Vintage NASCAR Monte Carlo Build: Dodge R5P7 Engine Install with Doug Richert! (Part 1)

this car was built to run in the NASCAR Bush Series in 2004 from Bobby lebani to Eric El marola to Joey lagano to Jeff Anton and the KNN E Series now 15 years later it's going to have a new life with me driving it when I got it it had 3/4 of a new body on it I had to do all the Bondo we did the wrap most vintage Racing for these types of cars is all road course stuff so the Circle Track cars didn't really have a home until the last few years when Bob sha started a Grand National Super Series that's where Jeremy Mayfield's been racing if you've seen pictures or videos of him doing stuff that's where this car's going the engine we're putting in it is a Dodge R5 p7 but this chassis never had a Dodge engine in it and there are some fitment issues that I'm dealing with and we'll have to make modifications and I'll show you that the rule states that the spark plug hole for the forward most cylinder head cannot be behind the Jack scrp right now I'm still in front of it and if I move it back any further the distributor is going to hit the firewall as you can see the blue Mark already there from where I pushed it into it so you might think why don't you just push the engine forward and not have to do that well then the header is against the steering shaft and I would have to make dents in it and then the engine would be farther forward than the rules allow why would you want to do that when you have the engine farther back it enables you to get closer to a 50/50 weight distribution which is what you want you don't want the engine to be way out in front of the front wheels we'll have to take this out and make a little bit of a recess in here for that to fit into and then we'll have to get to making mounts that'll go from this motor plate here to the frame somewhere and from this tab here on the bell housing to these that are already on the car we're going to try to reuse those if we can right now I'm just getting this as close as I can as far as locating everything before uh Doug Richard's supposed to come over here and help me iron out where the holes are actually going to be drilled to set the angle and everything thing of the engine he'll explain why that matters if you're wondering why the front end doesn't have stuff it doesn't have headlights on it it's all wrinkled the the headlight decals that were on the car I did not like they were the wrong size and they were kind of like older scans they didn't look very good so I got some better ones on the way and when I peeled these up it screwed up the vinyl in the bottom so I'm going to have to redo that but honestly I'm going to redo this whole scheme in the front anyway cuz it's not correct just like I had to redo uh this area cuz you know me in this particular paint Scheme I am super picky about it has to be right so to get the frame Heights mocked upright to determine how high to put the engine off to meet the minimum clearance cuz there's a rule from the ground to the center line of the crankshaft cannot be any less than 10 in I have these blocks that I cut out which are the frame is sitting on so it's 5 and 1/2 left front six right front I don't know and whatever it is back there I can't exactly remember what it is but it's laying on them all the first thing I had to figure out before doing anything on this car was what were the build Heights was actually uh Rambo Tony Libera I asked him and he's like what are your build Heights and I'm like what is that and he said that's what build Heights are what the chassis manufacturer puts Each corner of the frame rail at when they actually build the car and this is your 0 point of how the the the suspension pivot Points are designed to work at because if you are higher or lower than that specified Point given the Baseline of where they have their suspension adjustability and everything you'll be out of whack for your your travel and your cambera curves and all that so you got to know your build Heights now your build Heights are not necessarily where you race the car at but it's your starting point you're either going to be build height plus or minus usually minus something in my case this is Ronnie Hopkins chassis which Ronnie Hopkins does not exist anymore but their employees are still around and Excel racing Solutions has their record book for that stuff so they were able to tell me what the build heights were but they are also on these little tabs right here they're welded to the frame so your car may have this like right here is five and over here we got six this one's eight so this car is very asymmetrical in this era of Gen 4 car the frame heights were kind of all over the place people could do whatever they wanted with them now with the co stuff it's mandated I think it's six in the front and eight in the back on both sides so they're perfectly square and you don't have to do this but I just went out and cut these blocks out so I could set the frame right down on them give me a good reference point that was repeatable you can also buy or make these adjustable struts that go in place to your shocks you can hold it at a specific ride height which is pretty cool cuz then you can pick the car up in the air and it'll hold it at ride height so you can see you know what your drive line angle is and things like that and I made this little pointer thing that's 10 in up to show me where 10 in is and the engine is resting right on the crossmember it cannot go any lower and we got at least an inch to spare what's happening well I got the frame laying on the blocks and the engine with the engine with the pan sitting on the crossmember cannot go any lower is about an inch and a half taller than my 10-inch pointer so I don't think that going too low will be a problem oh wow so so measure um see how high the crossmember is off the ground okay with it sitting there the lowest point of the crossmember yeah just like measure the bottom side like okay this is gonna drag the ground if it travels uh it's probably about 5 and a half Ines or something now see that's pretty high you don't you don't want to run a short track with a crank crank height at 11 and a half inches now I will say why that's 11 and a half inches is this particular car which probably run on an intermediate track people started raising the motors up so that the pan wasn't hanging in the air oh so so they as you went along their front veillance and all that wherever their no was at they tried to make that thing all flow like it was a solid B all the way back exhaust was ovals and made as wide as they could and plate between it that's why they