Original subtitles

On this episode of "Hot Rod Garage"...

Lease Money gets a new lease on life.

-[engine revving] -[theme song playing]

So you guys may remember, we have been garage-less

for quite some time.

We have been garage-less, absolutely.

Yeah, we lost the shop, got some cool projects

along the way.

We have piles and piles of cool projects

and tools, and now... -They have a home.

Welcome to Hot Rod Garage.

[rock music playing]

Just in case you forgot, I'm Alex Taylor, and I'm joined

here by Lucky Costa.

Hello, and welcome to our new Hot Rod Garage.

-It says it on the wall. -It's painted.

It's ours.

So I think we kind of played the system just a little bit,

because remember, we named our Nova here

Lease Money 'cause we didn't have a shop, but now we have

a shop and a car. -We worked the system.

[Alex] I think we worked the system.

So you guys remember, the goal with this whole

project is to make a very streetable race car that we're

going to do in stages

and get to a very nice finish point one day.

The plan kind of took a little bit of a turn on the trajectory

that we were wanting to go, because when we took it out

to the track, it presented a couple issues.

[Lucky] Yeah, one of them was almost not getting to the track.

-[Alex] That was a problem. -[Lucky] That was a small issue.

[Alex] Yeah.

Didn't perform exactly how we wanted to.

We wanted to get it to a point where we could work

on suspension in this episode, and we would be able to have

a baseline to compare.

Problem was that we didn't have a good enough comparison,

because it didn't have power.

It wasn't even hardly using the suspension.

We didn't get a lot of information about it.

We just needed just enough horsepower to make

the suspension work. -We can fix that, though.

We couldn't pull it off that day, though.

-[Alex] We couldn't. -Yeah.

We can fix that, though, and we're going to,

because we have some engine upgrades we're gonna make.

-Right. -Keep in mind, this isn't the engine that's gonna be

in this forever. It's not the long-term.

-[Lucky] The test motor. -[Alex] It's the test motor.

[Lucky] Right.

[Alex] We have plenty of other stuff to do to the car.

So, we're gonna do cam and lifters, because we had

a mystery cam in it. -Right.

It works out well, because we had a mystery torque

converter in it, too. -[Alex] It did.

We had a mystery torque converter because we had

a transmission on loan until we got our Gear Star Turbo 400.

-Right. -That piece is sitting behind us now, and now there's also

a torque converter that matches the cam specs for this engine.

If we don't bolt that to something pretty quick,

it's gonna disappear. -I'm taking it.

It's going with me. If not...

-Me. -[Alex laughs]

[Alex] You are closer.

It's kind of a midway step as we work through the car.

We're gonna do some chassis upgrades, suspension upgrades,

and actually get to test it now.

[Lucky] Right, as soon as we have enough horsepower

under the hood. -[Alex] Yeah.

-Horsepower, transmission... -Uh-huh.

-...rear ends. -[Lucky] Right.

And then track time in Bakersfield and really get

a good baseline on it.

And with that, I think it's time to work.

-Ready? -Yeah.

-Let's go. -One --

he throws me off every -- two, one?

Cool.

[Lucky] Last time we ran it, we sort of rolled the dice.

-Like, you know, it looks OK. -[Alex] Looks good.

Could be fine.

So in an effort

to try to make a little bit more power, -Mm-hmm.

get something that we can actually test with,

we're going to take the radiator out,

the front pieces out, take a lot of stuff out,

drain fluid.

Yes, we're gonna unbolt everything attached

to the core support. -Yep.

We're gonna then unbolt everything on the front

of the engine. -Correct.

And then we're going to unbolt everything on top

of the engine. -That's about right.

And then we're gonna take everything

off the sides of the engine.

Yeah, so basically the only thing we're leaving in is

the, uh, the block.

We're doing everything we can to not make a mess

on the new floor. -You are?

-You are, too. -Oh, yeah, I am.

[Alex] He is.

But we are gonna have to, because this radiator does not

have a drain on it anywhere.

Honestly, who builds a radiator and doesn't put

a petcock on it to drain it?

So, we're gonna pull the hose off.

It's probably gonna make a mess.

And it's gonna be the christening of the shop.

[Lucky] These hoses have been on here for a long time.

[Alex] Yeah, they are cooked on there.

Yeah, I hear it running. But where?

[Alex] It's running on the bucket right now.

-[Lucky] Is it? -[Alex] Yep.

Let me see if I can move that.

-[Alex] Oh, you jerk! -[Lucky] I didn't mean to do it.

-[Alex] You did. -[Lucky] I did.

As the water pressure has changed, I'm inadvertently not

making a mess right now.

