jontoads whips

and... EZlip on the Caliber.

I like the black corners on the front lip .

decided to install my power steering underdrive kit today. the road racer Joel Van who owns that green challenger that was on "are you faster than a redneck" on speed channel fabricated the kit for LX cars. it's a 6 inch pulley to replace the stock 4.75 inch pulley and a bracket plate to keep the pulley in line with the belt.



it didn't go as smooth as planned. my factory pulley decided to have the flange break off in the pulley puller. that led me to some tiring work with a hack saw and a little bit of dremel work to relieve the pulleys tension on the power steering pump shaft. at that point i was able to use the pulley puller on the small bit of the flange that was left on the pulley to get it off without it breaking off more. 

what was left of the stock pulley-



then since i was the first one to install the kit besides Joel himself i found the bracket on the fitting on my power steering low pressure hose was different than his. his bracket was straight and had no issues, mine had the bracket at a 45 degree angle and would hit the pulley if i tried to bolt it in. WTF dodge. lol. so for now i had to cock the bracket to the side and clamp it in by adding a washer to the stock bolt. not a big deal, it is held in as good as the stock bracket held it. but i am going to research if i can find what years had the straighter fitting so i can swap mine out. i don't like ghetto looking stuff even if it works fine. my Airaid intake covers it and you can't see it, but i know it's there. lol.



combined with my massive Derale power steering cooler that holds an extra quart of fluid more than the stock one does, i should hopefully say goodbye to the "high rpm's killing power steering pumps" problem that LX cars have when your race them. i didn't have a problem with the factory pulley since i added the cooler last year, but this needed to be done.

it works great as the math i used on figuring out the new belt size was spot on. steering feels same as factory when the car is at idle so no loss of low rpm function, but around 21% less pump RPM's at high motor RPM's.

went to Chicago SCCA event 4 at route 66 today.

I put in some new LED door logo projectors on the Charger this evening.

the ones i had from AAC that were red and white faded like hell. the red faded bad and it just looked washed out. i dunno why, i don't use them much since i don't drive the car on a daily basis. i think maybe the AAC ones were too powerful to leave on at shows for extended periods and just faded the film with heat. Bullish got the same AAC ones and he says his still look good though.

i picked up some ebay ones that say they are not supposed to fade like others do. they seem to be pretty powerful still though. the fact that they are red and black instead of red and white should help too due to the better contrast and the resistance of fading black has.

i think they look more bad ass anyways. the black and red is tougher looking than the white and red. the old ones were a little more classy looking i guess. they are much more deep red in person, LED's don't photograph well on cell phone cameras. lol. the reflection on the back door is closer to how they look.

To me, I like this way better. I searched for the video you posted to compare them. The white border on the old one took something away for me. Now I'm partial to black and red, but this does certainly look tougher, but it's still classy to me. After seeing this, I'm glad the old set faded!

got the Cali back from the body shop so the Charger can go back into the easy garage life. it hadn't seen that much rain driving in years. lol. i paid extra to have the licence plate holes filled on it.

i ordered a couple parts for the Charger.

-SRT MAX PLUS cam from Inertia (same one funkpolice has)
-custom forged pushrods
-mopar performance timing set
-new water pump
-associated install parts (cam bolt, crank bolt, intake manifold gasket, timing cover gasket)

chose this one over the other cam i always wanted because it has a much nicer lope to it and is still ok on the stock converter. sounds like an old school car. i just need to set aside some cash for install and a canned tune so i can drive it until i can afford to have it dynotuned.

here is a vid of how it sounds. this car has kooks long tubes though. i might get some mids and a better x pipe eventually but i have no plans to do any long tubes with how low my car is.

Cool Jon. No drop in pistons?

cool. you'll probably end up wanting a torque converter, I'm going to try to get one this winter. Even with my 3.73 rear it just takes too long to get where it pulls best. what is the difference with the performance timing set. When I did mine Tim told me the stock one was fine. anything special with the water pump? I'm on my second one now, after I blew a gasket out, and now this one is starting to squeal at high rpm. you might need a new set of springs too. I remember reading some got the green stripe ones, and others the yellow? striped ones.

i didn't intend to sound so douchy. congrats on the purchase, it's going to be fun.

bill

Illinois Chaos wrote:

Cool Jon. No drop in pistons?

eh? no plans to change any pistons any time soon...

funkpolice wrote:

i didn't intend to sound so douchy.  congrats on the purchase, it's going to be fun.

bill

nothing douchish there i don't think. lol

i already know i want a converter. just not a real loose one. i want it to act mostly factory on normal driving and not hit too hard since this car is built for turns and not drag.

the mopar performance timing set is the factory one as far as i know. it was $104.

nothing special with the water pump. just why not replace it while it is off. the car has 60k miles now (only about 25k miles from me since 07).

odd question for you. you think i would be able to use a copy of your tune file for a start up tune? i am going to have Tim tune it either way, but that would make things easy...

Can't use the tune as is, calid is different. However, most tuners should be able to update the calid so you can use it.

i don't know anything about using tunes for different cars, but I can send you a copy of mine if you need it. I have a copy on my desktop for when I install the MTCM, but I'm afraid of messing something up so I haven't done it.

bill

Congrats Toad

funkpolice wrote:

i don't know anything about using tunes for different cars, but I can send you a copy of mine if you need it.  I have a copy on my desktop for when I install the MTCM, but I'm afraid of messing something up so I haven't done it.

bill

if you want to email a copy to Jontoad@aol.com i would owe you a burger at the next track day or something. it still might not be usable to change the calid anyways though as from what Eric says the tune file might be locked. it's worth a shot though.

if not i am sure Johan or Tim can send me a start up tune.

maybe try stu from inertia. I've read he can pretty much get that cam dialed in without any back and forth, but I don't know what if cost if anything. I'll try to send you the tune as an email, but I'm not sure I know how.

very cool JT, congrats

funkpolice wrote:

maybe try stu from inertia.  I've read he can pretty much get that cam dialed in without any back and forth, but I don't know what if cost if anything.  I'll try to send you the tune as an email, but I'm not sure I know how.

Connect your predator to your computer and open DS Downloader and select the option to get tune from tool or whatever it says.
Keep in mind that many tuners these days lock their tunes which will prevent you from getting from the tool.

still waiting on a few more parts, but these showed up today. i am excite.

You plan on having install done in time to hit track one more time this year?

maybe. if we are going in October i might be able to do that. still won't have a converter yet though so it it is not gonna be full potential either way.

*Whistles* way ahead of my modding thats for sure!
Looking great, freaking A!

got a tune file that will work from Johan today, still waiting on those damn crank/cam bolts.