On this episode of Roadkill
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MotorTranscript
00:00 How do you make a junkyard car run and drive?
00:02 With nitrous.
00:03 [SPLAT]
00:04 [SCREAM]
00:04 [LAUGHTER]
00:05 [ENGINE REVVING]
00:07 [GUNFIRE]
00:09 [TIRES SCREECHING]
00:11 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:15 On the first episode of "Roadkill,"
00:25 we let a dart determine our destiny.
00:27 And now that we're at episode 11 and we're fresh out of ideas,
00:29 we're going to do that again.
00:31 [LAUGHTER]
00:32 It's a guaranteed formula.
00:33 Can't lose.
00:33 Yeah.
00:34 See, we're going to Houston for a drag race.
00:36 But we figured if we're going to a drag race,
00:38 we should drag race.
00:40 And so we're going to buy a car somewhere in Texas, Oklahoma,
00:44 Arkansas, New Mexico kind of area,
00:46 drive it to Houston, and race it.
00:48 All right, so Houston, right?
00:51 OK.
00:51 Who's throwing the dart?
00:53 You are.
00:53 I'm still missing eyebrow from the last time we did this.
00:57 No.
00:58 How much do you like your eyebrows?
00:59 [LAUGHTER]
01:01 Ah!
01:02 Oh, brutal.
01:04 Ready?
01:05 Yep.
01:06 You suck really bad at throwing.
01:08 [LAUGHTER]
01:08 Oh my god.
01:09 You're in the Gulf of Mexico, dude.
01:11 Oh, perfect.
01:11 We're not buying a boat.
01:12 So let's try this again.
01:13 Height was pretty good.
01:15 You landed on Hawaii.
01:16 OK.
01:17 Let's try this again.
01:18 Let's do it.
01:21 Dude, that was dead centered in Texas.
01:23 Really?
01:24 So we're there?
01:25 Austin.
01:26 Ugh.
01:27 You totally stuck me.
01:30 Do it.
01:32 Oh!
01:32 [LAUGHTER]
01:35 That really does hurt.
01:36 There's some hair on there.
01:38 I thought you were kidding last time.
01:39 So you're thinking if we went to Austin,
01:41 we could get something junkier and fix it more?
01:43 Yeah.
01:44 OK.
01:45 Well, let's see what's available.
01:46 Craig's list.
01:46 Here we come.
01:47 The dart hit the map in Austin.
01:52 But when I started looking around
01:54 to figure out what we were going to do in Texas,
01:56 there was a guy on my Facebook page
01:58 who recommended CTC Auto Ranch in Denton.
02:01 And so we're going to head about three or four hours north
02:03 and check that out.
02:04 We hit this junkyard.
02:05 I think we need to get something that runs and drives.
02:08 I don't think we can do any crazy engine swap or anything.
02:10 Let's find a really great car without an engine
02:12 and a really great engine in a car we don't want.
02:14 We don't have time.
02:16 Dude, we proved we can do it in the snow
02:17 if you give us three or four days.
02:19 There's no snow here.
02:20 If we plan for one, we'll take three.
02:22 We're good.
02:22 There's no snow here.
02:23 So cut that time in half.
02:25 Let's find a car on top of other cars, stacked up.
02:28 Let's get the bottom one.
02:29 Yeah.
02:29 Let's make this as difficult as possible.
02:31 There it is.
02:33 Right there.
02:34 Junkyard next to a drag strip.
02:35 Paradise.
02:36 Absolute nirvana.
02:37 Oh my god.
02:38 It's almost all old sheet metal.
02:40 This is going to be good.
02:42 All of a sudden, I see a drag strip,
02:44 which gets me fired up.
02:46 And then acres of cars.
02:48 I mean, more vintage iron that I've ever seen in one spot
02:51 in my entire life.
02:52 And if I had a lot of money in a big ass trailer,
02:55 I would have taken most of it home.
02:57 55 Fairlane, 63 Chevy.
03:00 I like the Ranchero.
03:01 78-ish.
03:02 Look at how complete they are.
03:03 Look, all the chrome, all the glass, the steering wheel--
03:06 Oh, Gremlin.
03:07 Dude, Gremlin.
03:08 That was on the website.
03:09 59 Chevy.
03:09 That was on the website, dude.
03:11 65 Biscayne.
03:12 Pinto.
03:12 Oh, man.
03:13 Pinto.
03:13 Want the Pinto.
03:15 When we got to the ranch, we met
03:16 Alan Williamson, who is one of the owners of the place.
03:19 And Finnegan had called ahead and talked to him.