But I'm pretty sure the mess is made.

[laughs mockingly]

-Gotcha. -What was that?

Was that me? [laughs]

It was me.

I don't think that's funny at all.

Stand back.

I don't know where this is gonna go.

Here, I'll get a bucket. You stay there.

Stay there. Don't dump it!

[Alex] OK.

Tell me, Lucky, what are you gonna do?

I'm going to...

-Give me a T. -T.

-Give me another T. -Handle.

T -- oh, OK.

Hey, so remember when we were trying to set the timing?

[Alex] And we couldn't quite figure it out.

[Lucky] We were doing the clue thing.

-[Alex] Ah, I mean. -Big cam, obviously,

because it has a vacuum reservoir.

Wrong.

There's marks on the balancer and on the timing indicator

that must be top dead center.

Maybe it's just not quite accurate.

-Wrong. -Absolutely.

So we were looking at the marks on the balancer.

-Somebody put a red mark here. -[Alex] It's an attempt at a mark.

-It's more of a splotch. -Yeah, exactly.

And then they did a little smudge right here.

This is where we were trying to get the timing to be.

[groans]

And you know what?

That is 32 degrees advance, because there's zero

right there. -Which would make sense.

-Total advance. -Yeah.

So into the throttle, higher RPM, it should be

32 advance, 32 degrees advance total, locked out at 32.

However...

we crank it back to top dead center.

Watch the piston as it comes up to the very top.

Come on, muscles.

-Oh, right there. -[Lucky] Right there.

-Well, pretty close. -[Alex] Close.

Like, well, it's not exact right there.

You're getting the idea that we're...

[Lucky] So that's true top dead center, pretty close to it.

So yeah, we probably could have found a little bit more timing,

but I will say, when we were at the track, they pulled a bunch

of timing out and put a bunch of timing in.

Something's still breaking up.

We are getting a little bit more information on the motor.

We can see that it's pretty fresh.

[Lucky] It is, it is.

There's like just, I believe the carbon in here

we put there. -[Alex] I think so.

We can see part numbers on pistons.

So we're gonna figure out what our combination is and get

ready to put a cam in it, put new lifters, put new

springs, just so that way we know what we have

and we know that all that combination is matched together.

All right. So in preparation to make sure

our parts are ready and good to go,

we pulled out our one set of our flat-tappet hydraulic

lifters that were in the engine already.

And before I pulled them out and didn't label them,

'cause I didn't know if we'd have to put them back,

wanted to check our new parts that we have from ISKY.

So these are hydraulic roller lifters.

You can see the roller here, flat-tappet here,

but they're both hydraulic.

Something to check and note is that you can see the body

height, which this is the lifter body right here.

You can see the height is different on both of those.

That's not really the part that's so concerning for maybe

having to buy new parts.

What you wanna check is the seat height.

So the seat height is right here where the pushrod seats.

If this was sitting on the cam lobe, the pushrod is sitting in

this seat, then you have the rocker...

right here.

That's gonna change if this is a shorter seat height

or a higher, it's gonna change how long you need

your pushrod to be.

So we did get new shorter pushrods because as you can

see, with the bottoms lined up, this seat height is higher than

this seat height, which means for our new lifters,

we're gonna need shorter pushrods.

ISKY did a really good job of figuring out what we needed

with the little information we could give them, because it

was all just an educated guess.

We didn't know if they were flat-tappet, roller.

We knew nothing about it. So, really close.

The shorter pushrod is a lot closer than this would

have been -- however, we need just

a little bit longer pushrods.

So I'm going to call ISKY, get those ready, get those

here, and we will be good to put this thing together.

It's not. This is in the way.

OK, so what's the problem, Alex Taylor?

We are missing pulling it out by a smidge.

So I see that the balance is in the way.

[Alex] By a smidge.

If somebody would have just maybe made a couple of small

incisions on here. -Oh, but they did.

[Lucky] We didn't do this, just so you know.

Now we can just doctor this right up.

[Alex] I think that's a smidge enough.

That's a smidge enough.

Oh, we could have done it without messing up the paint.

It's not gonna work. That does not work.

[Lucky] So we can put that back and just grill.

[Alex] My guy, I feel like we're taking the wrong part off.

I think we're pretty close here.

Girl, we got four more bolts.

I bet you we can get away with just the bottom two.

-Bottom three. -Bottom three.

-No. -Do it.

-No. -Do it, Alex.

-No, hm-mm. -Do it.

[Lucky] Doesn't look like it needs to be very much.

Yeah.

Oh, my gosh.

-Wow. -[Lucky] Hammer.

-Did you just wow me? -[Alex] I did.

This hurts.

