METAL MEETS MONEY

Quality A-bodies are staying hot. This 1971 Duster 340, which took Gold at the Mopar Nats and had AACA Senior status, climbed to a big $71,500. amidst spirited bidding. FE2 Red and 4-speed combo helped a lot. Homebuilt Hellcat-fortified Satellite-to-SuperBird conversion drew attention, but owner took it home when high call was $170,000, which is still a big number for a conversion. Modifieds of all kinds had a lot of interest at this year’s event, and prices showed it.

Snake hunters holiday meant the opportunity to buy a very rare final year 2017 Dodge Viper ACR Coupe (8.4L/645 HP, 6-Speed, 141 Miles) from the Jerry Brewis Estate, with the final sale price of $275,000.

For original cars, one thing that seems to be happening is that quality restored street A-bodies are growing in interest. Best of these was a 1971 Plymouth Duster (F231.1) that found a new owner at a stellar $71,500 (340 / A833 driveline, FE5 Red, with Mopar Nats and AACA Senior judged provenance). There was a very original LO23 Hemi Dart (S154) that changed hands at $302,500, but even some of the more common examples of Mopar’s budget machines with mild hot rod changes were topping $20,000 in most cases. These cars are moving into the place where B-bodies had once been.

Of the Bs, most notable was the top-selling non-wing car, a well-built ’70 Charger (F107) with a Barton 2G 426 Hemi, Tremec 5-speed, custom paint and completely rebuilt suspension that soared to an incredible $330,000 on Friday afternoon. Indeed, modifieds were hot all around this event, and if the build was done well, people were spending money. A modified Satellite with SuperBird trim and a Hellcat driveline (F275) stayed with the owner despite a healthy $170,000 closing offer, but many others found new homes.

Restored B-bodies in general again are still strong, and options matter. This group was led by a gorgeous ’69 paint code 999 Omaha Orange Hemi Road Runner (F141,1) hitting $192,500 to get new ownership. Beyond that, there was a group of four restored B-body cars from the Walter Hawk estate. Each sold for no reserve, and all had been off-market since at least the year 2000. The total was a cool $1M when totaled up, with Hawk’s 6300-mile 440 / 4-speed ’69 Charger Daytona in silver (F212) topping the all the wings on hand at $352,500.

E-bodies still remain in blue chip territory, though the top two convertibles offered went unsold. The aforementioned ’70 Hemicuda (F136) was not numbers matching and, though exceptionally beautiful, might have been soft at just over $2M as a result. The ex-Steven Juliano 440/6-Bbl ’71 convertible (F137) was a no-sale at 900K, but no matter how good it is (and this one is perfect), there may be a roof in the current market without a Hemi, in my opinion. Best of the bunch changing hands was an unrestored white ’70 Hemicuda (F141) at $341,00. to become the top Plymouth sold and a 1970 Plymouth ’Cuda convertible (F138) with a 6-Bbl engine was sold for honest money at $247,500. Vintage Challengers sales were led by a documented

Did you put your new $100,000 Demon away when you bought it? Prudence paid off for the owner of this 9-mile Plum Crazy example, offered at no reserve on Thursday evening. $198,000. was the final price.

Sport Satellite rides and on Scott’s Hot Rod tubular front end with Ride Tech adjustable coilovers, while the rear is held up by a Strange Fab 9 spinning 3.70s and supported by Scott’s Hot Rod 4-link setup.

Modded Hellcat now cranks 889 ponies and gets fresh, cool air thanks to custom billet screens on top of, and at rear of hood.

Randy’s shop, and launched a high-velocity copper-plated checkbook at him, after it had been stripped of common sense.

Now, of course, we are starting with an “Excellence In Engineering” product. The Chrysler/Plymouth folks were well ahead of the curve when they built this thing to begin with. Simply restoring it near-original would have made for a beautiful, exhilarating ride.

But remember who we are dealing with. Crazy. Plus that aforesaid high-velocity checkbook. So…what did Randy change?

Everything.

Right.

So, let’s start with the drivetrain. Out went the excellent original, replaced with a crate motor—if you can call it that – from an outfit with the wonderful name of “Modern Muscle Xtreme,” in Martinsville, Virginia. It had started out as a Hellcat motor, but, of course, if you are crazy, 707 horsepower simply won’t do. I mean, think about that for a second: what if you found yourself in a set of circumstances where 800 HP might have saved you, but all you have is 707? See? It’s the sort of decision that makes itself. Best to make even a little more, like 889. We mean, just to be safe. It exhales through a set 17/8inch headers and a set of Flowmaster 3-inchers and sounds simply magnificent.