03:21 So we knew he was cool.
03:22 We knew he was down with our program, which
03:24 was that we had to buy a car, fix it in 24 hours
03:28 so that we can hit the road, drive 300 miles,
03:31 and compete at an NMCA race in Houston, where we're also
03:34 going to hang out with a bunch of our buddies
03:36 from Hot Rod Drag Week.
03:37 What have you got that's complete
03:38 that maybe ran when parked?
03:40 You know, as far as most of this stuff
03:42 that's right in this immediate area here, if you want,
03:43 we'll go out there and look around.
03:44 I'll show you what I have.
03:46 Let's check it out.
03:46 And you can go on your own and see what you can find.
03:48 I've actually never been to a yard like this
03:50 because I'm used to junk yards where everything is stripped.
03:54 You know, you don't find a shoebox Chevy
03:57 with windows in it.
03:58 You know, that stuff's long gone at the places I've been to.
04:01 I mean, it had Trans Ams, Camaros, Plymouth Chryslers,
04:05 Ford Chevys, everything from late '30s on up to the '80s.
04:10 It was all there, you know, and mostly intact,
04:13 which was awesome.
04:14 Here's a trend that never really took off--
04:16 Bondo flames, graphics that someday fall off your car.
04:20 Awesome.
04:21 You start to walk through the ranch,
04:22 and you see one big yard, and then another,
04:25 and then another, and then behind those trees,
04:27 there's even more.
04:28 We could have spent at least a few days just rummaging
04:31 through there, finding project cars that we needed to have.
04:34 The actual shopping was frustrating.
04:36 We spent probably an hour walking this place,
04:39 and I'm looking at all these cars
04:41 that are missing everything.
04:42 One's got a motor, but not a tranny.
04:44 One's got a tranny, but not a motor.
04:46 One's missing all the suspension.
04:48 And I always have this feeling that we should stop now
04:52 and buy something and get working on it,
04:53 but I'm going to miss something even better just over a hill
04:57 or behind a bush or something, because there's cars everywhere.
04:59 All right, well, we don't have time to roam 35 acres.
05:02 I have a car that we use for just fiddling around,
05:04 running, looking at stuff.
05:05 Why don't you all get in the car?
05:07 Yeah, drive us around.
05:08 Drive everywhere.
05:09 Cool.
05:10 See what I got?
05:11 Yeah.
05:11 We checked out the sea of really, really cool sheet metal
05:14 out here, and the bummer is that all of those cars
05:16 are either rotted into the ground or have no engine,
05:19 or there's some fatal flaw that means that we either can't
05:21 afford it or he won't sell it to us or it won't run.
05:24 So we've narrowed it down to this Olds, that Mopar,
05:26 that Chevy, and that Pontiac, and we've got it aside among them
05:28 right now.
05:29 The Olds we've pretty much blown off.
05:31 It just-- it needs a little bit too much.
05:33 And I think basically we're not excited by it.
05:35 This is a '67 Barracuda.
05:38 No door handles, no dash, no wiring, no carburetor,
05:42 no seats, no glass.
05:44 So--
05:45 No problem.
05:46 What was the upside?
05:46 No problem.
05:48 OK, so this one, it's already got headers,
05:51 already got aluminum intake on it.
05:53 It looks like at one point it was a little speedy.
05:56 I get what you're saying.
05:57 This is the most performance-oriented,
05:59 but what do we do about a gas tank, glass?
06:03 We're at a junkyard.
06:04 There's gas tanks here.
06:05 In 24 hours, we need to be driving away from here,
06:08 and I doubt they'll let us work all night, and we have no light.
06:11 We haven't even asked yet.
06:12 You never know.
06:13 I wave $10 or $12 in front of them.
06:15 You never know.
06:15 We may own this place.
06:17 All right, so if not the Barracuda,
06:18 then sell me on the Pontiac.
06:19 I think you're in love with--
06:21 I'm not going to be anti-Barracuda.
06:22 I'm just thinking that the Pontiac or the Chevy
06:25 are going to be easier to get running.
06:27 But this is more pimp than performance,
06:29 to be honest with you.
06:29 Oh, yeah.
06:30 I'm agreeing with that.
06:31 There we go.
06:33 Radiator.
06:33 Ran when parked, huh?
06:38 Yeah.
06:40 Let's look at the Chevy.
06:41 I wanted to go with the '66 Chevy,
06:44 because the guy knew that it had run,
06:46 and yeah, it was clapped out and gross.