[Lucky] I see -- Oh, you know what?

That's why I saw more, because we were going

underneath that.

-[silent mouthing] -Yeah, this is gonna be a pull front body panels off.

Nobody wants to do that.

Sometimes you just have to let him...

You just have to learn.

Come up with an idea on his own.

What's on the back of this thing that's preventing...

-A whole other gear, dog. -Look at that lobe.

[Alex] Not a gear, but a main -- dude.

[gasping] Oh my God.

[Lucky] Doesn't make any sense to me why.

It makes a lot of sense.

[Lucky] OK, great. Full motor mounts.

[Alex] Uh, so...

-Lots of different methods. -[Lucky] I'm sorry, are you talking?

Lots of different methods were had.

I'll give Lucky credit. Just trying to save time.

We didn't,

but we have a plan now.

We're gonna take motor mounts loose, lift it up,

get enough clearance, and we're gonna call this

one done because Lucky's sweating over here.

It is time for a cam comparison.

The cool part about and the interesting part is, this one

looks very similar to this one.

So, this is the cam that came out of the car.

Once we pulled it out, we were able to look at a part

number that is engraved on the back.

I was able to send it over to ISKY, because it's

an ISKY cam, and I said, "give me the specs."

So, we can do some numbers here.

So, this is a flat-tappet hydraulic cam.

So, the profile is different for that versus over here,

which is a roller hydraulic cam.

You can see here that the lobe is actually much rounder,

which this is a hydraulic roller lifter profile versus here,

where you have a much more peaked cam lobe, which is

for the flat-tappet for the lifters that were in it.

The benefit of the roller lifter is that you get more

time for the lifter to do its job and for more air to get

into the cylinder.

So, that's a benefit of having a hydraulic profile.

You've got a much wider ramp there.

But now, let's talk numbers.

So, the cam has very similar lift from the old one

to the new one, of the notable points about the new cam is it

has about eight degrees more duration on the intake valve

and 12 degrees more on the exhaust valve --

advertised duration.

That means that we are getting about 800 to a thousand RPM

higher peak RPM range.

We also have a wider lobe center.

So, this one over here is 110 versus 108 on the old cam.

What does that translate to?

So, that means that we are getting a broader RPM range.

So, we're opening up that window of power and RPM.

Over here with the new cam, we aren't losing anything

from the bottom end that we had with this cam, but we are

gaining it in the mid-range and the high-range.

This is gonna help us continue to pull down track.

We're not gonna have that fall on its face.

Something that's really cool and I highly suggest is,

when you're looking for a cam or maybe you have a cam and you

have a specific problem, talk to your cam manufacturer.

Get your cam for the combination that you have,

and that is it.

That's our cam-parison for today.

Cam-parison for today. Have a good day.

Is there enough room in here? Will this go through clearly?

This is looking better than it did yesterday.

-I'm not gonna lie. -[Lucky] You're welcome.

[Alex] It might recover.

-[Lucky] Yup. -[Alex] Hallelujah, look at that.

All right, Cam is in.

We have to put the cam gear on chain.

It's almost time for our divorce party.

-Trial separation. -Trial separation.

Lucky's gonna go work on mini tubs.

-I'm gonna work on the heads. -All right.

-We'll get through this. -We'll make it.

[thud]

[Lucky] That's a dud.

We've been doing a lot of talking about mini tub

and making more space.

This is exactly what I'm talking about.

Frame rail is in here,

this is floor, this is wheel well.

Car was manufactured with a tire about that wide,

we want to put one of about that wide in there.

Obviously, it's not gonna fit.

We're gonna do different shock mounts.

We're gonna relocate these springs in just a little bit

because they're almost parallel to the frame rail as it is.

We move the spring plate over, cut all this out, put a second

wheel well inside using half of the stock wheel well and then

an aftermarket wheel well from Detroit Speed welded

to the floor on the insides.

Good amount of cutting, which I really enjoy,

and a good amount of welding,

which I really enjoy.

So, let's cut it out.

[buzzing]

[clinking, clanging]

I think that's it.

OK, so the rear end housing is out.

I'm gonna have to figure out some measurements

for the shocks.

To do that, I've flipped the retaining plates over.

The retaining plates that hold the differential in also have

shock mounts built into them.

Originally, the Nova had one shock mount leaning forward,

one shock mount coming from the rear.

General Motors did that for some reason, I don't know what.

But we're gonna put them both in the forward area.

There's enough room there to still run the exhaust,

be out of the way, not have to affect a tank

or cut out the floor.

But to get those measurements, instead of putting the rear end

housing back in, I've got a couple of magic zip ties.

