Mopar Muscle Association UK

Blue wrote: ↑Sun Jul 12, 20 10:21 am

PaulR wrote: ↑Fri Apr 24, 20 7:53 pm

Pete wrote: ↑Thu Apr 23, 20 5:12 pm I assume that is the "Julius" that did the $3.5M '71 Hemi 'Cuda??

...and bought two of my "Wing cars"??

Was that Julius Steuer who runs Restorations by Julius
Didn’t Bacca work there?

Yes that's right!

I'd almost forgotten about Baccman !

Been a bit quiet on this thread for a while, but stuff has been going on .

Been racing this year at Thruxton, Brands GP, and last weekend at Donington - which is almost my new favourite circuit. Still lots to do both mechanically on the car , and with improving my driving. But having lots of fun in the meantime.

Here's a quick vid of me chasing a Taydec around Donington for a couple of laps until it retired having lost third gear.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/T4J6JYblkmY

The Cuda handles nicely.

Your car's featured in this months Classic American mag:
.

Yes it's got Avon CR6-ZZ tyres back on it at the moment, as I wore out the Hoosiers and didn't notice till last Thursday . Over-inflating them by about 5 psi didn't help.

The Avons are basically a treaded road-legal tyre, so are costing me a fair amount of corner speed, but the cornering balance is fairly neutral on them. Slight tendency towards understeer, but if you can get the power on early you can avoid it.

A bit of a moment at 3:01 outbraking myself into the chicane, but I got away with it !


Yes nice write-up in Classic American onThruxton . I should mention that I won the Bernie's Class only because everyone in front of me either crashed out or broke down !

Check this youtube video out. I did a double take and realised its this year in New Zealand.



48 car and the 77 car clones, the commentary says the Challenger is running a hemi. Great viewing.

Nice video. I researched that 'Cuda for a bit whilst planning mine.

It runs an iron 465ci hemi and a Dana. That's one heavy car. Nice build though.

Feature at:

https://themotorhood.com/themotorhood/2 ... njsrtolmak

I considered the colour (Chrysler Patriot Blue) for mine but went for a the Maserati Blue instead which was very close.


Those big wheels on the cars still look wrong but at least you can fit some proper brakes under them ! I'm starting to find the limitations of my front brakes. I've had some re-designed air ducts 3-d printed which are a much closer match to the originals, and I've found some Mintex pads from a specialist UK supplier to fit in the Wilwood calipers. THey're not any cheaper than buying Wilwood pads from the USA but may offer better performance.

Nice onboard from Donington, thanks for sharing

Great vid Matt, enjoyed that.

Matt wrote: ↑Wed Sep 30, 20 11:13 amI should mention that I won the Bernie's Class only because everyone in front of me either crashed out or broke down !

..to finish first you must first finish.......it's all good, reliability and not overcooking it are just as necessary to win as raw speed!! Congratulations!

Been doing a few small things in December.

Set the valve clearances for the first time since the engine was new. Most of them were spot on , with a couple of very small adjustments needed for the rest.

Whilt the covers were off I torqued down the heads . Edelbrock 'recommend' the heads are retorqued after a short while, but of course I hadn't done it. Was quite surprised to get around ten degrees movement on some of the bolts.

THe PCV system had to go as it was sucking oil into the intake occasionally, mostly at the end of long straights followed by right-handers. No-one seems to use a PCV on circuit race cars anyway.

Made up a couple of small baffled -10 fittings to weld to the rocker covers . Other people seem to use -12 but I had the -10 stuff in stock so thought i'd chance it being big enough. Each rocker cover outlet now leads to the catch can by the rad. I still need to add an oil filler neck to one of the rocker covers though, as trying to top up the oil through one of the -10s is, of course, really tedious.

Time for the obligatory 'aftermarket parts are rubbish' complaints.

1) Found one of the throttle return springs lying next to the intake manifold, with the end broken off

2) And if anyone's thinking of buying a Performance Products crank damper, I wouldn't recommend it. I was checking the car over before venturing out onto a frosty Goodwood, and found the outer ring spinning freely on the inner hub, also with a few mm of radial play. The damper can't have seen more than 40 hours use. Oh well, day cancelled. THe organisers gave me a credit against a future track day, which was very fair of them to say the least.
New damper on order from ATI this time, expected in a month.

And finally got round to raising the transmission tunnel, in order to be able to lower the rear suspension.

A bit of filler and paint, and here's the tunnel sloping up gradually after the gearbox yoke, now 3 inches higher than stock at the back.
1.5" lowering blocks are now reinstalled under the axle.

Arrgh sorry it seems that my iphone and PC are unable to agree on which way up the pics should be !

I took the opportunity to measure the tailshaft height of the Tremec installation, compared with stock. THe Tremec output shaft turns out to be sitting 30-35mm lower than stock, with the trans unable to mount any higher, since it's practically touching the TB crossmember.

This isn't quite as bad as I was expecting. Probably not worth the work altering the crossmember. I thought that the gearbox height was creating the problem with ground clearance under the header collectors, but maybe it's mostly that the headers themselves are constructed lower than I would like. Bearing in mind that I would really like the car to sit around a further inch or so lower than it is currently, then I may have to look at different headers.

And in other news,

I rent a barn/workshop at the farm across the road from my house, and after 4 years I've finally got fed up with the rough, uneven concrete floor. Bit reluctant to improve somebody else's floor, but eventually decided to treat myself to it. I figure I've got a few more years there, and after all, the rent's reasonable.

Here's the low parts already filled in, with a very thin adhesive screed starting to be trowelled out over the top. Working on about half of the floor at a time, with stuff piled up on the other half.

Should be finished and painted around New Year.

Can't beat ATI, Matt.

I had another SFI approved damper on my grown-up Block and that worked loose as well.. you get what you pay for....

re the header to floor clearance, if you were to modify the tb crossmember to raise the gearbox that would also raise the headers as it would lift the back of the engine too taking the headers with it. just a thought. you'd get the gearbox where you know it 'should' be and get more header clearance at the same time. 2 birds with 1 stone type of deal.
neil.