Taa-daa!
This is a column I’ve been dying to write for nearly two years. I pictured it with triumphant fanfare; the hero returns to the city, the dragon vanquished, the 1970 Challenger runs again with a monster, 505ci big-block and the ability to turn tire with the twitch of a toe. I could have laid it out like that for you, but this space has always been about the truth of project-car ownership, so instead of bragging about burnouts—which it does do, now—I’m going to talk about the slow march to glory.
The actual engine build took about a year, and that was after we had the bulk of the hard parts. There were machining waits, and machining costs, which meant time periods of no action, just saving up money. By early summer 2017, we had the engine complete and on a run stand. It sounded great, it broke in fine, and we pulled the ailing stock mill—yet to be autopsied—and slotted in the 505. It wasn’t too bad, aside from getting it all bolted up and discovering that the brand-new starter didn’t work. The sentence, “Can we just cut the back three header pipes and leave them off?” may have been uttered.
Finally, first drive. The tune was rich and the 3.23 gears were too high for the convertor, so it all slipped and groaned like an old man getting up from a lounge chair. The mix of new engine paint fumes, overfilled power steering, and unburned 91 octane was like the automotive equivalent of walking into a UC Santa Cruz dorm room. Through the chemical haze, I vaguely remember spinning the tires at 40 mph before it flung all the belts off and overheated. Limp-of-shame back to the garage to order and wait for March deep-groove pulleys. Sometimes you don’t beat the dragon on the first attempt.
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