On this episode of Roadkill
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MotorTranscript
00:00 We just bought this Jaguar for a thousand bucks, installed that blower in a parking lot, went drag racing, and cruised it home.
00:06 What did you do today?
00:29 In this episode of Roadkill, we're in San Francisco.
00:32 My friends Matt and Darren from White Flag Racing in Washington dared us to buy their old small block powered Jaguar.
00:38 We had a Hawaiian 671 blower and a set of Holley carbs sitting on our desks.
00:42 We told them, "Drive the Jag to San Francisco," and we'd meet them there with a thousand bucks and they'd have a deal.
00:47 This is too good for us. Clearly too good for us.
00:50 It's too nice.
00:51 She's a runner.
00:52 Is it fast?
00:53 It's gotta be fast. It's got duct tape on it. Look at this.
00:56 Wow!
00:57 That started too easy. I'm a little worried.
00:59 It's a sweet.
01:00 It runs good.
01:01 And it's a '74?
01:04 '74.
01:05 It's smog exempt.
01:06 Oh, we're gonna have fun.
01:08 Look how nice the trunk opens. It's like English quality.
01:11 Straight from Coventry.
01:13 Oh, dude, you can smuggle a lot of hookers in that trunk.
01:16 Wow, you can.
01:17 There's a lot you can do.
01:18 Okay.
01:19 Ready? You got it?
01:21 Yep.
01:22 Ah!
01:23 This door doesn't open.
01:28 You trying to sell us a bogus car here?
01:31 The seatbelt's gooey enough that I feel safer not wearing it.
01:35 I know. It's kind of gross.
01:37 Is the heater on?
01:38 Seriously?
01:39 Yeah, it is. Because that turns your fan on.
01:41 We have to have the heater?
01:42 Turn your fan on.
01:43 Oh, when we turn the radiator fan on, it also turns the heater on?
01:46 Yeah.
01:47 Wait, why does this say V12?
01:48 This is a V12 car.
01:50 You always wanted a V12 ever since you drove that Lamborghini, remember?
01:53 Somehow this is coming a little bit short of that.
01:55 You feel gypped by four whole cylinders.
01:57 Yeah. We'll add a blower and make up for it.
01:59 Ooh, it's peppy.
02:01 Am I gonna have a "this is too nice to ruin" moment with this car?
02:04 Yes, you are.
02:05 This is pretty sweet.
02:07 That'll just make you wrong. This is not too nice to ruin.
02:10 When you bolt a small block Chevy in a Jaguar, does it just automatically start leaking?
02:14 Probably leaking before the Chevy ever made its way in there.
02:16 Or does it have, like, organ rejection?
02:18 Is that wide open?
02:20 Ooh!
02:22 Oh, that's not good.
02:23 That's fuel starvation.
02:25 That's always a good idea with a supercharger.
02:27 Yeah, let's put a blower on. That'll fix that right up.
02:30 This thing's a pile. It's perfect for cutting a hole in.
02:33 Oh, I actually have no issue with that, but I'm saying overall this is just too comfortable.
02:37 I'm not suffering at the level I like to suffer.
02:39 What do you mean? The windows are up and the heater's stuck on, dude.
02:42 I feel good. It can only get worse from here.
02:44 The blower's not going to help any overheating situation. I hope you're aware of that.
02:48 I'll just drive faster. More wind.
02:50 Okay. We'll be able to drive faster.
02:53 The blower will self-compensate that way.
02:56 Yeah.
02:57 I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm excited about the Jaguar.
03:00 Thanks for everything.
03:01 Thank you very much.
03:02 You just want to say goodbye and run as fast as you can, don't you?
03:05 You now assume no responsibility, right?
03:07 I have no responsibility whatsoever.
03:09 As is, where is, how is. No warranty. Express or implied.
03:12 It's yours. You bought it.
03:14 I'm approving of it.
03:15 Go put a blower on it.
03:16 We need to find a spot to do that.
03:18 We should be near a parts store or do we live dangerously and not be near a parts store?
03:22 We're going to need a parts store.
03:24 Less than a mile from the airport is Gotelli's Speed Shop, so we're camped out here in their parking lot.
03:29 The Jaguar runs pretty darn good.
03:31 It's got a Vortec 350 in it and a Turbo 350 Trans. Not fast enough, though.
03:36 Not fast at all.
03:37 We're going to cut a giant hole in the hood of this thing and put a supercharger on it.
03:41 [Music]
03:46 You're not going to believe this, but the water's going in the bucket.