Or flex cuffs, as I used to call them.

And I'm going to just zip tie these plates up

where they need to be.

And that will give me an idea

of where the shocks are gonna sit.

And...

Is that too tight? OK, I'll loosen it later.

And then I'll put that upper shock right in.

-[rock music playing] -[cranking]

[banging]

[rock music continues]

OK, so the upper shock mount that I just fabbed up over in

our new fabrication department, which is right over there.

In the middle of all that, we had our first mess,

first fire,

first spill,

first burn,

new shop. New shop life, baby.

[Alex] The Loner Turbo 400 is coming out.

Also, this is just a random converter that was laying

around from the person that we borrowed the transmission

from, so we're going to have a much better match made in

heaven when we get our gear started,

which is happening now.

Luckily, since it's the same transmission going in that's

coming out, same case, should just bolt right up.

Famous last words.

OK, so there's very few things that I consider stealing

and taking home with me and, like, sneaking them

on the plane. This is one of them.

So this is a GearStar transmission.

Well, all GearStar transmissions are super nice.

This one is exceptionally nice.

So if you remember in episode one of the Nova,

we weren't able to put this beautiful piece of jewelry

in the car because it was being built.

It's got some special parts in it.

So this is a Turbo 400 that's gonna be a direct bolt into

what we have.

However, what's internal to this is exceptional.

So on the outside here, we have a Reed SFI

bell housing, case, and tell housing.

So SFI is a safety piece.

That way, if something internal were to explode, it's gonna

do a much better job than a stock case of keeping

everything inside of it.

So this is a really, really important upgrade.

We have a billet aluminum forward and direct drum.

We have a billet aluminum valve body with a pro brake in it.

So we're gonna have a trans brake for the car once we get

to a point that we need for that.

We've got a 300M shaft,

meaning that it's just a really nice piece.

We've got a 210-140 gear set in it, meaning it's gonna be

really good for what we're gonna be doing on the track.

This is designed for later on in the life cycle of this Nova,

where we're putting a lot of power to it.

It's rated -- they built it for 1500 horsepower.

I have it in my 55, very similar combination.

It'll take a lot of power, but this is going to handle

our 1500 horsepower.

We hope to have one day and plan to have.

We also have the custom Yank converter up here that for now

is designed to pair with the engine that we have.

And it's finally time.

We're gonna put this in and get it in, and I'm gonna just keep

smiling, because this is a great piece from GearStar.

Holy smokes!

I did one push, and it was the exact right height,

and it just planted itself.

Did that -- I should go play the lottery.

[breathily] OK.

Heavy.

-[Lucky] Good job, baby! -No --

[laughs]

No, it was calculated. [laughs]

[producer] Her balance was way off.

No, it's totally calculated.

It's just...

[indistinct]

[grumbling under breath]

As entertaining as that was, we're gonna take the car up

so Lucky can work on the back, and I can work on the front.

OK, so we were waiting for a few parts,

mainly the correct wheel tubs.

They finally showed up today, and I am back to hacking.

I'm sorry.

Doing surgical incisions into the inner wheel wells to remove

the old stuff and install the new stuff.

Cover me. I'm going in.

-[rock music playing] -[whirring]

[rock music continues]

[Lucky] OK, so I have the inner wheel well roughed in, basically.

I've cut out just about enough space to get it in there.

There's a couple of spots that are interfering.

I like to fit it in there just to get a visual of where

it's all gonna sit.

But then I use some self-tapping screws

just to zip it in.

Those will all be removed and then welded in location.

Then I'm gonna actually get a piece of metal, break it

in the middle, use a shrinker and stretcher, work it

around the corner. It's the same way I did my car.

I'll weld that in, put some seam sealer on it,

and then we will --

it will be ready to hit the road.

-Rockers all set? -[Alex] Rockers on.

[Lucky] You put the heads on since last time I was here?

You've done a lot of stuff.

Well, you were having me go up, down.

-Up, down? -[Lucky] Yeah, yeah.

Up, down. So half of it went on.

The lift has carpal tunnel now.

It does.

So you're ready for your distributor?

Yeah.

And you set it atop the center?

-Well, we did. -Yes, we did.

-Yeah, we did. -If only I had a distributor.

Well, looks like you might have...

Boom! We got one right here.

Oh! Where'd that come from?

-[Lucky] It's like sorcery. -Dang.

[Lucky] Sorcery.

We confirmed when the heads were off that TDC was actually

true TDC. -You know me.

[laughing] OK.

And when I drop the distributor in, I generally take the rotor

and I point it right at the number one spark plug.

If it's a Ford, it points this direction.

If it's a Chevy, it points this direction.

And let's just see.

