Project Kingfish Part 4

Now this brings back some cool muscle car memories.

Welcome to Horsepower TV, where it's time to charge into Mopar Land. One more time,

Chuck's got the weekend off, no doubt going to a Chevelle Show of some kind. Meanwhile, you and I are gonna jump back into our project Kingfish. Here. You remember our 67 Barrack Cooter that we're turning into a suitable street machine.

Well, last time we had it in the shop, we swapped a rear end that was way too wide for this thing for a Dana 60 from DTs. And

that's when we made a surprising discovery.

You see the large center section of that Dana butted right up against the stock gas tank.

So, Chuck and I had to remove the tank in order to make way for a fuel cell. And here's what we're gonna use. It's a 16 gallon race style fuel cell from Jazz. The shell is polyethylene. It's filled with foam. Of course, down here, a couple of number eight pickup fittings on

S

on top at number six for ventilation. Now, the mounting kit features a pair of these U shaped brackets to both the cell down and a couple of straight ones to secure it underneath the car. Now, let me show you how it's gonna work in Old Kingfish here,

mounting a fuel cell is not a big brainer and there are a lot of ways you can do it according to your own preferences. But there's one thing that's very important.

I wanna make sure that the fuel pump is flush with or preferably below this pickup for maximum fuel delivery.

In fact, that old pump there mounted in the trunk is fed by the stock gas tank way down below and how that thing worked. I don't ever know. I do know this though.

This cell is not gonna simply mount here in the trunk with those brackets because of the spare tire. Well here. So here's the plan.

We make a cardboard template then fab up a piece of sheet metal to give a nice flat mounting surface and oh, before we secure it, we'll remove most of the material here to give access to the s

ok. That's it for the template.

See how it works here.

Pretty good.

Now, you can get a pretty good idea of how this thing is gonna look

after transferring the cardboard template with a sharpie. You can start cutting.

Oh, by the way, this is eight inch aluminum sheet metal that you can pick up at any local supplier.

Now, let's see if this thing's gonna work.

Oh, yeah, it's gonna be nice and solid strong.

Oh, by the way, this rectangular hole of course has been cut out to accommodate the sump. So next, we need to mark around the edge of our new mounting plate.

Now, we wanna move our plate in about two inches and mark a cut line. This will give us plenty of surface here

to mount our plate.

Well, now it's time to cut along that inside line I just made. And while I'm using a plasma cutter, you can get the job done with just about any kind of cutting tool you got in your shop.

Of course, make sure you check underneath first before you do this. So you're not cutting into something important like wiring or brake line.

Now, with the tire, well, out of the way you can smooth out those rough edges with the grinder

just in case you're wondering where's the spare tire gonna go? Now? Well, the answer is nowhere we're not gonna carry one besides our new 17 inch wheel and tire combination wouldn't fit that thing anyway.

Now you could weld in a piece of steel for a plate permanently here, but

I decided to use some sheet metal screws in this aluminum piece because it's faster. It's easier. And well, we can always change our mind about this set up later on.

Well, now is the time to drill mounting hose for those screws, one about every four inches

before attaching the plate. You wanna run a thick bead of automotive sealer around the edges. This will keep moisture out and compensate for any irregularities in the metal surface.

Now, with a plate in place,

install those screws,

this weather stripping goes around the hole we made for our sump again to keep the water out. Now let's position the cell and see what we got.

All right, I'm gonna like that.

Now, we can drop these brackets on

and drill some holes out there.

These bottom straight mounting straps will add extra rigidity to our cell

there. And that

is how you mount a fuel cell, at least in our case. That wasn't too bad.

Now, we also wanna update the entire fuel system on the Barracuda.

So we're gonna get started first with one of Holly's electric blue fuel pumps.

This thing flows 100 10 gallons per hour which is enough to feed a 600 horsepower engine.

Of course, we'll have to regulate that down to a safe pressure for the kingfish. So we'll also in bolt on one of their fuel pressure regulators.

