Dropping A 409 Into Our '61 Impala - MuscleCar S3, E20

today on muscle car red sled gets a fine 409 how to make inner fenders on the cheap and a trip to the year one experience [Music] there's a lot of famous muscle cars out there like the bullet mustang or the challenger from vanishing point and while detroit was building them california was making them famous in movies and music but one of the most recognizable songs out there isn't even about the car it's about the engine chevrolet's infamous 409 hey brent check out what i found out in front of horsepower oh cool engine for red slid yeah it doesn't get any cooler than a 409 and an impala i heard that wait what do you say we put it in man i like to make some inner fenders right here maybe bolt up the headers and steering see what kind of room we got in there cool works for me man put it together let's do it in order to make this old hunk of steel worthy of its new heart we braced up the old x-frame put in air right suspension widened the tubs patched up the old sheet metal got started on the body work and smoothed out the bumpers our heads were pretty full so the guys down at horsepower stepped up to build the engine joe headed down to georgia for help from 409 expert lamar walden who set us up with a vintage 409 block board and stroked it to 476 then decked and honed it to perfection then they custom made some high compression aluminum pistons and balanced our eagle crane back at the shop buddy mike and joe brought it all together with edelbrock's w series performer rpm heads and intake topped off with edelbrock's classic 409 valve covers and a pair of their 600 cfm performer carbs it was ready for the dyno with hooker's competition headers bolted on it pulled 497 horsepower and 525 foot-pounds of torque now that we've got our hands on it we can bolt up the and drop it into red slit the bellhousing we're using has a dust shield that needs to go on first then the flywheel using an alignment tool the clutch disc goes on next then the haze pressure [Music] plate be sure to install the clutch fork first then to lessen the odds of those clutch parts entering the passenger compartment we're going to cover it up with a liquid scatter shield in keeping with a nostalgia vibe a richmond super t10 4 speed brings up the back [Music] prothanes urethane motor mounts will keep this 409 in place better than the stock ones with less flex and less deterioration [Music] time to kick the cool factor up on project red sled another notch and stab this baby in a gm used the same mounts from 283 all the way up to 454 so that means we can actually use the original 283 mounts on our frame even with the core support out of the way a little finesse is required to get the engine to meet up with the mounts but it's nothing that jack and the little patients can't take care of it right there we're actually looking pretty good take the the whole jack and shove it to the passenger side since clearance is tight we're using doug's stock style ceramic coated headers we'll lose a few horsepower from the free-flowing style but these are designed to work in the tight quarters that we have to deal with these stage 8 locking fasteners will hold them in place and they'll never have to be retightened since some impalas came with four speeds the stock crossmember still works time to drop the core support back in then we can set the hinges in place so we know how much clearance we'll have for wheel wells we considered using original style wheel wells but we didn't for two reasons a the old ones were rusted out junk and b we couldn't find any replacements our only option left to build our own i've started by measuring the overall dimensions and transferring them to cardboard from there let the trimming begin [Music] i start out by making rough cuts to get the general shape then trim a little at a time to get a more precise template now before we go any further i'm going to set these pre-built fenders in place that way i know all my measurements are correct i picked up these trailer fenders from a farm supply store for under 50 bucks a pair they come in a ton of different sizes and they'll save you a lot of time with the suspension fully compressed i'm using a roll of three quarter inch masking tape to set the clearance to the tire hey brent i'll do some cutting sure sweet i got the measurements right there on the top for you cool our tires are wider than the fenders and there is no way we're putting skinnier tires on so something's got to give and the first thing to go is the inner lip next prince reshaping the radius to match the tires more closely they would have worked fine as they were but we like a tighter fit well just because it looks better [Music] so cool got it trimmed up oh yeah get it ready to go looks good i do see a problem though what's that this is hanging down here so far i'll bet you can see it through the wheel well oh yeah you can like quite a bit we're gonna have to lose probably four or five inches off the tail end of that right there hey what do you say we take the other side flip it around and have it swoop back in swap it side to side and kind of get a nest curve at with that cool and just blend it into the firewall in the back yeah yeah that'll work let's cut it up dude cool on the bright side you don't have to worry about cutting these things up they're cheap and if you screw one up beyond repair they made a lot more and it won't eat up your whole paycheck to replace it [Music] drop this in there richard hey that's looking pretty good yeah i don't think it looks too bad the whole idea we had about swapping these two cutoff pieces though isn't going to work bummer but i think the piece we cut off of it though will though no that's cool as long as we got it tied into the firewall somewhere so it's not slinging stuff up that'll work yeah that's fine get these sides made up man yep i'm on it well hey don't go anywhere because coming up after the break we're going to figure out how all this stuff is going to go together up next the trans am takes some big steps toward getting color [Music] hey welcome back our inner fenders are coming along nice and once i get these side panels cut out we can set them in place and trim them to fit those trailer fenders that brent modified [Music] after making an initial cut with the shear and the pass of the plasma cutter i'm trimming it up on the band saw we've got to get the suspension up to get the rough cut piece in place [Music] then we'll drop it back down until it just kisses the top of the tire the wheel well gets set in place so we can mark off the metal that's going to go in the scrapper [Music] once the side piece is free again i'm trimming it on the bandsaw one more time hey brent got your present all right i hear you are the master bead roller you probably heard incorrect but i'll give it a shot all right this part's not going to be under a lot of stress but it will be under a lot of scrutiny and the beads well they just look cool brent's marking out a rough idea of where they need to be and the bead roller does the rest [Music] with the bead rolling done the whole thing can be stuck together with a tig dressing it up with the grinder we'll get it ready