have big drag links with six inch wide bottoms on it it was all about making that underpan oh yeah I wouldn't run I wouldn't be running I wouldn't be running no 11 and a half inch CR sh I out of short track yeah I believe so if you want to build the best car that's that's not the location you like my 10-in pointer hey it works right that's all you need to do so do you still think that crossmember should get cut out or leave it there and just leave the motor High I mean I'll never sit here and say leave a motor high you know that it's a Time an expense how much time do you have uh enough time to make it better if it needs to be that much better better I'm not super concerned with missing the first couple races if it getes me a better right end result well the other thing about to is if you lowered that thing down an inch or something look how much better your motor mount deal will be too kind of will bring it into play so that thing that cross member got cut out do you put a different one somewhere else or you just leave those two pickup points untied in the middle no no no you'll have to put one down you it has to be tied together all the lateral load that you have pushes in on that point if it's not tied together it just it will flex and break okay that's what I was wondering is where would you put if cut you just put another one and make it lower right basically you could cut it off here make one that went down over and up and it'll do the same thing okay it'll still tie it together everything is up because of Arrow you see even the radiator is is up here's my my take on this if you're not under a time crunch and you want the best race car you can have get the motor down I'm all for it yeah so and then you deal with each piece after that right yeah so the first thing we do is pull the motor out cut the crossmember get the motor sitting down in there and then you can pretty much take this number where it's sitting now go back up in the air prop the motor up cut that crossmember out lower at X right you got a point lower an inch and a half or whatever the number is right and then take the motor and put it where it belongs and then you put the crossmember back up to it okay you know with a little bit of clearance on the bottom of the pan make two ears go up and you weld it back in that's starting point number one that makes sense right that gives you header clearance all that stuff too on your steering everything goes down and you're just going to gain clearance well we got the crossmember cut out and we're going to lower it telling you as much as I can but I don't want to say too much because I want to have a good car if anybody else joins this series I don't want to know everything that I'm doing I made this yesterday this is just the piece that I cut out with some 1 in by 1 in square tubing like E8 in wall and I ca the ends and it's going to go right under here just like that I'm going to weld it in does the same job still looks the same this just dropped a little bit so we can lower the engine about 3/4 of an inch and it'll still have clearance on the pan be perfect I probably should have shown making more of this but uh sometimes I just like to make things don't want to film everything but I can tell you it started off as a piece like that you know and then I cut little pieces off of this that I used to make that in there I measured them with the calipers I just cut it to size and you know I put a little scratch on it then I cut it and got to drill a little hole in it the little hole is so you can weld these closed and the gas can get out of the inside cuz if you do not have a hole you try to weld something if you've ever done this you'll know that the arc is going to go it's going to pop and spit and do all kinds of dumb stuff so you got to drill a relief hole and I drilled it on the top so whenever I weld this to the car it is covered up and I'm going to fire up the farm new This Magic wave and finish weld this thing but I got to clean some more of this off that'll be ugly I'm going try to make some nice Wells because making nice Wells is fun I got to wear this jacket otherwise the UV light from the welding Arc will sunburn you literally I've gotten some pretty nasty and it's not like normal sunburn like it really screws up your arm skin but here I just did the bottom side here or top side I guess now I'm going to do the [Music] bottom you know some of these people we do history videos with talk to me like I don't know anything about cars and I just don't say anything part of why I'm able to ask the questions I do is because I understand what those guys were doing in those buildings back then the last time I TIG welded was over a year ago yeah year and a half ago when I made the headers for the Monte Carlo and the time I TIG welded before that was probably like a year and a half before that I don't get to do this very much so I really enjoy when I do get to sit down and mess with the welder I got it clamped in place have it tapped around with a hammer and know make sure it's square and everything took a little while and I'm going to tack it in a few places there's like there's two kinds of tacks there's like a quick mockup tack then there's a tack that you need to hold even if you bang into it and that's what I'm going to do here I'm not going to finish weld it but I'm going to tack it so if I bang into it with the engine or I got to set something down on it that's heavy it's not going to fall off and lose its position I have to cut the old motor mount tabs off completely because they don't line up with where the motor plate is on the front of the Dodge unfortunately I was hoping I wouldn't have to do this but I do so I am well I got got them off while using as little uh as little grinding wheel as possible cuz I don't like the mess it makes grind that flat anyway so probably really didn't help that much but they're gone now that's a start now I got to cut the back ones off because with the engine moved to its top of position they don't line up right would have needed a bunch of spacers and it would have been kind of janky so I'm going to try to surgically remove these C clean them up a bit and reuse them I broke a rule I don't like the sparks flying at my face so I try to have throw it away from me really the grinder works better if you have it pulling you know towards you you get too out on an edge like that it go kick itself back at you and junk the wheel now can I get this off without giving myself a splinter we will find out damn I don't [Music] know now this is my right side motor plate Tab and this is a wood circular saw I'm going to attempt to cut this