06:48 It had mouse turds in it and stuff,
06:49 but he sort of had faith that it could get there.
06:51 And I knew that we were going to be
06:52 able to fix a small block Chevy anywhere
06:55 with any rubber bands or duct tape
06:57 that we had sitting around.
06:58 And I thought we'd be able to turn the key and hit the road.
07:00 I do like this because of my whole kink
07:03 on the Dirty Mary Crazy Larry movie, where they had
07:05 the '66 Impala at the beginning.
07:07 That car was blue.
07:09 Yeah, and it wasn't a sedan either, but I can dream.
07:14 I like the challenge of making the Barracuda run.
07:17 I'm going to make it decide between these on price.
07:19 Want to see what he'll take for that?
07:21 Oh, yeah, we may not even be able to afford these.
07:23 Right.
07:24 So negotiate.
07:25 You're better than I am.
07:26 All right.
07:26 Alan, I am not a greedy man.
07:30 I'm not.
07:33 I've already spent a lot of money on plane tickets.
07:35 Get in here.
07:35 Yeah.
07:36 And that's your problem.
07:37 That's my problem.
07:38 I've already said you got nice boots on.
07:39 Thank you.
07:40 Thank you very much.
07:41 OK.
07:42 I like your hair.
07:44 You got a good tan.
07:46 I feel close to you.
07:46 You got a good body, old pal.
07:48 I feel close to you.
07:49 What am I looking at for this ugly, steaming pile of junk
07:55 that is taking up a valuable space in your yard?
07:59 Think of what you could put here.
08:01 I'd do about $4,000 on it without the glass.
08:04 We're going to have to just lower your expectations a
08:07 little.
08:07 What you got in mind?
08:09 We're going to have to put a carb on it.
08:11 Not cheap.
08:11 So we need a carburetor.
08:12 Carburetor.
08:13 Some wiring.
08:14 Yep.
08:15 Plumbing for the gas tank.
08:16 It's worth $2,000, right?
08:18 Oh, yeah.
08:19 I'd do that for sure.
08:20 Yeah.
08:20 $2,000?
08:21 $2,000 is good.
08:22 $2,000 plus all the parts we need to put it back together.
08:24 Right.
08:25 If you can get us the windows in so they don't fall out at
08:29 78 miles an hour, which would be top speed for this thing.
08:32 Yeah.
08:34 $3,000.
08:34 What do you think?
08:36 I can't do it.
08:37 No?
08:37 Not for $3,000?
08:38 About $3,800 is the best I can do on this one.
08:41 So what he's saying is this is worth virtually--
08:43 well, this is worth twice as much as the actual Impala.
08:47 Why don't we do this?
08:48 Uh-oh.
08:48 Wait.
08:48 Wait.
08:49 Why don't we try to get them started and see which one's--
08:53 Startable?
08:53 Startable.
08:54 OK.
08:55 OK.
08:56 All right.
08:56 If the engine turns over--
08:56 You'd do that for us?
08:57 Yeah.
08:58 OK.
08:58 Yeah, but we can't afford that regardless.
09:01 You cheapskates.
09:03 We may have to walk away from this one.
09:05 Yeah, I know.
09:05 It's disappointing.
09:06 I may be so offended about the Kuda we just leave all together.
09:08 [LAUGHTER]
09:09 Come on, baby.
09:10 Crank to life.
09:11 Daddy needs a Mopar.
09:12 [ENGINE REVVING]
09:15 Oh, dude.
09:19 Oh, man.
09:19 Yeah, that's good.
09:20 I'm telling you, dude.
09:21 We can make this run.
09:23 I'm warming up to the notion.
09:24 Here's what I say, dude.
09:25 We'll give him his $3,800, but we want the glass in the car,
09:29 and we need another seat.
09:31 We'll make the rest of it happen on our own.
09:33 So when buying a car from an auto ranch,
09:36 you've got to expect the carburetor's probably
09:38 going to fight you a little bit.
09:39 So I was smart enough to order a Holley 750 double pumper
09:43 with mechanical secondaries.
09:44 And you just don't go anywhere without your cheater setup.
09:47 Hello, friend.
09:48 Oh, I've missed you.
09:51 I like that we have 24 hours to make a car we've never seen run,
09:55 and we're putting nitrous on it before we even check the motor.
09:58 Got to have your priorities straight.
09:59 Perfect.
10:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
10:03 [ENGINE REVVING]
10:07 Doesn't smoke.
10:19 [ENGINE REVVING]
10:21 [COUGHS]
10:24 I say we're good to go.
10:25 That sounds all right.