How about the transmission? Think our much-loved A833 is going to put on some Old Spice and go a’courting with a 900 HP sweetheart? As Inspector Harry Callahan once observed, a man’s got to know his limitations. So, in went a Tremec T-56 unit, alleged to be rated at north of 1,000 HP. This is “allegedly” because they have not let Gromer test one. Or Stunkard, for that matter. And Ehrenberg is kiting around

Rear shows Randy’s handywork with billet license plate frame, highly modified taillights, reworked bumper and deck spoiler. How do you stop all of that? Wilwood. 14-inchers, drilled and slotted even though that’s ridiculous, 6 pistons in the front and 4 in the rear. Naturally, in keeping with the theme here, it’s completely crazy to have 20 pistons on a street car. But he can go stop comfortably at Talladega or Bonneville. How about inside? Yes, there are a few of you who care about that. Of course, not a thing from the stock interior could possibly remain. Now it’s got an instrument cluster sporting Dakota Digital gauges, custom-fabbed ProCar seats with Hydes Italian leather, and custom console and door panels. Our favorite part of the interior is a custommachined tribute piece to the original Hurst Pistol Grip shifter, done by Mike “Makr” Atkinson. Those of you familiar with Randy’s work know that he is a grandmaster metalworker, so, of course, the whole exterior had to be changed. One of the most obvious changes is to the hood, with its Hellcat blower sticking out, and custom billet screens, one of which feeds the induction and the other one of which feeds the intercooler. The drip rails and door handles are MIA, as are the original rocker panels, now extensively but subtly reshaped. The original gas filler pipe left its comfortable home behind the rear license plate and resurfaced as flush unit in the top of a quarter. And while on the quarters, they, too got an extensive reshaping, and he made the scoops functional. The decklid got an integrated spoiler.

Refined interior features custom leather ProCar seats, exceptionally clean Dakota Digital dash and D-shape wheel from Billet Specialties. Screen to the right of the dash is head unit for Kicker audio system.

Custom billet shifter with pistol grip cues is positioned behind the under-dash control panel for the Vintage Air A/C system.

Tire pressure monitoring---even for your classic Mopar!

FL AT OUT

by RICHARD EHRENBERG, SAE

Avoid the heartbreak of a flat or worse with Ebooger’s words of wisdom.

BACK IN THE DAY, it was commonplace to see Joe or Jane Doe riding around with a nearly flat tire, or jacked up on the side of the road, with a spindly bumper jack and a spare, often also low on air, being swapped on. Two things have made the aforementioned scenarios pretty rare these days: Steel belted radials, and TMPS—the acronym for Tire Pressure Monitoring System, which was installed, by federal law, on every MY 2008 and newer car sold in the US. Many Mopars had them as early as 2003. This system also significantly slows tread wear, improves cornering and braking capabilities, and saves, by US Federal guesstimates, 2 billion gallons of fuel annually, by prodding the driver to correct tire inflation.

There were (and still are) two basic types of TPMS: Direct and Indirect. Quick explanation: The indirect system, by far the sleazier of the two, was, thankfully, never used by Ma Mopar. This uses the wheel-speed sensors, and if it detects one wheel turning faster over a certain period of time, turns on the low-tire warning. This requires the operator (driver) to properly inflate all tires, then “teach” the computer, via some I.P. buttons, that this is the “normal” wheel-speed relationship. Clearly, this is garbage. There’s no actual tire pressure monitor, and most (if not all) systems do not tell you which tire is underinflated. Since Mopar never used this crap, this is the last we’ll speak about it. The drivers of $100,000 EuroTurds are welcome to it.

The direct system, used on all Mopars, uses an actual pressure sensor, one per wheel, mounted to the valve stem. The sensor also contains a tiny radio transmitter, which transmits a signal to the car’s computer, then onto the display. Early versions simply reported that “a” tire was low. Later incarnations read out the actual pressure of each tire, or at least which tire is underinflated, and this data is updated often.

Anyway, this is gonna be a two-forthe-price of one article! We’ll enlighten

Early TPMS systems had a simple “low tire” graphic as the only indication. Still way better than nothing.

Not to be confused with the PMS warning graphic Later Mopar systems have a full display of each tire’s pressure. No guesswork.

