baby!
Whoo!
That was the best.
[David] The prove brake didn't engage the first time.
Oh, that was a bummer!
Freiburger took it. 871 to an 877.
We're talking just six-hundredths of a second between the two cars.
That is that close.
But close doesn't count.
-[Mike] Are you okay? -[David] Yeah. Are you?
My trans brake didn't work.
-Oh -Yeah.
I thought you beat me down here 'cause I was like,
"Where is he?," and then I saw you there.
[David] No, you were ahead of me the whole way 'cause I messed up.
I'm sure I didn't even get a time.
Okay, honestly, I'm walking away disappointed 'cause my car is slow,
and I feel like I never got a good pass on that last one.
My trans brake button,
you got to really get your finger down in the hole, and I didn't.
-So I rolled deep. -[Mike] Mmm.
[David] And then by the time I was back on the button,
it was at the second amber, and then I left.
But, check this out. I do have the data right here.
First of all,
-you won one, and I won one. -Okay.
You won the first one 'cause I red-lit.
I won the second one because you red-lit.
-[Mike] I did? Oh, my God. -[David] Yes, you did.
-[David] However... -[Mike] Oh, God.
...check this data, this is what saves the episode in my opinion.
'Cause I'm annoyed with myself and my car.
But, look at this. 60-foot.
Me, 1,297. You, 1,294.
-Oh. I got better. -[David] Okay.
-And eighth mile, 5.539 to 5.590. -[Mike] Okay. Oh.
-Oh. -[David] Okay. So they ran the same to the eighth mile.
I was a little bit quicker.
Out the back, me, 8,718. You, 8,775.
Oh, that would have been a good race.
And you went 154. I went 152.
If we had both been on the tree,
-that would have been a great race. -[Mike] Wow.
[David] First, let me go to the negative.
My car is two-tenths slow,
and I was a disaster on the Christmas tree.
Now let's go positive.
We both ran eights. You made more power than you ever have.
You drove your car from Phoenix to here.
-[Mike] Mmm-hmm. -[David] We finally ran them both side by side.
And if you bench race this ticket
away from all of the reaction-time garbage,
they were really, really close.
and it would have been a good race.
[Mike] We're going to have to do this again.
We have to do it again the right way.
This was not that.
-[sighs] -[David] Hemi in one piece
is probably the biggest victory of the whole thing.
[laughs]
It's not on fire, and the rod's not laying on the ground.
I'm good.
[engines revving]