Now, to get power to our pump, we're gonna use one of Holly's 30 relay kits. This will ensure that we don't lose any power from the battery to the fuel pump

to connect everything we need the right fittings. So at the pump cell regulator and carburetor, we'll use these Earl's adapters

to plumb from the adapters. We'll use these Anna

swivel seal fittings and some dash six pro light 350 hose. Oh, by the way,

we can't have a new system without a new filter to keep our fuel clean. And we're also gonna install one of these gauges to monitor our fuel pressure. First things first though, let's find a suitable place under the car to mount this pump.

Ok. Here's the deal. Just about every suitable location under here to mouth. This thing vertically is a little too close to exhaust heat. So

what I've done is clean off a little place here on the frame rail where I can weld on this piece of boxed in scrap metal.

I both the pump to it.

We've got access to our sump and well, the fuel pump stays nice and cool

while I do some welding though, you watch these messages. We'll be back to finish up our fuel system right after this.

Hey, thanks for staying with me and welcome back to the horsepower shop

in case you just joined us though. Our project Kingfish here has a new fuel cell that is following some serious truck surgery and fabing up a new solid mounting plate underneath. I just welded up this metal block to mount our holly fuel pump away from heat

and plumbed it up to the fuel cells,

which by the way was designed for a return that we don't need since we're not racing. So we cap this off and here installed an 8 to 6 a.m. reducer.

Now, since that fuel pump is designed to push fuel rather than pull it. This angle here is gonna let gravity help us with fuel delivery and prevent fuel from siphoning out of the pump when it's shut off. Oh, I also used a couple of these 90 degrees swivel seal fittings too and I'll take you over the bench and show you how to assemble those

first measure and cut the piece of hose. You need

place the socket in the ice and insert the hose till it butts up

against the bottom of the threads.

Then pull back about 1/16 or eight of an inch

and mark the hose here at the edge of the socket.

That mark there is gonna help you detect any tendency of the hose to work its way out during assembly.

Now, you wanna take the adapter in here and

put some assembly lube on the threads and nipple,

push that adapter into the socket hose assembly and start threading by hand. Go as far as you can

then take an A N wrench and finish tightening

until

you've got it down about 60 thousands from the socket. Let me check here.

Oh, we're good to go on this. Also. Check the mark you made on the hose and if it hasn't worked its way out, you've done it,

that was a lot easier than you thought. Right. Yeah, me too.

Now, we can plumb the rest of our Kudos

fuel system and you know, the tendency might be to use this existing hard line. But let's face it. This stuff's 35 years old and smaller in diameter than our plans call for.

So from the fuel pump forward, we're gonna complete the job with more pro light hose and secure it along the way

with some of these Earl's hose clamps.

Meanwhile, at top here, I'm getting rid of what's left of the old fuel system, including this regulator

and final piece of hose. You know, you've heard before. There's no sense of reinventing the wheel. Well, this location worked before and it'll work again with our new regulator. Maybe just a little bit lower.

The main consideration is to be able to make adjustments here while keeping an eye on the gauge. That'll be up next to the carburetor

and this is our billet fuel rail. We ordered to work with our demon carb.

You'll notice it comes pre tap for that fuel pressure gauge. I've already mounted.

Well, this is gonna about do it for our plumbing under the hood. Notice I got the main fuel line routed up to the regulator and from the regulator, this line to our fuel rail. Oh, by the way, make sure you leave a little bit of slack in this one to allow for engine rock.

Well, back here in the trunk, I just drilled a hole for our overflow tube. Gotta have one of these for safety.

Now, this thing is gonna feed down through the trunk floor of the Barracuda

and it's gonna connect to our fuel cell again using one of these 90 degree adapter fittings

before wiring up our fuel system. I'm gonna put some new power in the Plymouth itself.