-[Alex] Do we need a new gasket? -[Lucky] No.

It's not that old.

In some instances, you may have to use a flathead screwdriver

and realign the oil drive rod. But we lucked out.

It lines up perfectly.

[rock music playing]

[Lucky] OK, I have just spent the entire day welding,

finishing up all the stuff in the trunk.

The wheel wells are actually installed.

If you've been following this build, we've been going back

and forth with these wheels.

Rear wheels on this thing have been a little bit of an issue

with clearance, and then some of them were ours,

and then we found out we may have inadvertently borrowed

some from another show. I don't know.

So fortunately for us, somebody was doing a little

snooping around on the online marketplace and came up

with an excellent deal, super cost-effective,

not cheap, cost-effective, sticky tires,

on Billet Specialties with the correct backspacing.

That doesn't happen every day, but it did happen today.

And they have air.

OK, so assuming these fit, and I'm very confident

they will, short of a few adjustments,

uh...

quite a few adjustments, and putting the exhaust back

in, a couple of other small things like, I don't know,

front seat, back seat, interior, other wheel,

drive shaft, just a couple of small things.

Short of that, next time you see us, we're gonna be

at the track emitting smoke equally from both rear

wheel areas.

[rock music playing]

[Lucky] We made it. We're here -- Famoso Dragstrip,

beautiful Bakersfield, California.

[Alex] We've got to do a lot with the Nova this year,

but this time, hopefully, it does better than when we had

it at Irwindale.

Oh yeah, we're still working on that baseline.

And it ran like a 9.7 in the eighth mile,

not the quarter. You remember that?

We're gonna do that again today.

-No, in the quarter. -In the quarter.

No, just kidding. We can only wish.

So there has been quite a few modifications since the last

time we got our initial baseline on it.

-Went through the engine. -Yep, absolutely.

New stuff under the hood, ISKY cam, valve geometry has

been calculated correctly. -[Alex] Yep, everything feels better.

We also found some with the ignition.

Right. It was a mystery ignition.

It was a mystery ignition. We've since changed distributor.

-[Lucky] Right. -Timing's set.

-It's good. -Seems to be working well.

And that was two of the concerns that we had

in there. -[Lucky] Well, wait.

That and the mystery transmission

we had in it before.

My concern was getting it out because I wanted to put

the beautiful GearStar piece in that we had.

We have a brand new turbo 400 built for way more horsepower

than this currently has.

That's OK, because one day we're gonna need it.

-Not today, though. -[Alex] No.

But in the meantime, we do have a converter that's

matched to the engine combination that we have,

so we should see a little bit of improvement there as well,

because that was definitely a mystery converter.

[Lucky] Right, right, right.

This one seems to flash to a good RPM

and then hook up, so...

We also have a trans-brake now, which is a nice addition

to our GearStar transmission, a full manual valve body so

we can actually shift this thing.

Shifter's still not changed, so we'll see how that all goes

today, but other than that, you did a lot of work

in the back of the car.

I cut out the little wheel wells and I put in some big fat

wheel wells. -Well, semi-fat wheel wells.

I'm sorry.

"Schmediocre" wheel wells.

I put some "schmedium" wheel wells

in here and took out the small ones.

[Alex] They do look really good, though.

That's something you finished up a little bit after,

because we ran out of time. -Yep.

[Alex] But they look good.

Right now, we don't currently have the wheel wells filled up

to what they can be. Again, we're future-proofing.

However, in the meantime, you'll notice that we do have

a tire and wheel improvement.

Now, once again, some shmediums.

Some shmedium meats.

So we do have some Billet Specialty wheels.

In the back, we do have an actual

Mickey Thompson radial on it.

So should be an improvement from what we had.

Absolutely. Stay sticky with Mickey.

[Alex] I like that.

But I think for now, we need a baseline, see how

our suspension's working, hopefully, finally get a little

bit of an idea.

And then that always leaves us with room for improvements

at a later date. -Making a list.

Checking it twice.

Gotta find out Lucky's not nice.

How dare you?

[giggles]

[rock music playing]

[Lucky] OK, so the Nova's fired up running.

We did actually have to hook up a couple of things,

a tachometer, some gauges, some wires that come out under

the dash, but set the air pressure, messed with

the Caltracks just basically to get a base setting.

I think it's dialed in. We're gonna find out.

This is our maiden voyage under full power with a potentially

operating suspension.

[engine revving]

I think the plan does not put it on kill the first pass,

sort of a shakedown.

But every time Alex does a shakedown, it ends up being,

like, the best pass of the day, so...

[engine revving]

[Alex] Hey!

That was much better! That was so much better.