03:49 You're right, I don't, because you're usually the guy that just puts that big 8-foot round stain on the ground.
03:53 I'll make a claim.
03:54 It's 1 o'clock, we started. 5 o'clock, it runs.
03:57 Hey, this is a roller cam motor, and it's sludgy.
04:03 Wow, this guy was big on oil changes and maintenance.
04:06 I feel real good about it.
04:07 This thing's so filthy inside, it probably doesn't even matter if I scrape gasket into the valley and leave it.
04:13 Well, if you're going to clean the bolts, then I'm going to clean the sludge out of the lifter valley just because I feel guilty.
04:18 Don't even bother.
04:20 That's performance-oriented. This is cosmetic.
04:23 As of right now, we're 38 minutes in.
04:26 [Music]
04:35 Wow, that's beautiful.
04:37 I can hear the awesome. I can taste the boost.
04:40 They'll want to put it in a museum because it's going to look like art.
04:42 I don't know if you noticed, but we have a Jaguar with a blower bolted to it.
04:46 Few things in life look that cool right there.
04:48 Most of those things are naked women.
04:50 There are no other cars that look as cool as that.
04:53 We've got miscellaneous lines to hook up, cut the hole in the hood, put a fuel pump in it.
04:57 It looks like it's really close to being done, but we've got hours of work left still.
05:01 We just installed $1,600 worth of carburetors on a $1,000 POF.
05:06 I'm putting the throttle linkage together.
05:08 Actually, I'm putting it together and taking it apart over and over again until I get it just perfect so that it opens full throttle without sticking.
05:15 This is an MSD boost timing master.
05:18 It retards timing in proportion to boost so that you don't detonate the engine and kill it, and we're going to need all the help with that that we can get.
05:26 Okay, that's my three out of four ain't bad MSD mounting method.
05:29 What do you think?
05:31 Right here, not so much.
05:33 Over here, nice and attached.
05:35 Throttle linkage did a little adjusting.
05:39 Had to move the mount for it, so I'm being lazy right now, and I'm just going to drill the new hole on the motor.
05:45 Fixed.
05:47 Done?
05:48 I am the smartest man alive.
05:50 Look at the action on that baby.
05:52 Wow, look at that.
05:53 That only took three hours?
05:55 One hour.
05:56 One?
05:57 If I had read the instructions, it probably would have worked in stock form.
05:59 I don't think so.
06:01 Oh, the throttle linkage is the thing of beauty.
06:03 We have the original cable in some mishmash bracket with some junk hanging off that we don't even need, followed by the thing of beauty vise grips holding it all in place.
06:12 The zip tie is, of course, holding the wiring.
06:14 This is a factory Y-end bracket.
06:16 This is the Y-end linkage.
06:18 This, not so much.
06:19 That's an extension so that we could lengthen the cable to get wide open throttle.
06:23 Then, of course, there's the beautiful and NHRA legal dual return spring setup being held by the crimp connector eyelet underneath the valve cover bolt.
06:33 That's genius.
06:35 I graduated college.
06:37 For that.
06:38 For that.
06:39 Ready?
06:40 Yep.
06:41 Okay, we made it run at 630, only an hour and a half behind schedule, right?
06:51 That doesn't really count as running.
06:53 It ran.
06:54 It coughed.
06:56 It ran.
06:57 It sounded to me like it still needs more advance.
07:00 Yeah.
07:01 So I just cranked that in.
07:02 Wow.
07:06 I have never heard such a weak blown motor.
07:09 It sounds stock.
07:10 It's stock.
07:11 But I can hear a pulley.
07:13 Kinda.
07:14 That was no good for that poor blower.
07:20 Okay, there's a big water leak over there you might want to handle.
07:23 Oh, there's no radiator cap on this thing.
07:25 That's probably why.
07:26 Who was in charge of that?
07:27 Uh, not me.
07:30 Success.
07:31 Car runs.
07:32 I don't know if it moves, but it started up and now we just gotta set the timing, play with the carve a little bit, and then cut a big giant hole in the hood so we can put the scoop on.
07:41 Don't let the vice grips holding the throttle together fool you.
07:46 You care about this car.
07:48 [Sawing]
07:51 This is about to be the reason why we did all of this.
07:58 Yeah!
08:01 Dude, does not get any more hot rod than that right there.
08:05 The drag war is born.
08:07 That's tea and crumb bits covered in Jack Daniels right there.
08:11 I don't even need you in here to make right turns.