10:26 We got it to run pretty good.
10:27 We decided we're going to give it our best shot,
10:30 because we always have a fallback plan, which is the Chevy.
10:32 So they just forklifted it over to the shop,
10:34 and they're going to help us work on it.
10:35 They also said we can stay here all night long,
10:37 and I'm thinking that's going to have to happen.
10:39 [ENGINE REVVING]
10:43 The really funny thing about this is we're four hours into this deal,
10:48 and all we're accomplishing right now is making the engine run for more
10:51 than eight seconds so that we can put the trans in gear
10:54 to find out if the car even moves.
10:56 And if it doesn't move, we've got to go back to the junkyard
10:58 and pick out another car and try that again,
11:01 because nothing in this whole place, we're sure,
11:04 will run under its own power.
11:05 The first thing Finnegan did was stripped the carburetor fitting.
11:08 Can I blame you for that, or is that not cool?
11:09 You lie a lot on video.
11:10 Can I blame China?
11:12 How about China?
11:13 When you pay Rad Rides by Troy, and you give them $1 million
11:16 to build a hot rod, and you wonder why, this is why.
11:19 They're not working in a barn in 24 hours with Chinese-made parts.
11:24 Sure, they have fame and glory and money in their pockets
11:27 and happy wives and children that like them.
11:31 They're not having this fun, not at all.
11:35 Enter to win $5,000 by providing feedback and taking our survey.
11:40 I think the odds of us winning should be pretty good.
11:42 After we spent this much money, it's almost as tall as I am.
11:47 $800 to basically find out if the car will even move.
11:51 What do you think?
11:52 Is it going to move?
11:52 Of course.
11:53 The only issue here is you plumbed that to a fuel line that's going to nothing.
11:57 Yeah.
11:58 Where would you like it to go?
12:00 Some sort of gas can.
12:02 Which we did not acquire, and we don't have the gas either.
12:05 We have no can or a gas.
12:10 We could wish it to life.
12:13 Yeah, we could.
12:14 Do we even have a jack?
12:15 No.
12:16 Man, I hope this thing moves forward and backwards.
12:27 Is backwards actually a requirement?
12:29 That might actually be a little greedy on our part.
12:31 OK, hopefully we're going to fire it up now, make it drink out of this gas can.
12:35 Sounds good.
12:40 Happy.
12:41 Reverse.
12:42 Yes!
12:43 That's reverse.
12:44 No noise.
12:46 And drive.
12:48 Forward.
12:49 I take back everything I said about this place.
12:52 You can get a quality automobile here.
12:54 We're good.
12:55 Wait, let's see.
12:56 Will the brakes stop it?
12:58 No.
12:59 No brakes.
12:59 We're not going around the block without brakes.
13:01 No, we need brakes.
13:02 It's about midnight at the auto ranch, and we've
13:03 had big victories with the engine and the transmission.
13:06 And so we're going to call it a night and go get some rest.
13:08 It's first thing in the morning on Thursday,
13:13 and we thought we should attack the brakes first,
13:15 since we got the engine working and transmission working, but no brakes.
13:20 It's not first thing in the morning anymore.
13:21 It's not?
13:22 No, it's about lunchtime.
13:23 Are you saying we're behind schedule?
13:25 A little bit.
13:25 What are you working on?
13:26 Start at the top.
13:28 OK, stuff I can see right away.
13:31 Put oil in, buy an oil filter.
13:33 New ignition switch needs to go in.
13:38 Get another radiator that doesn't leak.
13:40 Headlights, glass, brakes, gas tank seats, shifter, tires if possible.
13:45 Exhaust.
13:48 I'll just cut it off.
13:49 Yeah, cut exhaust.
13:50 We should stop the list now.
13:52 Because it's only depressing?
13:53 It's really getting overwhelming.
13:55 Oh, outside door handles.
13:56 Oh, that just put it over the edge, dude.
13:58 We can't make this now.
13:59 So that's our list.
14:00 And it's Thursday at 11.
14:01 We need to leave in eight hours.
14:02 We'll be fine.
14:03 There's no way in hell that's happening.
14:05 [MUSIC PLAYING]
14:08 Our problem is, is the seal for the filler into the tank is junk.
14:19 But video producer Clint had a genius idea.
14:22 We went and cut this piece of radiator hose
14:24 and slipped it over the fill neck.
14:26 And it's going to make a perfect seal into the hole on the top of the tank.
14:30 Probably the best part about being at CTC Auto Ranch here in Texas
14:33 is that when we need it a part, we can just go out back here and find it.