I'm very happy with that.

First pass, 13.18. 106.

Didn't leave hard, didn't put a lot of heat into it.

She just went for a nice drive down the track,

and it's already running 13s, 106.

Let's see what the time was.

13.18.

OK, I'll take that.

I mean, I'm OK with that.

106 miles an hour.

Can't wait to see what the eighth mile time is so

we can compare that.

But finally, like, when we took it out to Irwindale, one of

the most disappointing parts, other than the time,

the fact that it was breaking up, and it didn't.

So I'm very happy with that.

Hey, did we ever check for full throttle?

-No. -[Lucky] Can you hold this for me?

OK, let's look at the eighth mile time.

[Lucky] Why don't you look at that, and I'll look at this.

[Alex] Um...

-Pull the hood release. -There's not one.

-[Lucky] Oh, right. -So, eighth mile was 8.57.

Previously, I think our best was a 19.

That's really good, you want me to push the throttle?

You're good with the risk you take.

Can you step on the gas pedal to the floor

and hold it down all the way?

OK, yeah, we're good. Full throttle.

OK, but, overall like the shifts felt so firm.

Transmission feels really good.

The top end is so much better than it was.

It's not breaking up.

I'd like to just full throttle off the line, stay into it,

and then we can get a better baseline on where

it's currently at, and then we can look at if

we can make any adjustments to it.

[engine revving]

[Lucky] Now it's a party.

So you can see if you put some heat into the tire back there,

and you're actually seeing the track where the hot rubber

was laid down right over the traction compound.

[engine revving]

Almost the exact number.

So a little bit faster, 13.03.

[Alex] I think we should look the car over, make sure it's

all good still.

Right, yeah, I think I smell something.

-I smell something. -Yeah, yeah, yeah.

-Oil. -Our beaks are in tune.

But I am much happier with this than I was at Irwindale.

[Lucky] Cool.

I wonder if that's an old oil leak.

Like maybe there was something in the crossmember or something,

because it looks clean and dry in here.

Let's look under the car.

Oh, no, it looks like it's just a pan bolt,

like the drain plug. -[Lucky] Oh, really?

Yeah.

So I think it's the drain plug. There's potential.

There [indistinct] residue, but I'm gonna check it

just to see, and if it's not, we'll continue investigating.

It's not. We'll continue investigating.

All right, so we checked it out.

Not an incredible leak. Dried it up.

Get an idea of where it may be coming from.

But we have to go faster and quicker as always.

So right now it's currently got a max timing of 32 degrees when

we're full throttle going down the track.

So we're going to increase it by two degrees and get it where

hopefully it leaves off the line,

harder comes up on the converter better.

We'll increase until we get a happy point there.

And then I talked to Nolan from ISKY.

We'll start working on shifting a little bit higher.

He designed the cam to shift around 6,000 RPM,

or shifting around 5,500.

So we have a game plan, and that's the most

important part.

Lucky?

The distributor advances centrifugally.

When you accelerate above 3,000 RPMs,

the distributor should be fully advanced.

We're thinking it's set at 32.

Hopefully, it didn't move. We'll check that first.

If it's still at 32, we're gonna put a couple

more points into it, bump it up to 34, lock the distributor

back down, go out there, and do a tire...

-[yelling]...fryer! -Fire.

OK. As long as it's doing both,

that's fine.

[engine revving]

-Where is it at? -[Lucky] Yeah, right about 32.

-[Alex] OK. -It might be more like 31.

It's kind of hard to really tell.

But let me...

Crank her up again.

[engine starts, whirs]

3,000.

All right.

[engine stops]

We'll try that.

It looks like about 34, but the marks on the balancer

aren't super accurate.

It looks like it's a couple of points above what it

was before. It was 32.

It looks 33, 34-ish.

And with that, folks, we're gonna give her a try.

[Alex] Always put your visors down.

[engine revving]

[Lucky] Definitely milking it for a couple more RPMs.

Is it? Could it be?

Exact same thing.

[Alex] 13.01, that's insulting.

That's so close to a 12.

We need to do something different.

[Lucky] Yeah.

Should we let it cool off or just get back in line?

Well, I think we should let it cool.

We should get lunch.

And then you have something hiding over in the corner.

[Lucky] Oh, maybe. You never can tell.

-I mean, this is a supernova. -I see what you did there.

-[Alex] Right. -That's out of this world.

-[Lucky] Right. -Maybe a different galaxy.

-Maybe from a different galaxy. -Yeah.

All right, so Lucky is finally gonna make a pass in the wagon.

[engine revs]

Sorry, I can't talk.

Sometimes 13-year-old boys rev their motors like that

in their go karts.