08:15 You can see a geo past that scoop.
08:17 This maybe hides a guy on a moped.
08:19 Another good day.
08:21 8.33. That's only what, three and a half hours past when we estimated, right?
08:27 The hood fits, cuts pretty good if I do say so myself.
08:30 We're gonna hit the road tonight and go find a hotel to stay at and then tomorrow morning we'll tune it up a little bit, head out to Sacramento Raceway.
08:37 [Music]
08:40 Well this is pretty awesome.
08:54 It's day two of our adventure and we have a problem with the throttle linkage where the little arm is over center and so it's really, really hard to step on the pedals.
09:01 You pretty much have to just slam your foot on the floor to make the throttle work.
09:04 It's not the best way to try and drive it.
09:06 So we're gonna raise this up, bolt it all back together and then hit the road.
09:10 I think we tried it four different ways with the vice grips.
09:13 Two different ways there so that's eight times about five different ways there so that's what, forty something?
09:20 Yeah, at least.
09:21 Roughly 50 different combinations.
09:23 Finally kind of high.
09:33 We're just gonna have to adjust it for extra medium throttle at the racetrack.
09:36 Yeah, it's a precision instrument of horsepower here.
09:39 We get to pick whether it idles or whether it has wide open and right now we've chosen idle and when we get to the drag strip we will choose wide open.
09:45 Ah yeah!
09:48 And it died.
09:50 This is really quiet.
09:53 Dude, it just stuck the throttle open.
10:02 Yeah, because it's up against the hood.
10:04 No rev limiter.
10:05 Oh, we didn't put a chip in.
10:07 Just found valve float.
10:10 You're like, "Huh, the throttle has a hard spot."
10:18 Yeah, where it's hitting the hood.
10:21 [Music]
10:32 We made it over the Bay Bridge on our way to Sacramento but the problem is that our new fancy linkage that's actually functional hits the hood now.
10:40 Which is a drag because it tends to stick at wide open throttle.
10:43 Fortunately we're not making enough power for that really to be a problem but it's a little annoying.
10:47 We'll get there faster, it just won't be too safe.
10:50 Oh yeah!
10:54 It's like butter now.
10:56 Now, when you don't want to go full throttle, you don't have to go full throttle.
11:00 [Music]
11:10 So we're cruising along I-80 heading towards the drag strip.
11:13 Probably going too fast but not sure because we have no speedometer.
11:16 The temp gauge just started climbing, climbing, climbing and we pegged it back there and I could smell a little bit of a coolant.
11:21 So we stopped in here just to let it cool off and oh, it's dripping good now.
11:25 You could boil cabbage in there right now.
11:27 It's the difference between going from, what was it, 55 degrees last night, 70 during the day and it's now 103.
11:33 Yeah.
11:34 That's why.
11:35 It's hot. I don't blame the blower at all.
11:36 It's flawless.
11:37 Yeah.
11:38 Cool air is passing past it.
11:39 We've really increased the ventilation by two square feet as far as I'm concerned.
11:43 The adiabatic efficiency is just off the charts.
11:45 It's 102 degrees out and I figure the fastest way to cool this thing off is to drive it through a car wash.
11:51 So that's what we're going to do.
11:52 If it starts.
11:58 Oh, that's not good.
12:05 Like the gas is boiling?
12:07 Want to pour some water on the carburetors?
12:09 I don't know why I'm doing this.
12:11 This is doing absolutely nothing other than entertain Finnegan.
12:15 [engine starting]
12:17 It worked!
12:19 Thank you!
12:20 It worked!
12:21 You were right, I was wrong.
12:22 Yeah, I'm claiming it.
12:23 Let's go cool the car off.
12:25 Oh, okay, windows leak.
12:33 Actually kind of feels good right now.
12:35 Oh, that totally worked.
12:38 It barely wanted to start because it was so hot.
12:40 And when I left the car wash, needle was back in the middle of the gauge, fired right up.
12:44 So that's the key.
12:45 We'll drive like 20 minutes and then pull over somewhere and wash the car.
12:48 So we drove 10 miles I think.
12:57 Getting another car wash now.
12:59 Cool the drag wire off so we can go another 10 miles and get another car wash.
13:03 It's Africa hot inside this car right now.
13:06 Holy cow.
13:07 I wonder why the car is not happy.
13:09 It's like driving down the freeway with a hair dryer pointed at you.
13:12 The air hitting the radiator is not doing anything.
13:14 Yeah, Freiburger is down for the cause.