The old 12 volt that was living back here in the trunk was on its last leg. So I'm gonna swap it out for one of these optimus seal batteries rated at 800 coal cranking s now it's got top and side terminals which come in handy and it's built to resist vibration, which means it ought to last a long time,

believe it or not, that's it for the wiring. Got the sending unit wired, it's ground and another ground to prevent sparks when we fill the fuel cell. Oh, and that relay kit, which acts like a switch to give us a constant 12 volts from the battery directly to the fuel pump. Ok. Now,

what do you say? We fired the old Kingfish up? See what we got.

Oh,

yeah,

that's the sound I've been waiting for all day, but we do have one more important step and that's to check for leaks up in the engine and down below as well while the engine's running. Now, while I do that though, you stay tuned. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to the shop where I just installed a brand new fuel cell in the Kingfish here and plumb the fuel system.

But you know what more often than not one project leads to another. For example. Now

what am I gonna do about this?

Well, whether you're dealing with a modified Mopar

like the Ka

here or a beautiful faithful reproduction like this 71 charger RT

finding the right reproduction parts for your Mopar

project can be quite an adventure.

That's why a visit to a catalog like this one from year one can be a good place to start the search.

They've got reproduction pieces for everything from engines to interiors,

from authentic badges to nice new clear looking lenses.

That's one reason that our Barracuda is a 20 footer looks good from a distance, but

up close, got a few cosmetic problems like a cracked backup light lens

or on the tail light lenses when they're suffering from years of abuse, scratches and even cracks. Now, we don't have time for a complete face lift on project Kingfish today. But I do want to show you how a few little cosmetic changes make a big difference.

One of the things you gotta love about old cars is you can replace a lot of parts with simple nuts and bolts and the difference between this old one and our year one reproduction.

Well, there you have it better looks and better illumination

there. What do you think a definite improvement? Huh?

Now, the catalog can also be your source for reproduction door handles, mirrors, all kinds of interior pieces,

but with old cars like this one, you're always gonna find pieces of your puzzle missing.

That is things they don't reproduce like grill inserts and even bumpers on some models for that. Well, you gotta go the junkyard route.

A

specialty bone yard like this one at Steven's performance in Rogersville, Alabama can be the best way to go.

They've got hundreds of donor mo pars that are harvested for their precious restoration parts.

Now, let me show you what a quick call to Stevens got us for the C A.

All the correct grill insert pieces.

They match the old ones uh except for the bins, gouges and scratches.

Plus we desperately needed a new front bumper for the Ka, which by the way is the same as the rear on this model. Now, these come off the used cars in pretty bad shape. So Stevens offers a chroming service we took advantage of and man, this thing looks brand new.

All right,

you gotta face it. So K

is putting on a pretty good front now. Oh, by the way, in addition to the grill inserts and bumper,

I also swapped out those dull old parking lot lenses with yet more year one rep pops.

I also scored this piece of used trim for the trunk and

that'll help dress things up back here. But let's say

you can't find a used or reproduction piece for something you wanna replace. Well, you could have a professional restored if you got the budget. But uh

there is

one more option. I wanna show you

sometimes with a little polishing compound and some elbow grease or a buffing machine,

you can bring those trim pieces back to life.

Now, the stock gas cap can go back home on the car even though now it's just for looks,

it will be all right.

As long as we don't pull up to the full service pump to get fuel, that could be quite a mess.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, we weren't out to do a full blown makeover on our Mopar just to try out a few things to pop up. The appearance from rep pops to recycle. And you gotta admit while it's not the best dress fish in the sea,

it did come from a 20 footer to a five footer.

Well, stay tuned. We got a quick tech for you. After these quick messages,

you want the latest on horsepower, check out our website at Horsepower tv.com.

You've waited a long time for that new short block and you can't wait to fill it with new performance parts, but wait

back up a bit.

Did you do your performance homework? First.

Gary pos teaches high performance engines at Wyotech and one of the most critical lessons is engine blueprinting.

I define blueprinting as any engine component you have making sure that the measurements on that component match the engineer's blueprint.

Ok. Plain and simple here. We have a block for uh 502. Good old Chevy block.

Uh, before it's machined and assembled. Need to blueprint. It need to take measurements. Which ones do you take?