14:37 So I found our transmission kick down mount there for the carburetor.
14:42 We didn't have a seat for our car.
14:43 So they grabbed this '69 Valiant out of the yard, rolled it in here,
14:46 ripped out the bench and the seat belts for us.
14:49 And I don't know if you can see this right now,
14:52 but this is actually an ultra rare factory lightweight drag
14:55 car with transparent aluminum quarter panels.
15:01 Very valuable.
15:02 What's our next big expense is my concern.
15:05 We need rear tires.
15:07 We'll take the two best of the four, stick them on the front.
15:09 Yeah, the rears are better.
15:10 So we'll throw those on the front.
15:12 But then--
15:12 Cut the exhaust off.
15:13 That solves a lot of the issue back there.
15:15 It does need rear shocks.
15:17 Oh, yeah, because they're completely topped out.
15:20 Well, and the one is bent.
15:23 We're completely out of money.
15:25 We're never out of money.
15:26 We have Amex.
15:27 [LAUGHS]
15:29 We'll just be in a lot more trouble when we get back to work.
15:32 Right.
15:32 And find out what we spent.
15:34 I'm going to cut the studs.
15:35 Let's go back to work.
15:36 We're running out of daylight.
15:37 I was really torqued up about the glass on the car.
15:40 I was concerned the drag strip would not let us run without it.
15:43 We had to have a windshield at least.
15:45 And the glass guy shows up and he wants like $500
15:48 to install glass that's sitting right out there in the yard.
15:52 And that wasn't a good moment.
15:54 We're standing around waiting for this guy
15:56 to come down on the price, which he finally did.
15:58 But then we find out that '67 Cuda glass is
16:02 different than '68 or '69 Cuda glass in the sides.
16:06 And the doors are a little bit different.
16:08 What a pain in the neck.
16:09 And you know what?
16:10 Coupe glass is different than fastback glass.
16:12 So we're just screwed on the side windows.
16:14 Here's where I'm stupid.
16:15 After we figured out that the '68 glass wouldn't
16:18 fit the '67 doors, we reinstalled the '68 glass
16:21 in the '68 doors and installed the '68 doors on the car.
16:24 Because I thought we had to have it.
16:26 And it looked so stupid.
16:27 We couldn't live with ourselves.
16:29 Our junkyard car didn't look cool enough
16:32 with blue doors and white paint.
16:33 I just couldn't have it.
16:34 So then Finnegan calls Jeff Lutz,
16:36 who's standing in Houston at the drag strip where we want to race.
16:39 Why we didn't do this a day ago, I don't know.
16:41 And he goes, Lutz, can you talk to the tech guy
16:43 and find out if they'll let us run without windows?
16:45 Guy goes, yeah.
16:47 7 o'clock.
17:02 We have to leave in an hour, right?
17:04 Is that what I said?
17:06 Five hours from now, the drag strip next door closes.
17:09 So that's our new bogey?
17:10 New goal.
17:10 If we get it running in four hours,
17:13 we can go make a lap over there.
17:14 Does it have to have brakes?
17:15 No.
17:16 We could not find junkyard taillights,
17:18 and so I'm using magnetic trailer lights, which won't magnetize.
17:22 It's 9.30.
17:23 We've got about 2 and 1/2 hours until the drag strip closes.
17:27 We're going to fire off the motor for the very first time
17:30 on the stock gas tank.
17:32 And the potential for that thing to turn brown right now
17:35 and look like the bottom of a fish tank, very high.
17:38 So go ahead, hit it.
17:41 [ENGINE STARTS]
17:43 Hey, we got gas.
17:48 Yeah!
17:49 Alternator works.
17:50 Cool.
17:51 Right on.
17:51 I was about ready to pack the wheel bearings,
17:57 and I noticed that we got the race spun in the drum, which
18:00 is really ungood.
18:02 Not sure how we're going to fix that just yet.
18:04 Probably knock it out, stake the back of it or something.
18:08 Right?
18:09 Huh?
18:12 There's an old farmer's trick that you can do, where you take a punch
18:16 and you smack the machine surface where the race goes in,
18:19 and it makes little dents and little lifted areas of metal
18:22 around the dent that reduce the inside diameter of the race journal
18:25 so that the race can pound in again.
18:28 And so this guy, James, who works at the auto ranch, who
18:30 has been super helpful and who is the master of the junkyard repair,
18:34 shows up.
18:35 He knows this trick like that and dials us in.
