IT’S A MOD MOD MOD WORLD

It’s A MOD MOD MOD

WORLD

How much new technology can you pack into a 1968 Road Runner? Try this!

ƛƲ$/'(17( ƩơƨƭƨƬƛƲ7ơƞ%5817%ƫƨƬ AT TURNER SAYS that he been fooling with cars all his life. “My grandfa-

Pther was a mechanic for General Motors dealerships pretty much his whole life,” says Pat. “So anytime I was around my grandfather, I was around cars.” In the ’70s, Pat worked part time after school at a Chevy dealership, which allowed him to buy parts at near cost while modifying his own ’57 Chevy. Pat resto-modded his ride before the term became popular, swapping an (old-school 1970s, then modern) LT-1 Chebbie motor, Muncie “rock crusher” 4-speed, and Camaro rear disc brakes into the Fifties-era Detroit iron.

Goal was to use as much new technology as possible while keeping the stock Road Runner look. Good fuel economy and high reliability were also a major design criteria. Restoration took 10 years. Car, not surprisingly, is a multi-show award winner.

The Chevy was a distant memory when, in 1974, Pat bought his wife Shirley a 1968 Road Runner from the original owner for $792 plus a ’65 Mustang. The couple happily tooled around in this daily driver until ’89 when they parked it. Until 2012. That’s when Pat decided to wake the slumbering bird by launching into a restoration. The original plan was to rebuild the 383/727 drivetrain and keep the car fairly stock, again as a daily driver.

Then Pat took note of the restomod craze that was in full swing at the time—especially in the Chevy camp where the Bow-Tie crowd was dropping new LS motors into anything with four wheels. With his background in electrical and mechanical engineering, Pat was especially intrigued with the advances in technology by the aftermarket. So he opted to build back better. Much better—and again before that phrase became a political slogan.

Pat wanted the old-school look under the hood, so Muscle Motors put together a 505-inch stroker that Pat fitted with a FAST TBI setup. A March Revolver serpentine belt eliminates V-belts. TTi 21/8 ˝ headers take out the trash. Griffin rad uses 2 pusher and 2 puller fans. Big-block is hooked to a Phoenix Transmissions GM 4L60E tranny with overdrive and lock-up converter.

The 10-year project started with addressing body issues. The beeper suffered from typical B-body rust issues— driver’s floorpan and trunk floor rusted out, and the vinyl top had leaked and rusted the B-pillar and the leak continued down into the trunk. The quarters were rusted, and one fender had been hit in a minor accident. But overall, the body was straight and a solid starting point. Pat built his own rotisserie and tapped AMD for all the panels they had for the car at the time. What they didn’t have, Pat had to improvise with his own patch panels from his previous experience doing bodywork on his ’57 Chevy. He says he has a decent metal shop in his home garage. Pat soda-blasted the bare metal body and made a gun so he could even blast the inside of the rocker panels.

With the bodywork completed as far as Pat could take it, he now needed paint, but who could do the job? Pat passed a local collision shop on his way to work and stopped in one day and said, “hey, I need someone to finish this car.” Joe Johnson, owner of the one-man shop, explained that he couldn’t turn away his insurance business just to work on the ‘Runner but he’d work on it between jobs. Pat agreed as long as Joe wouldn’t screw it out for years. Pat had to agree to pay Joe weekly. Joe explained that some customers who were supposed to pay at job completion would

’Runner rides on RMS suspension front and 4-link rear with Viking coilovers all around. Wheels are one-off Custom Forgeline CVC3 19x8 front and 20x10 rear shod with Michelin Pilot Super Sports.

say “Gee, I didn’t know it was gonna cost that much,” and they didn’t have the dough and the shop was stuck with the car.

Pat said, “I’d stop at Joe’s shop on a weekly basis, he’d show me what he had done and the materials he used, and I’d go to the bank, get the money and pay him the next morning.” Joe had hired a guy to come out of retirement and help on the project. His helper said, “I do final filler, that’s what I did for 30 years. I don’t do the rough filler. If you need a lot of filler here, that’s not me.” The guy sat on a little stool for probably six weeks taking something like a paint stick, applying filler and sanding and rubbing it out. The Road Runner was completed in three months.