Last time we had this out when we took it to Cars and Coffee,

if you guys remember, it was a one-tire-fire,

one-wheel-peel, whatever you wanna call it.

Sounds great going down the road and all, but it's not --

we've not seen a burnout from it that was good, and we've also

not seen a quarter-mile pass.

So we're gonna see what this thing does.

We'll see. We'll see what Lucky does.

[engine revving]

OK, finally, we see a good burnout out of it.

Lucky's put a 9-inch in it with a true track.

Pretty good setup, so...

We're gonna see how he's going to do here.

[engine revving]

[Alex] Pretty clean.

The good thing about this is it's all EFI.

Oh, nice. 13.22.

OK, I guess that's 13.35.

So that's a great race for the Nova.

So were you full throttle?

Uh... No, not really.

-[Alex] You don't think so? -Yeah.

I mean, at the top, I could have stayed in

a little bit longer. -Was that on the race mode?

-Track, uh, yeah. -Track shifting.

What do they call it? Sport mode.

-Sport mode. -Sport mode, yeah.

-[Alex] OK. -I am race mode.

This was sport mode.

[engine revving]

[wheels screech]

[Alex] I did not like that. We'll see how this goes.

[engine revving]

-You tricky, tricky, son. -What happened?

You lifted. You're sandbagging.

I just kind of had to.

It was literally a little vibration in the back.

[Alex] Oh, there was? OK.

You know what I might do is adjust my pinion angle on this

next pass. I'm gonna go with...

Do you want me to look? OK.

-I think that's it right there. -[Alex] All right.

-You want to make another one? -Yeah, yeah.

-One more. -Because I don't trust you.

[engine revving]

[Alex] OK, consistent once again.

OK, we are testing these brakes today.

Drum brakes, just so you know.

You got about three passes before they're too hot

to work anymore.

And that was the third pass right there.

I think we should go to a bracket race with this car.

OK.

Why don't you go cool this thing off?

I have just got word, however, we probably can't run

a side-by-side race.

-'Cause the -- -Well, we really can't argue with them.

-But I have an idea. -What?

-Foot race, let's go. -We'll race the clock.

[Alex] Foot race.

Foot race? I ain't foot racing nobody.

OK, so it's getting boring running 13s consistently.

Sounding good, leaving good, looking good.

It's getting boring. So we took the air cleaner off.

That's going to create a leaner condition, potentially making

a little more horsepower, possibly creating

a fire hazard. Let's see.

[engine revving]

[Lucky] She's whipping on it right now.

And that's gonna be our best pass.

A 1278 at 100. Is that a nine?

[Alex] It had a stutter off of the line, which definitely

killed the 60.

I mean, we lost stuff on the 60 right there.

But it liked the 6,000 RPM shift point.

Will the 6,000 RPM shift point be enough to overcome

the stutter on the line?

We shall see.

As soon as I get to that scoreboard, which is

happening shortly.

Oh, those sons of a guns.

They turned the scoreboard off.

I bet you that means it's a 12.

-[honking] -[Lucky laughs]

You guys think you're sneaky.

-What was that? -What?

-Was that a horn? -You turned the scoreboard off.

-What? -The scoreboard's off.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Yeah, so is it a 12?

No, I mean, that would be crazy to have a car put

together in just a couple of days and taking it to track

and running a 12. Yeah, right, yeah.

Oh, was it? Hang on, hang on, hang on.

OK.

Let me see that.

Whoa, holy cow!

-12.78. -Your excitement is contagious.

-Wow, that's impressive! -Yeah, 12, man.

-Nice job, dude! -That's how we roll.

Wow!

I'm actually super impressed because I was having

a conversation coming back, I said, "You know what?

Off the line, it stuttered." But it felt so strong at

that 6,000 RPM shift point.

[Lucky] That seemed like the sweet spot.

I said, "I wonder if that'll be enough

to overcome the stutter."

I think 6,000 is the magic number because you're

banging second gear, banging third.

It sounded great going down the track.

Yeah, I mean, that was... that was great.

So I'd say overall, the changes we made,

really good.

I think that this car is really on the right track.

For reference to Irwindale, our best time at Irwindale,

which was an eighth mile, was like, I think it was a 19,

like a 9.1 something in the eighth.

Yeah, I remember we stopped looking at that.

Here, it's an 8.3.

We can't leave here with just one 12-second ticket.

Oh, no, no, no, no.

And it's running really good still.

OK, so we started out 32 points 32 degrees advance,

went to 34, we just bumped up to 36, maybe 36 and a half.

We're going crazy over here at the racetrack.