18:38 So we got to bleed the brakes, fix all the water leaks,
18:41 wire the taillights, cut something off the floor of the car
18:43 so that bench seat that we robbed from another car will fit,
18:47 make sure the shifter works, drop it on the ground, try and run it.
18:51 We're leaving tomorrow night sometime, 24 hours from now, if at all.
18:55 Time for bed.
18:56 Let's go.
18:57 OK.
18:57 Did it sound like we were going to bed together?
19:02 [LAUGHTER]
19:04 [ENGINE REVVING]
19:06 [MUSIC PLAYING]
19:10 [CRICKETS CHIRPING]
19:21 [MUSIC PLAYING]
19:24 A cure-all.
19:26 [MUSIC PLAYING]
19:29 Ah, that makes me feel better.
19:34 Nitrous.
19:35 [MUSIC PLAYING]
19:38 Ventilated, sealed.
19:48 [MUSIC PLAYING]
19:51 [MUSIC PLAYING]
19:55 At this point, there's the possibility that after all this work,
20:05 we're going to try and drive it around the block
20:07 and the transmission will just be garbage.
20:09 It spun the wheels on the jack stand.
20:11 That doesn't mean it moves the car.
20:13 Dude, don't talk about it.
20:15 That's just the possibility.
20:16 We have a chrome air cleaner, OK?
20:18 Oh, yeah.
20:18 We'll be good.
20:19 The car's fine.
20:20 We got the car completely running.
20:22 Everything was coming together, and the brakes didn't work.
20:25 It turns out that all of the little tiny line was just packed with goo.
20:30 I ended up taking the entire brake system apart-- the metering valve,
20:34 the prop valve, chain gusts, cramming wire through it, air, carb cleaner.
20:39 Nightmare.
20:40 Even though we're not going to get any test runs in Houston,
20:43 we're still going to be able to run across the street over here at North
20:46 Star if only I can make this junk stop.
20:49 [MUSIC PLAYING]
20:52 I think all that's left to do is bleed the front brakes
21:04 and see if she'll drive down the street.
21:08 Maybe even do a burnout.
21:10 You know, there's a moment at which you think no amount of duct tape
21:14 is actually going to get you on the road with this car.
21:17 And then there's that moment when you fire it up and put it into gear
21:20 and head out for your first test drive.
21:21 [ENGINE STARTS]
21:24 [MUSIC PLAYING]
21:27 And at this point, Finnegan and I are just giddy.
21:36 And we pull out in front of the yard, drive around a couple of times,
21:40 and I swear we're not in the car 30 seconds before Finnegan's on the wood.
21:44 And this thing lays patch for a half a block.
21:48 [ENGINE REVVING]
21:49 Yeah!
21:50 Yeah!
21:51 Yeah!
21:52 [LAUGHTER]
21:53 Dude!
21:54 [CLAPPING]
21:56 Yeah!
21:57 [LAUGHTER]
21:58 Oh, dude, it's funky.
21:59 And it smells like rubber in here.
22:01 [LAUGHTER]
22:04 You know, three trips around the block is good enough proof
22:06 for a junkyard car.
22:08 So what do you do?
22:09 You head straight to the drag strip.
22:11 [ENGINE REVVING]
22:14 [TIRES SCREECHING]
22:18 North Star is a really cool little track.
22:20 It's an eighth mile, which is unusual for me, but nice place.
22:24 The people there are fantastic.
22:26 Can't say enough about the whole crew and how they treated us there.
22:29 Finnegan goes up there to make the first pass on motor.
22:32 [ENGINE REVVING]
22:35 [TIRES SCREECHING]
22:38 [ENGINE REVVING]
22:42 [INAUDIBLE]
22:45 9.06.
22:47 And I instantly whip out my phone and do the math
22:49 to convert it to like a quarter mile time, which is language I understand.
22:52 And it's a 14.20.
22:54 And I am just completely over the moon at this point,
22:57 because 14.20 means that I can spray this thing into a 12 second car for sure.
23:03 It's 11.30, and I don't think we're racing in Houston
23:06 unless we get there at like 9 or 10, which means we got a cannonball.
23:09 Let's get the hell out of here.
23:10 [ENGINE REVVING]
23:13 [MUSIC PLAYING]
23:17 [HORN HONKING]
23:20 Our really old and dry rotted tires are self-ejecting the treads now.
23:24 We heard something smack the inside of the quarter panel pretty hard,
23:28 and it was that.
23:29 Not good.
23:30 I vote limp it to the hotel, deal with it in the morning.
23:33 Well, yeah.
23:33 We pretty much don't have a choice.