Attending a car show with some 300 Mopars in Knoxville, Tennessee, Pat says a guy asked him how much body filler he had in the car, Pat replied about 12-15 gallons. The guy started laughing until Pat explained that all but a small fraction of that was sanded off, the Runner was blocked about five times to get it superstraight. The body filler guy would go through a gallon of the stuff every two or three days, and when Pat stopped by to see the progress, he’d see a pile of filler 4 inches deep on the floor.

The motor came from the now defunct Muscle Motors who’ve since moved on to a higher calling. “They told me they started with a 400 block out of a motor home,” notes Pat, “because it had better cooling passages.” A stroker Molnar crank ups displacement to 505 CI, while Scat rods swing forged slugs. Muscle Motors said the big blocks were notorious for pumping too much oil into the valvetrain so they restricted the flow. Up top are aluminum heads that are ported and polished, Pat’s not sure whose heads they are as there are no markings.

Fuel economy and reliability were top priorities for Pat, and he wanted to use as much new technology while keeping the stock Road Runner look. He called the folks at FAST for their single-point EFI system (this was before Holley came out with their own EFI setup). He told FAST that he wanted their EFI and and CDI box and everything related to the fuel and ignition systems. The FAST guy asked why Pat wanted all that stuff. “Because I want to call you when it doesn’t run, and you can’t point a finger and say it’s the other guy’s CDI or whatever.” The EFI outfit mates to a FAST-modified Eddy Performer RPM aluminum intake.

For exhaust, Pat went with TTi ceramic-coated stepped headers and had a local shop fab the rest of the stainless system that terminates in TTi stainless tips. He has big ol’ stock-type Walker mufflers because he likes a quiet car and doesn’t mind giving up a tad of performance to get it.

Legendary refreshed the stock bench seat. Tilt Steering Column by Ididit mounts Momo Prototipo 6C carbon fiber wheel. Intellitronics digital gauges readout from stock Road Runner dash opening—pretty trick. Classic Air A/C is added to the originally non-A/C beeper.

All lighting is LED, including Digi-Tails taillights, all marker lights and Green COB headlights. Rear is a 3.23 8¾˝. Custom stainless exhaust ends in stainless TTi tips. An Aeromotive in-tank Phantom 200 fuel pump, filter and pressure regulator send the go-juice through stainless hardlines. Pat, a control engineer for 46 years, relied on his electrical and mechanical engineering smarts to design the awesome electronics in this era-spanning machine. The custom carbon fiber console houses the Kenwood radio, EFI and Ignition handheld, plus Schneider fingerprint reader which activates pushbutton start/stop, window and door lock control and USB ports. A Powertrain Control Solutions (PCS) transmission controller uses CAN communications to work with the PCS push-button console-mounted shifter.

In keeping with his fuel economy goal, Pat wanted an overdrive tranny with a lockup converter. He said that Mopar didn’t have the goods so he dialed up Phoenix Transmissions. They recommended a ’91 and up GM 4L60E that has a removable bellhousing so a Quicktime bell can mate with the big-block. The trans has a lower First gear for more torque. Pat says that he wasn’t building a racecar and rarely exceeds 70 MPH. Underneath that laser-straight, white Porsche Carrera-paint code body and keeping company with that custom exhaust is a full aftermarket suspension (sadly, the OEM world-beating T-bar setup has been round-filed), plus Wilwood discs with a Hydroboost system.

The interior is where Pat really got creative. He built the dash himself from components made by Intellitronics. Pat got to know the owner of the company who helped him engineer all the digital readouts, including trans temp, into the stock Road Runner dash.

Pat’s “Pale Runner,” as he named it when the original plan was to make the beeper just a “super clean” car, is deceptive in its outward appearance (wheels and 505 hood callouts excepted) by hiding almost all of the 143 modifications. Pat says he counted ‘em, from the powertrain down to minor details such as custom bracketry on coil, horn, and spark plug wire holders. Take a look—how many Waldos can you count (unless you have better things to do.)

All trunk mounted electrical controllers with wiring terminated at hidden Din Rail terminal blocks. It’s all carefully mounted on swing-out doors for servicing. Infinity Box Intelligent Wiring System uses a 20-circuit kit for everything including interface between phone and Kenwood Exelon DNN 922 control, wireless key fob, active battery management system, and power windows. No relays are used anywhere. Infinity Box uses MOSFET solid-state semiconductors for control of all power.

68-69 CHARGER