Always great to work on these cars when the temp hits over 100. Seems to be like this every yr. Let me know if you need anything.

Darren's check arrived on 5/1, so that will help with the Airwolfs, oddly enough though, it's been a week and my card hasn't been charged, and I haven't seen an invoice... so have I bought any heads or not?

Dale called me the next day, "Did you hear about Darren's old Dakota R/T? That kid who bought it from him totaled it out in 4 days! Guy pulled out in construction, and ran him into a Jersey barrier, set off both air bags, and then something caught fire under the hood".
That was the kind of thing that would drive Darren crazy, even though it wasn't his anymore....ouch!

On 5/6 I read the unfortunate news that Jeff at MCH was in the hospital, and Robert mentioned that Brian at IMM had given him a time frame of "8 to 12" weeks on his engine, so I was starting to feel that the max ported Edelbrocks might not have happened any faster anyway.

On 5/11 Darryl and I made our annual pilgrimage to the Spring Fling in Woodley Park. I really enjoy that show. We ran into Rod (Just-a-Dart) and he had a set of 360-1s for sale, with valves, and intake...right there on the table, you could touch them, look at them...darn it, if he'd had those in his trailer at MATS, I might've pulled the trigger! I was committed, though, so I walked away despite his best (and very sound) arguments. Darryl and I had a nice contest going in our heads as the day passed; Were there more wing cars in attendance, or more 340 sixpacks for sale in the swap meet? I think it ended up at 7 to 6 in favor of the sixpack setups, but I can't be sure!
As we were winding down our trip through the swap area, the familiar "You must be MoparBilly!" rang out, as I was rocking my Drag Week 2011 t-shirt. Darryl groaned as I started another epic benchracing session with new friend John (johnnycuda) and our departure time moved back another hour.

In the week following Spring Fling, I started to get antsy about the time table, and I implored Dale to call Rod at Bloomer Performance again. He reported back in a few hours, "He said your pistons are stuck in engineering..."
"What the heck does that mean?" I fired back.
"Means that '3 week' clock isn't ticking!" he laughed.

Two days later, I reached out via phone to Bryce Mulvey of Dr J's Performance.
"This is Billy, wondering where we are on the SBM220's?"
"Um yes, still a couple of weeks, we are kinda overwhelmed around here right now..."
"Well, you haven't even charged me yet, or sent me an invoice?"
"Yeah, I'll try to do that this afternoon, like I said, we've just been really busy!"

Friday, May 17th...Dale called, "Just talked to Rod again, he said he has to go out of town for a friend's funeral, but he shipped the crank, and the rest will come when he gets the pistons..."
As of Today, the 21st I've yet to be charged, or invoiced for the heads.

Have you seen the Discover Card, "We treat you like you'd treat you commercials? I'm starting to think that's the situation! I mean, it's hard to bang on these guys when the shortblock is still sitting in the Valiant, yet to be removed from the frame rails, but I'm sure I'd be much more motivated If I was surrounded with new parts!

RIP Yella Dakota!

Billy... I commend you for working on multiple cars
to get them ready... hell I cant get one ready...I will
but it sure takes longer than I figured... best of luck
to you and I'll see you there

I'm in shock... I think I found a subject that MoparBilly and I can relate to on a very serious level: Marriage.

gotta commend ya Billy... I figured you'd turn and run back to the comfort of some stock rods and W2 heads.

Bazinga.

Tick...tick...tick...

J-Body,
I've been in OK all this week, helping the brothers and getting update pics for Devilbrad!! That, and dodging tornados!

Rolled into Phoenix today, back home after 7 days in Oklahoma! Yes, it's already miserably hot in the AZ, but I'm not hanging out in storm cellars, listening to alarm sirens, or watching radar screens on TV with "Take shelter immediately" scrolling below. Love the "Tornado alley" of my youth, but it's been a little ridiculous this last week.

Boone's D-100 Gasser Truck has been outside since last Drag Week, so after spending the first day just cleaning up stuff we had already done, it became painfully apparent that we had to rectify that situation, and turn Dales "25X33" storage shed, into a working shop...and that was no small feat!!

Here is Boone's best, "I'm disgusted with this situation" look...

That truck is already awesome, and you guys aren't even done with it yet.

The in-cab portion of the cage is pretty much done, and welded to pads in the floorboard. Since this is a full frame vehicle however, you are required to weld runners up from the frame to match these pads. We bent and welded those at the back of the cab on Sunday, my first full day in OK, before we decided to put our efforts toward cleaning out the shop.

The shop was loaded down with 2 race cars, and literally tons of racecar parts... all which are not getting any use when you are trying to put together street cars for HotRod Drag Week!

First car un-earthed from the shed was Dale's AMX which hasn't seen a drag strip in 4 years. Please explain why any person would need TWO BB Mopar powered, big tire, back halved AMCs??

We now had some room, enough for us to realize we still had plenty of work ahead of us!

2nd car was finally extricated several hours later. It's a 67 Barracuda, 2x3 box, strut front, 4link Dana 60 car which Dale claims is the finest driving car he's ever piloted down a dragstrip. I hope that is accurate, because I now own it. Problem is... (she's not looking over my shoulder is she?), I haven't stumbled upon a good way to explain that to the Wife yet! Our last serious discussion about my current crop of toys was that she felt 3 was too many, and that 1 needed to go. I'm not the smartest husband on the planet, but that didn't feel like a good time to bring up the fact that number 4 had been hiding out at Dale's place for the last year!
The car has some serious cosmetic issues, but it's a solid platform. After looking at it in the light, the brothers decided it appeared the rear tires were moved back slightly. Good eyes, wheelbase checked in at 109.5.

Cars out, didn't immediately correlate to truck in, as serious sorting and re-organizing began. We could've easily filmed a good episode of 'Hoarders', with myself as the harried psychiatrist trying to convince Dale to let go of used, unmarked solid lifters, and assorted other metal mayhem from projects long since forgotten, his 80 dollar payday at the scrapyard was only a small solace. This collection of blocks against the back wall quickly grew to 9, double stacked.

The truck would spend several more nights on the pad in front of the garage. Sharp-eyed sweptline aficionados will spy the extended pitman arm, which is a good 3 inches longer than stock, allowing the nose up rake of added leafs in the front, without binding the steering link.