23:35 [ENGINE REVVING]
23:37 We woke up in the morning at the Hooker Hotel,
23:40 and sure enough, the tire was completely flat.
23:43 But that doesn't slow us down.
23:44 We don't have a spare, and we don't want to wait for a tow truck.
23:47 So we hit the road in the Cuda with a dead flat tire,
23:50 drove the thing five miles on a completely flat tire.
23:54 But the gearhead angels shine upon us once again,
23:57 because we never gacked the wheel.
23:59 Then we were able to slap new rubber on the car.
24:02 We got four new tires, because that's the way we roll.
24:04 Tires are on, feeling good, except we're suffocating
24:07 from all the exhaust leaks in this thing and the holes in the floor.
24:10 So we brought it to this muffler shop, who
24:13 said two hours to change the header gaskets and the collector gaskets.
24:17 We came back four hours later, and it leaked worse than when we got here.
24:21 So now Dave and I are fixing it ourselves, which is probably
24:23 what we should have done first.
24:25 Probably.
24:26 The end.
24:27 The end.
24:27 Dave and I proceed to take the next two hours,
24:30 making it worse than it was when we rolled in,
24:32 but better than it was when the professional mechanics had
24:35 their hands on it.
24:36 It still sounded like dog shit when we left.
24:38 We hit the road, and the exhaust fume deal is just as bad as it ever has been.
24:47 We got a pretty bad exhaust leak in the cooter.
24:50 We're basically suffocating while we drive,
24:56 so I'm going to hack up this two liter bottle of soda,
25:00 duct tape it to the window frame, and hopefully get some fresh air blowing
25:05 at our dome so we don't pass out in the middle of night while we're driving.
25:09 Wide open windows, and still you need a Coke bottle funneling the 70 mile
25:14 an hour air directly at your face so that you can barely
25:18 breathe enough to stay alive.
25:19 We're in Houston.
25:25 We spent most of yesterday getting tires on the car
25:27 and trying to protect ourselves from carbon monoxide,
25:30 but we made it late last night, and now we are headed to the racetrack,
25:33 hopefully to make some nitrous passes in the car,
25:36 and then I think we're going to auction this thing off to some lucky person,
25:39 or unlucky person, depending on your point of view.
25:41 What's going on here is a regular NMCA event.
25:57 Street car racing, pro street, the 10.5 cars,
26:00 all the greatest heroes in the country, including the guys from Hot Rod
26:04 Magazine Drag Week, like Jeff Lutz, and Larry Larson, and Tim Reed,
26:08 and they were just busting a gut at the Cuda.
26:10 We installed that NOS system in record time, I think 10 minutes,
26:14 like literally three people, 10 hands.
26:17 Everything like this.
26:18 We can't go home without running the nitrous to the thing,
26:20 so we don't have an electric fuel pump for the nitrous system,
26:23 so we're going to tee it into the stock pump, cross our fingers,
26:26 and pray to God it doesn't lean out.
26:27 Tim Reed, one of the guys that competes at Drag Week,
26:30 was cool enough to loan me some of his nitrous system parts,
26:33 and he come over and helped me wire the car.
26:35 So when it was done, it only made sense to go for a test ride with him,
26:38 because if it didn't work, it was kind of his fault.
26:40 Surge is a little--
26:49 It definitely surges.
26:50 It holds ass.
26:52 Turned around to go back to the track, because we
26:54 need to do a little more tweaking on the car,
26:56 and as I was making the U-turn, I hit the nitrous button on accident.
27:00 Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
27:02 What, you bumped the button?
27:03 No, my hand's up here.
27:05 My hand's up here, man.
27:07 I bet you bunched--
27:09 Oh, that's not good.
27:12 Right now, the bottle's leaking.
27:13 I blame David for that, because he tightened it.
27:17 And we have no key to get the trunk open,
27:20 so we're just going to wait a little bit, because the car is full of nitrous
27:24 right now, and not safe to drive down the road.
27:26 It's a good thing we had a bunch of extra nitrous bottles with us,
27:29 because we had had them filled at North Star the night before.
27:32 We were pitted right next to Jeff Lutz, and he
27:42 drives a '57 Chevy that's one of the fastest street cars on the planet.
27:45 So when I asked him to help me stage the cooter, he laughed at me,
27:49 but he said yes.
27:50 And so I've got this guy standing in front of the car,
27:53 and he's waving me into the beams, and he's laughing his ass off,
27:56 because he's staging a 15-second car.
27:59 [MUSIC PLAYING]
28:02 Come on, baby.
28:16 Woo!