The first iteration of the wheel-mounted sensors used an aluminum valve stem and a plastic nut, even on a steel wheel. You can image how well this worked in roadsalt splash conditions. FYI: There were two RF bands used, 315 and 433MHz. All Mopars are the latter. More factoids: The valve cores used in the aluminum stems are special, they are nickel-coated.

If you live in Phoenix or L.A., you’ve never seen this. Detroit? Cleveland? Pittsburgh? Chicago? Anywhere in the People’s Republic of New York? All too common, a truly bad design which resulted in class action lawsuits. Luckily, the valve stem can be replaced separately, but no two ways around it, this construction was a lousy idea.

Later sensors use a familiar snap-in rubber valve (for the standard Mopar 0.453” rim hole). Much better in every way. Schrader, Continental, Siemens (VDO), Pacific, ZF (formerly TRW), and HUF are the big industry players, with over 90% of the global market. No matter which name appears on the package, it is a good bet that one of the above is the actual manufacturer. Most are German, no surprise since Euro cars were first to market with TPMS.

The stems can also be easily replaced. Inexpensive at rockauto.com .

you as to what gives with the OEM 2003—’22 Mopar systems, and, as an added bonus, we’ll show you how to install TPMS in any Mopar!

Why would you wanna retrofit this? Simple! Even if you’re one of those “check everything twice” people, going over everything (including inflation pressure) top to bottom before any road trip, picking up a nail is always a possibility. Besides the obvious pitfalls, running any tire very low on air often causes irreparable damage, not to mention the serious handling deficiencies if you need to take an evasive maneuver. The latest stats are 40,000 crashes per year caused by under-inflation. And tires aren’t cheap these days! (What is?)

You don’t need to go to a tire shop to replace a failed stem or sensor (aluminum or rubber). Just deflate the tire (remove the valve core), and break the outer bead with a bumper jack. Place the jack’s base a few inches away from the TPMS valve, this will provide access with no danger of damaging the sensor. There is potential to damage the new sensor if you over-angle it during installation. Go easy, go slow.

Be sure to lube the stem well with soap, silicone spray, or Ru-Glyde (non-petroleum-based products) and try to apply minimal lateral stress. Can an old sensor be fixed? Well, the failure problem is usually a dead battery (technically it is a cell, not a battery). If you can solder, most Mopars use a CR2050HR (with solder tabs), a 3V. button cell. Cheap on eBay, but!—sealing the cover back on tight would not be easy. With Rock Auto’s pricing on new sensors, battery replacement makes little sense.

Why is TPMS great? Here’s a prime example. This is a properly inflated (36 PSI) 60-series steel belted radial. Looks normal, because it is.

Same tire at 15 PSI! Looks normal, but it is dangerously underinflated. Steel belted radials have such stiff sidewalls that the pressure needs to get down close to single digits before it is noticeable.

Hit a pothole at 15 PSI and this is the result. Drive 80 MPH and it can be far worse.

We tried this add-on unit from Summit Racing, P/N SUM-ID1000. You use it with any 4 Ford 315 MHz sensors. A very clever setup procedure lets the sensor know which tire is which. Very slick and dead-accurate. Unfortunately, Summit says they are in short supply as we go to press.

Several alternatives appear regularly on eBay. This one uses an Android smartphone as the display. Low priced, but not as useful as the Summit setup, since you have to keep your phone on, and the app open, to read the pressures. Not all that useful if you’ve already kissed an Armco barrier. For the last 6 or 7 years, there’s been a transducer at each wheel. Setup (sensor recognition) is as simple as driving a few miles.

Then you download an app, the best, for a few bucks, is “Torque Pro” from Ian Hawkins. It is amazing what this can (and will) do. There are also no shortage of TPMS-specific apps that are free. Many of the new sensors (even for old cars) somehow self-initialize. If not, you’ll need either a fancy scan tool, or, for under $10, a “ELM327” DLC-to-bluetooth adapter. This lets your phone communicate with the DLC (a/k/a “OBD-2 port”)

Another design has a continuous readout, but uses sensors that screw right on to your stock valve stem. Seems slick, but I’m not crazy about this—the sensors keep the valve cores constantly depressed.

Early OEM TPMS used one transducer (receiver), you had to “teach” the car which was which—in some cases, by inputting the serial number for each sensor. Jeez.

R ea dy To R ol l

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