with that why wood blades do cut aluminum I saw somebody do it on the internet and it worked so with that being said even if this works my official statement is don't try this at home but got it clamped down real good we're going to go slow I'll put some WD40 on here just to make myself feel better we'll see what happens ever wow you see the blade on there just the this is the blade that came on it going clean that up with a file and it'll be nice sure beats the crap out of using a band saw and taking 45 minutes to do it just like sponsors play a critical role in helping get race cars to the RAC track they also help us bring these videos to you and we must really be an official YouTube channel now because today's video sponsor is raid Shadow Legends can you believe it I know myself for Logan if we're on a long flight uh we'll play phone games phone games are a great way to pass the time especially if you're on an airplane and you don't want to pay for Wi-Fi I hate how they do that rage Shadow Legends would be a great option for you it has a really dense story line the graphics are fantastic I can't believe this stuff comes from a phone cuz I remember what graphic used to be like on video games that I played when I was a kid and they were not up to this standard that's for sure if you haven't started playing yet then what are you waiting for click my link in the description or scan my QR code to get insane bonuses that are only available with that link I don't know exactly when the last time I filmed one of these was so I'll just update you on what I've been working on so I have these tacked up the front pieces I'll doing the back ones I got them made out of the aluminum here boled to the ears on the bell housing I cut off the old mounts I'm going to reuse them after a little bit of modification but just getting them set up to where I can get them clamped on to here to hold them where they're going to be on the frame and then tack them up pull the whole thing out so that's what was on there cleaned it up a little bit I had cut this gusset off they had these gussets on them which are now at the wrong angle cuz it's not at the same place on the frame anymore like there and then I'm just going to use some channel on clamps here to clamp it to this and use that to tag it to the frame on both sides and it'll be great now the rule for the engine placement is at ride height the crankshaft Center Line has to be 10 in off off the ground and the center of the leading cylinder spark plug hole cannot be farther back than the center of the Jack bolt well this is a bit interesting because this Jack bolt is kind of caned a little bit if you look at it it's not perfectly straight up and down so naturally I'm going to reference the bottom of it which is further back and the spark plug hole is at an angle too so what's the hole is it the part where the hole starts or where the hole ends I don't know you tell me but I have it pushed enough forward so that my little marker right here will not be a problem this is what I've been using for this stuff these channel lock locking pliers and they're freaking awesome and what I really like about them is unlike most of the locking pliers you get these ones to release them you pinch closed instead of having to push it that way and then pinch your fingers these ones you can work comfortably with one hand now you can see I have this clamped on here but the fit up is not perfect I mean you could take a MIG welder and just fill that in but I don't really do things that way that's not how I learned how to do things so I'm going to fine-tune this a little bit I'm going to uh grind a little bit of an edge into it so it sits on here more flush same thing with the other side that way when I TIG weld this it'll be a nice tight fitment I'm not going for like perfect no Gap but I mean better than this because uh A wise man once said how you do one thing is how you do everything so you treat every piece you work on like the most important piece of the car at the end you get a really good car [Music] kind of hard to get this thing in there but using your brain a little bit more to figure out a way to do it never hurt anybody and yeah we do have a MIG welder sitting over there but uh I've never really used that thing my whole life only ever had a TIG welder we've only had a MIG welder for last 8 months or so and when we got it she went straight to using it I had no project so I really don't even I could TIG weld you a set of headers that look great but give me a wi big welder I'm like let's figure out how to use this thing I could do it but I'm just you know this is what I'm familiar with get this brake line out of the way show you what I'm dealing with here I have to cut a little piece off of this tab to make room for the nut for the control arm it's really not that much room there and we have to get rid of that now I don't know if this is the exact setup that will stay in the car probably not but if I want to run something that occupies roughly this much room I will have to cut this off to do that and and I want to have that option if it's there so I'm going to cut it off now I just got lucky there was already a hole drilled here from whoever had this before but little Tech tip if you want to have a radiused Bend that's controlled you can drill a hole at the Apex of your corner and then just cut up to the sides of it got enough clearance now to get a wrench in there get the bolt in and out and have a little bit more room even if we need it well I'm bogged down with video editing [Music] how's it going it's good what are you doing um been evening out this so it'll be easier to make cuz you just kind of like lobbed it out yeah I got a bad habit of doing that where I'll stare at something and if I can't think of like the right way to go about it like I'm going to surgically cut it here and cut it there and I'm like getting fed up with it and I think do I really need to be this picky about it no I'll just cut it and wor worry about it later I forgot why I stopped wearing these gloves and now I know why H why I can't tell now you might be wondering why is the rear end pushed up like that no we're not going to Daytona in 1998 with pull down shocks I am figuring out how much clearance I will have with the truck arm under the floor pan so I can lower the floor pan to get my seat down a little bit more and Doug told me to take measure where the Hub is at build height and up to you know top of the fender here and move it up 4 in just to simulate what Max Max travel would be obviously it's probably never going to get pushed up this high so if you mock up an extreme scenario…