28:20 110 mile an hour.
28:21 That's badass.
28:22 Best day at work ever, man.
28:24 Lutz is jumping up and down, because this thing ran 14.74,
28:28 but at 110 miles an hour.
28:30 And I'm doing the math, quick in my head, going that's a low 12-second car.
28:34 It could be an 1190 car if it had traction.
28:38 I went directly from the end of the drag strip
28:41 back over to the grandstands right by the starting line.
28:44 And the announcer was super cool.
28:46 He told everybody that we were jumping on an airplane right now,
28:50 and to get out whatever cash they had in their pockets,
28:52 because we were going to auction the car off right then and there,
28:55 along with all of the tools we'd bought and whatever spare parts we
28:58 didn't have time to install on it.
29:00 And people showed up for this.
29:02 I couldn't believe it.
29:03 We've got $100.
29:04 What do we got over here?
29:05 $200.
29:05 $200.
29:06 Anyone else?
29:07 $300 from the gentleman in the red cap.
29:09 Anyone else?
29:10 1,000 bucks for Charlie.
29:11 Whoa!
29:11 1,000 bucks.
29:12 $1,000.
29:14 $200.
29:16 $1,500 for the racetrack.
29:18 All right.
29:20 Thank you for having us.
29:21 $1,600.
29:22 $1,600.
29:24 $1,800?
29:25 $1,900.
29:27 $1,900.
29:28 Wow.
29:29 $1,900.
29:30 Going once.
29:30 He's checking it out.
29:31 $2,025.
29:33 $2,025.
29:35 Nice round number.
29:36 How'd you pick that one?
29:37 $2,400.
29:38 Big move.
29:39 Big move.
29:40 $2,500.
29:41 Linda from San Jose.
29:43 $2,500.
29:45 $2,500.
29:46 $2,500.
29:47 $2,900.
29:47 $2,900.
29:48 $3,000.
29:49 $3,000.
29:49 Yeah!
29:50 $3,000.
29:51 $3,000.
29:53 Linda's got it for $3,000.
29:55 Adam.
29:56 $3,100.
29:58 Wow.
29:58 $3,100.
30:01 OK, $3,150.
30:02 $3,150.
30:05 Going once.
30:07 Going twice.
30:10 Sold for $3,150.
30:11 All right.
30:12 [CLAPPING]
30:13 [MUSIC PLAYING]
30:16 You know what the best part of this roadkill was?
30:18 Think what didn't happen.
30:20 What didn't happen?
30:21 We didn't overheat and take the hood off the car.
30:23 There were no gauges.
30:24 We didn't even know if we were overheating.
30:25 Oh, yeah.
30:26 No oil pressure, no ammeter, no gauges.
30:28 That's OK.
30:29 The hood did stay on the car, though,
30:31 which is-- that's a step up for us.
30:32 Overall, I'm going to say really solid roadkill.
30:35 Took a thing out of the junkyard,
30:36 raced two drag strips, nitrous.
30:38 My hands feel like I got into a fist fight with a cheese grater.
30:41 I'm OK with it, man.
30:42 It was pretty bad.
30:43 OK with it.
30:43 One more bit of fun before we give it away.
30:46 Ready?
30:46 Yes, sir.
30:47 [ENGINE REVVING]
30:48 [TIRES SCREECHING]
30:49 [ENGINE REVVING]
30:51 All right.
30:54 You ready?
30:55 For what?
30:56 We're going to go.
30:58 We're going to do this now.
30:59 Just pretend like I'm doing something here.
31:02 Basically what I'm doing.
31:04 These are tight.
31:04 Yeah, yeah.
31:05 That looks good.
31:06 Tuck that in right there.
31:08 Ready to go.
31:13 It's going to get a clap, David.
31:15 [CLAPPING]
31:17 Yes!
31:18 Yay!
31:21 Ah, roadkill.
31:23 No logic, no budget, no shame.
31:27 Give us a clap, David.
31:29 [CLAPPING]
31:30 That was a good clap with diesel hands.
31:32 Diesel adds the power.
31:33 Wow, you got some pop in that.
31:35 It's the diesel.
31:36 I'd do that.
31:37 I'm convinced.
31:38 Everything hurts.
31:40 Running out of daylight.
31:41 I need parts.
31:42 Hurry!
31:44 [HUMMING]
31:46 Yeah, buddy.
32:03 Don't be scared.
32:04 I've searched the whole place.
32:10 There's no back tires or wheels we can use.
32:14 [ENGINE RUMBLING]
32:17 (water splashing)