13:16 As soon as we get here and the windows roll up, he jumps out.
13:19 Shit!
13:20 I guess that's what I get for talking smack right now.
13:25 Ah, shit!
13:27 Wait!
13:29 Ha ha!
13:30 Ah!
13:31 Engine's cold again.
13:33 Success!
13:36 [Music]
13:38 Car wash number three.
13:46 We're about two miles from the drag strip.
13:48 Going to make one more stop to cool the motor off.
13:50 Then we're going fast.
13:52 Extra medium actually.
13:54 It's actually 110 outside right now.
13:56 Look at the slime.
13:57 This thing was in air conditioning two minutes ago.
14:00 Yuck.
14:02 We made it 12 miles between car washes this time.
14:05 Doing good.
14:06 My average is going up.
14:08 [Engine revving]
14:10 [Music]
14:17 So we drove two and a half hours in the sweat box at like 108 degrees.
14:25 But finally we're here at Sacramento Raceway.
14:27 And now we're going to hook up an O2 sensor
14:29 so we can read the air/fuel ratio on the motor.
14:31 And we'll go out in the street and tune it up a little bit.
14:33 Then go through tech inspection and hope that they actually let us race with our cracked windshield.
14:37 Don't tell them.
14:38 Here's the thing everyone watching this video needs to understand.
14:43 This blower is cosmetic.
14:45 This isn't serious performance equipment at this point
14:48 because it is on a bone stock 350 crate motor small block.
14:52 Who knows how many miles are on the thing.
14:54 It probably made 250 horsepower when it was stock, to be generous.
14:57 So with the blower, 5-6 pounds of boost.
15:00 Honestly it's lucky if it's making 300-320.
15:03 And we found out the rear axle ratio on this is 2.88 to 1.
15:07 So yeah, it's a dog.
15:09 But we look good.
15:10 And that's what's important right now.
15:11 Oh it looks amazing.
15:13 [Engine revving]
15:15 We installed our wideband O2 system.
15:20 It's telling us right now at different throttle positions whether it's running lean or fat.
15:25 Which we need to correct that before we make a pass down the strip and hurt the motor.
15:28 [Engine revving]
15:30 Do you see it go to 14?
15:37 Yeah 14 is fine.
15:39 14 is fine?
15:40 Yeah, if it gets any worse than that I'll be concerned.
15:42 13.
15:45 There we go.
15:46 That's kind of good.
15:50 It's fine.
15:51 It's fine. Wow.
15:52 It doesn't run very good though.
15:54 No, it's doggy for sure.
15:56 I think it might have been hitting valve float at some point.
15:59 It sounded decent and then it started breaking up a little bit and then you shifted.
16:02 That's where you're supposed to shift right? Valve float?
16:04 Works for me.
16:06 Oh, is that like head gasket?
16:10 Wow, that's real bad.
16:19 Oh dude.
16:23 Yeah, it's completely out of water now.
16:25 It was trying to self-cool. See, it was ejecting water onto the blower.
16:28 Yeah.
16:29 That's all it was trying to do.
16:30 It's fine.
16:31 Can't kill this thing.
16:33 Alright, so we'll just tidy up and get ready and let this cool down.
16:38 Put some water in it, crack the block and hit the track.
16:41 We've been having some overheating problems.
16:43 This might have a little bit of something to do with it.
16:45 113.
16:47 But it's a dry 113.
16:49 The radiator is very dry.
16:51 Too hot riding around with no water in the radiator.
16:54 It's irrelevant when it's 113.
16:56 You can do what you want at that point.
16:58 That's taking a lot of water.
16:59 Yeah.
17:00 Oh, it's going to take all of it, twice.
17:02 We're filling it up with water and I looked in the radiator and saw that there's like
17:07 two rows of veins that I can see of tubes running in the radiator.
17:11 Only two of them are squirting water.
17:13 This radiator is junk.
17:15 It's totally plugged up.
17:19 It's cold water.
17:21 Steam is hot.
17:23 This is high tech.
17:24 I think this is how NHRA guys do it.
17:26 Thank God there's no Teflon on those rotors.
17:29 Probably would have melted it out.
17:31 I'm guessing the rotors are pretty scuffed.
17:33 Well, we got our junk cooled down and running and we're looking for tech inspection now,
17:39 which appears to be here.
17:41 That was great.
17:43 Look.
17:45 Tech guy was extremely cool, sort of got what we were doing here.
17:48 So, we passed.
17:50 I really didn't give us a hope in hell of passing.
17:53 That's awesome.