Well, we're gonna take the main bearing board sizes and we're gonna make sure they're aligned with each other.

We're gonna do a deck height measurement. We're gonna make sure the deck is flat and we're gonna do cylinder board measurements. Ok. Those are the main ones. Those are the main ones. I guess we get started with the main bearings, right? Yes, let's do that.

We will need this handy tool first. Yes, we will. This is our

thal bore gauge. It is accurate to half of 1/1000 of an inch man. That's pretty close. Let me get this over for you. Ok.

There,

here we're measuring the diameter of the main bearing boards in the block

that looks pretty good. Let's try the next one.

Nice and consistent with each other

for

they were all good.

So now we can move on to checking alignment.

There you are. Thank you.

We're gonna use the precision straight edge and a feeler gauge of 1/1000 of an inch to make sure all of our bores are in line with each other.

Ok. Now, of course, if there is an alignment problem, the machine shop can take care of that with a line honing

and this one looks good.

Ok. Since you got the right tools already in hand, you know, check the deck straightness. Let's do that.

We're gonna check the deck straightness for warpage

using the same procedure we use with the main bearing bores

and the feeler gauge. And we're gonna do it in any position

that we think there might be warpage at.

Now, Gary is gonna need this gauge to measure deck height and I'll trade with you. Ok.

We're gonna measure deck height,

which is from the center line of the main bearing board to the top of the deck surface.

G

one is just so critical. Well, if this differs from side to side of the engine or from front to back, our compression ratio is gonna be different. Well, that's serious. Now, what if either of these deck measurements is off significantly? We need to let the machine shop know when we send this down to them and they'll make it the right height for us.

And we turn to this guy again for our final set of measurements. Gary, thank you.

We're gonna measure the cylinder bore diameter

and we're gonna check for taper, which is a condition from the top of the bore down to the bottom of the bore.

And last, we're gonna check for an out around condition.

Once again, if these numbers are off, the machine shop can help. Right. Absolutely. They can bore and hone this out to the size we want it. We'll end up running oversized pistons and rings in it. Thanks Gary. There. You have it. Remember

blueprint it before you build it.

Horsepower TV S hot parts is brought to you by jags. One call. Gets it all. One click, gets it quick.

Well, the old kingfish has come quite a long way today. We got a new fuel system for it. We got it fired up. And thanks to the trim pieces, we added both new and refurbished, turned the Barracuda into a pretty sharp looking predator.

Speaking of predators, here's one for your late model motor that puts fine tuning right in the palm of your hand. In fact, it's called the Sport Predator from Granite Heli Diablo. And it allows you to find the right tuning and fuel curves for your engine, change the speed and rev limiters the shift points and a whole lot more.

You just plug this in into your onboard computer, follow instructions on the screen, push a few buttons and

well, you're good to go. Now, this thing won't void your warranty or even your budget for that matter with prices starting at about 425.

Next, here's a wheel that's moving in pretty rapid fashion these days. This thing is called the Rapid and it's part of center lines new Tomahawk series. Now, it's manufactured with a rotary forge process which makes it stronger

and lighter. Now, it offers some

pretty hot new styling as you can see here and it comes in this cool chrome finish in three sizes 1820

22

it's a pretty good wheel deal for your Camaro or Mustang and most pickup trucks and suvs. Prices vary according to size this 20 inch or goes for about 200 bucks.

You wouldn't run a high speed race without protection for yourself like a helmet and safety harness. So it stands to reason you wouldn't run your late model street machine without adequate protection for its engine.

Well, now Quaker State offers this fully synthetic motor oil for advanced engines that not only protects against harmful deposits and acids, it reduces consumption at high speeds and offers faster lubrication for those cold start ups. Now, you can get it in three grades. 10 W 35 W 30

five W 50.

Well, speaking of heavyweights, my partner, Chuck says he'll be back to work next week and we'll get back to work on our project Supernova. We're gonna install racing seats, harnesses, gauges, a performance shifter and, well, a whole lot more goodies. It's our next horsepower TV. And we'll see you then.