for some plastic [Music] when filler finishes the install on those wheel wells i can turn my attention back to the trans am i got the body work done and she's ready for first prime man i must have blown about 500 pounds of dust out of this thing so now all i have to do is finish masking it up the reason why you want to put the paper in between the plastic and the surface that you're painting is because if you run the plastic all the way down and attach it as you're coming across with your coats it's going to build up on that plastic and the next time you come by with that coat the plastic is going to be going like this and all those little pieces of paint are going to break off of there and land back in the stuff that you're trying to shoot the paper is there to absorb the overspray with the masking done it's time to bust out the rusty fender primer i'll be putting on three coats plenty to block this thing out with all primed and guide coated it's time to break out the long boards and make some more dust now after we get all the blocking done then we can go back and take care of some odds and ends like seam sealer and door jambs before the final prime 120 grit on some dura blocks and lots of flex into the old guns and i mean lots and the body will be one step closer to paint [Music] with all the projects we have going sometimes it feels like we live here in the shop now this car is going to be representing year one so we'll take as much time as we need to to make it just right but you know what we need a break so we're going to head down to atlanta georgia see what's happening at the year one experience and if you ask me nice i'll even let you call a shotgun hey brent you ready to get out of here go on a road trip hell yeah cool we're gone after the break muscle car hits the road to check out a car lover's paradise [Music] brent and i need a break so we're heading down to brazilton georgia for the year one experience at road atlanta hey we made it the cars ran great i only got one ticket we're here with the who's who and the what's what we got muscle cars street rods we got trucks we got everything let's go check it out year one is all about the cars and this yearly event is no different it's a chance to check out all kinds of rides plus catch up on the latest in automotive products and technology dude i'm on swag patrol over here hey look at that reflex hey who am i to turn down some free stuff hey this thing looks familiar rick yeah it kind of does huh it's one of the things that looks familiar but kind of not yeah what's different about it tires are too small and of course we have to find out what's new and cool yeah let's just call it uh research to do is equalize the pressure coming out of the motor so we've developed this is called deport scavenger pipe but eventually the cars were calling our names there's an incredible variety of cars and trucks here from customs and hot rods to modern muscle and matching numbers classics along with everything in between now personally you would never ever want to give me a correct restored car like that because i'd ruin it this is kind of familiar to a little bit it's familiar but there's something different about it and of course where there's cool cars there's also great people i'd like you to meet the demented man who built this ride how you doing i'm rick rick mike bone awesome car man i dig it yeah yeah i saw that one it's a beautiful piece well thank you yeah you see the bed they all go like this and they're so what the heck is that it's great to get a chance to hang out with some of our fans even the four-legged kind but we did have one serious mission year one asked us to join the panel of judges for the year one cup and we're given an award of our own for best muscle car and i'll tell you the competition is tough not really a muscle car but pretty cool i like the green and i like the purple this is a nice nice car there's hundreds of cars out here and i think we looked at pretty much all of them no easy task but hey someone's got to do it don't go eastbound and down because more muscle car from the year one experience right after the break coming up rick cuts a deal that has the le mans smoking i hear he wants to sign a couple tires right that's right i'll make you a deal okay we'll sign the tire and you give us a couple of tires i think we can make that work you can make that one absolutely all right cool and a hot award goes to a cool camaro [Music] hey welcome back we're down here with bfg and they are true to the word they're hooking us up with some fresh skins she can't go to a burnout contest with rubber looking like that if you were watching earlier this season you know the le mans can create some serious fire smoke but there's just nothing left of the old kdws once these guys set us up we'll be ready to roast them off again so we're headed to the burnout exhibition to see what's smoking i've got muscle car television here today how many people watch muscle car tv let's do it [Applause] that was cool 46 seconds and one more set of tires down the tubes but it was worth it now to hold up our end of the bargain bf goodrich is carving logos and signatures from some automotive greats including brent and myself into this tire it's being presented as a thank you gift to year one president kevin king it's not done yet but when it is it'll be a true work of art now for the highlight of our day presenting the muscle car best of show award metal fabricator tom mckenzie is accepting the award for the 67 camaro which is owned by bob bertelsen brent and i agreed this car is everything a resto mod should be keeping the classic feel of a camaro with lots of modern innovation then it was horsepower's turn to present their best engine award the winner goes to a 1968 dodge rt convertible congratulations last but not least the coveted year one cup went to richard ryder's 55 bel air today's been a blast and that's no surprise because this is an event for car levers presented by car lovers the year one experience is kind of the ultimate automotive deal for gearheads it's just like one big family deal and and we welcome any type of car and everybody automotive that's into this hobby or just likes cars and wants to be outside and have some fun to be able to take your car to a road course and an autocross and a wet autocross just anything you might could imagine you'd want to do in a car on a track or driving and here you have it it's the year one experience and special thanks for the folks at muscle car for being here keep watching the show today has been a heck of a day man we got to check out some cars cruise around give away an award burn off another set of tires and we still didn't get to do everything but you know what we're out of time so for now we're out of here you

Channel: POWERNATION

Views: 295,244

Keywords: Car, PowerNation, howto, how-to, diy, automotive, cars, trucks, automobile, do it yourself, automobiles, auto, muscle car, restoration, engine, 409 engine, impala, chevy, chevrolet impala, engine build, horsepower, body work, trans am, chevrolet, 409, chevrolet 409 engine

Id: KgWnfT0EWrk

Length: 19min 30sec (1170 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 30 2020