17:54 That's because you weren't here.
17:55 That means our zip ties and electrical tape were well placed.
17:58 It's completely dark.
17:59 We're running out of time, so I'm just pouring some hardcore race gas in this thing,
18:03 hoping we don't detonate it and kill it.
18:05 We were going to install a new set of spark plugs so that after he makes some laps,
18:09 we can look at them and read them and find out how the motor's running.
18:12 But these are the wrong spark plugs.
18:14 So, forget that idea.
18:16 Flying blind.
18:18 We are everything that we hate right now.
18:20 Guys on race gas with a blower who are painfully slow.
18:23 We're posers right now.
18:25 Yeah, but our car looks awesome.
18:27 Isn't that basically the definition of poser?
18:30 Looks awesome, runs slow.
18:33 I'm ignoring the rules this week.
18:35 You ready to guess ET?
18:36 Sure.
18:37 Who's driving?
18:38 Rock, paper, scissors?
18:39 Yeah.
18:40 Okay.
18:41 Ready?
18:42 Rock, paper, scissors.
18:43 Ah, gotcha.
18:44 Man, all right.
18:45 I always lose that.
18:46 All right, but how fast are you going?
18:48 It's going to run 15.80.
18:50 Okay.
18:51 At 90 miles an hour.
18:52 All right.
18:53 Maybe 89.
18:55 I'm an optimist.
18:57 15 flat.
18:58 95 miles an hour.
19:01 [music]
19:05 [music]
19:09 [music]
19:37 Oh, wow, that's pretty slow.
19:39 15.35.
19:43 That's quicker than he thought it would be.
19:45 Really slow, though.
19:48 [engine revving]
20:16 Oh, shit.
20:18 Oh, no.
20:19 Fryburger just puked all over the track.
20:21 This is the part where everybody hates us
20:23 because now there's no more racing until they clean it up.
20:26 Damn.
20:28 And it's hot and it's gotten slower.
20:30 I blame myself for that.
20:32 I had a feeling it was going to get hot after just one lap
20:34 and probably start puking.
20:36 Probably should have told him to stop.
20:38 It wasn't even hot when I left.
20:40 It was hot enough.
20:41 Was it puking right when I pulled up?
20:43 Because the gauge was way low.
20:45 And then when you took off, all the way down the track.
20:47 Oh.
20:48 Yeah.
20:49 I've never done that in my life.
20:50 They hate us right now.
20:51 I'm sure.
20:52 So, we're done.
20:53 It's not going to go any faster anymore.
20:55 No, it's not.
20:56 You slowed down like almost 3/10 on that one.
20:58 Well, we came, we saw, we failed.
21:01 We did what we intended to do, which was drag race the Jaguar.
21:04 I think it's no longer the Dragwar.
21:06 We can't do it.
21:07 That's a drag to try and drag race it.
21:09 I guess that's true.
21:10 She's a cruiser.
21:11 She's not a drag racer now.
21:12 This is a car for bombing your way to Vegas.
21:14 Pulling up to the valet and saying, "Park this thing in a good spot."
21:17 That's what this is for.
21:19 Drink, sleep, leave?
21:21 Yes.
21:22 Okay.
21:23 It was dumb luck that not only was it super hot outside,
21:27 but the blower didn't help our cooling situation.
21:29 So, the next day, we bought a brand new radiator for the car,
21:32 hoping that would help us get home.
21:33 And when that didn't work, we just took the hood off the car
21:36 and strapped it to the roof and motored it all the way home.
21:39 You know, people have been giving us flack that we do things like
21:41 put engines in cars and parking lots in the middle of nowhere,
21:44 and then there's no burnouts.
21:45 So, here we go.
21:46 Get some! Yeah!
21:56 We needed a dial-back timing light, which probably won't work.
22:06 This is not a dial-back timing light.
22:08 I said it.
22:11 That must have been the $99 one.
22:13 This is the $49 one.
22:15 All right.
22:16 Well, we were going to time it, but now we're perfectly tuned.
22:19 Dude, give me a dial-back timing light.
22:20 He's like, "Okay, here. 49 or 99? Give me the 49. Okay."
22:23 Great. All right.
22:24 This will give you a good idea of where things are at.
22:26 That's my wallet.
22:27 The ratio of cash to receipts for stuff I've bought for the Jaguar,
22:32 it's a little lopsided.
22:34 And note that that's all ones and fives.
22:37 There's no 20s in there, no extra medium bills.
22:40 Things are not going well.