Uh, air clean her off, she's gonna put a couple

more RPMs into it before each shift, see what happens.

-[engine revving] -[wheels screeching]

She loves to do those rolling burnouts.

[engine revving]

[Alex] That was exhilarating.

Quarter mile time, 12.76 at 108.69.

The fastest pass of the day, fastest pass of that

car's life. And it's a good time.

Let's go watch Alex yell right now.

Come on.

[Alex] Did they turn the scoreboard off?

Nice little sneaky, sneaky suckers.

-Hello. -[Lucky] Hello.

OK, hang on.

I got to figure out this ratchet shifter.

First of all, I'm sorry. What do you think you did?

No, you did the best pass of the day.

-Dude, OK. -[Lucky] That's really good.

Consistent, consistent. So 12.76, 108.

-OK, OK. -What was your eighth before?

Oh, look at the eighth. That's way better.

That's an 8.29. Before, I think it was an 8...

Hang on.

I think it was an 8.4 something.

Oh, yeah, 8.40.

At least we can say we backed it up.

-Yeah, absolutely. -Nice.

12-second car. Cool.

Put those in your laptop.

Download that information into your laptop there.

Well, that is it for this episode of "Hot Rod Garage."

[Alex] It is.

I actually feel very good about this car.

-[Lucky] Do you? -[Alex] Yeah.

Well, I mean just think about it.

I mean, we were standing in this spot about 43 minutes ago

talking about the fact that we have a new lease...

-...on life. -On life.

Yeah, we actually have a shop now.

We -- We actually, we got the shop.

-We got the shop. -We got the shop.

-We got the car. -Yes.

-We got some time slips. -[Lucky] Uh-huh.

-And I'm not upset. -It's a win-win-win.

Well, the last time we left the track, it was

rather disappointing. The car wasn't running good.

The times weren't run -- like, the times

were definitely reflecting that.

Last time we left the track, we barely got to the track.

[Alex] You're correct.

And this time, we got to the track, made lots of passes,

and then ran some good numbers. -Absolutely.

And the car still runs great, sounds great.

[indistinct] probably hasn't seen all the stains

we've been leaving all over the place. -It's not that bad.

[Lucky] All right.

So, just as a reminder, we've said it once.

We'll say it again, we'll say it another time after that.

This car's whole goal is to be a platform that we're building

off of that's gonna be a very streetable race car.

Going in steps is part of that process.

And along the way, putting parts in that will be

building blocks for the next level.

Right.

Speaking of parts, do we have a few people we need to thank?

-ISKI Racing Cams, thank you. -It worked amazingly.

The cam worked amazing.

All of the lifters, the push rods...

-[Lucky] Push rods. -...we got from them,

springs, everything was set up, happy, and it really did good

with its shift point. -Sure.

-Our friends over at GearStar? -Ugh, GearStar.

GearStar and ISKY, you are my best friends today.

Where do we start? GearStar, yeah.

It's a tear. It was so amazing.

Putting this transmission in the car was almost hard

because it's such a gorgeous piece.

It's also one that's gonna live on for the duration of the car

because this is built to handle up to

about a 2,000 horsepower plus.

Yeah, I've heard about 2,000 horsepower.

I've never seen it.

We're not gonna see it with this, but we're gonna get a lot

more out of it than what we are now. -Two times.

Yeah, so GearStar, you rock! Thank you.

Good, firm shifts and a trans brake.

-That's always fun. -Yep.

We also need to be pretty darn glad we got a shop again.

-Thank you. -Oh, sure.

-Not you. -Yeah, uh-huh, no problem.

-Thank you. -Thank you.

Thank us. Thank us?

-Thank we? -Exactly.

We didn't lose the shop.

We didn't lose the shop. That is a fact.

And then one last thank you to beautiful Famoso Dragstrip in

Bakersfield, right? -Beautiful Bakersfield.

It's Famoso Dragstrip in beautiful "Bakers," California.

-The cue card is right there. -You messed it up.

-It's right there. -There's another one.

It's not Bakers, California. It's Bakersfield.

-I said Bakersfield. -[Alex] You said Bakers.

It's because I'm hungry and there's cake over there.

All right -- regardless, thank you,

Cleet and crew, for not running us off.

But we have gotten better at bringing cars that don't leak

on his track.

-That's true. -So thank you.

Thank me? Thank we?

Thank you guys for watching.

With that said, this is gonna be it for this episode.

-Do you have social media? -I actually do.

Mine is Alex Taylor Racing. And do you?

That's crazy. I also have social media.

I'm Mobile Tech Lucky on everything.

And we are Hot Rod Garage Show.

-Bring it. -Where?

-Wherever. -[Alex laughs]