I took a break from the car to spend time with family and assemble my early Father's Day / Birthday present. Back to the car tomorrow! I'm about 1/2 way through my sabbatical (8 weeks paid vacation every 7 years, this is my third).

Untitled by Greg Ault, on Flickr

Cost of a HEMI is totally worth it... I’ll never burn another plug wire! #WedgeProblems


Untitled by Greg Ault, on Flickr

This showed up today!

Untitled by Greg Ault, on Flickr

Untitled by Greg Ault, on Flickr

Untitled by Greg Ault, on Flickr

Yours is the second Mopar i'v seen with that style hood the first one was an e-body a few years ago.

1/2 inch off the back of the cowl and a little trimming off the inner support for the Air Grabber aircleaner and the hood sits flush. I need to decide on pins or 1/4-turn fasteners.

**edit** Several buddies are suggesting Satin Black over Body Color. Opinions?

GlassTek kicks butt! Way better than my old POS UP22 hood!

Glasstek.com

Untitled by Greg Ault, on Flickr

Paint it Orange

The satin black would be cool never use Glass tek, I've always herd good thing about them tho.

I likey. I think the Satin Black will help it look smaller, I would go with black Dzus buttons

Bada$$ Charger !!!!

looks good, but maybe it's just me, but maybe the black hood would make the hood stand out a little too much, making it look too big ?
maybe not the whole hood, but a couple of big stripes black, then the rest body color ?

I think painting just the cowl satin black would look good.

The new engine is not a boat anchor! Thumper Carb started up on the first crank (scared me)!

I have an oil leak from either the distributor or factory fuel pump location, but aside from that all seems good!

https://youtu.be/X6Lx_dgJEzM

Are you using a mechanical fuel pump? If so check the lower pump housing to the oil galley plug under the fuel pump boss to see the pump is touching it or not If it is touching it you may have found your oil leak
if your not using a mechanical fuel pump check the block off plate for the same thing, Murphy loves messing with us hot rodders and drag racers

I found the leak! Apparently the top passenger side motor mount bolt hole is semi wet (oil). I’ Using an engine plate so the hole was empty. I put a temporary bolt with a little RTV and it stopped the leak. Looks like I’ll use that side for the engine limiter.

Some thing is not correct
There should be no oil any where near that bolt hole
Maybe it is leaking some where else and finding it's way to that hole
Sheet, I forgot that this is a Hemiroid motor All the motor mount holes on the stock 426 type hemi motors are threaded into the crankcase so they really need to be seal well

Thanks Cab! Indy block. I'll make Engine limiters that come off of the engine mount locations and be sure to seal all bolts. Little bit of a learning curve going from a wedge to my first hemi. I pulled the distributor and inspected everything above that bolt hole location before trying the bolt with sealer. Couldn't find any oil above the hole. I let the engine come up to temp and idle for a while. No leaks now!

I'm going to bleed the brakes, mount the hood and send it off to paint, fab some engine limiters, align the front end, and........... take it for a f'in test drive!

I’ll start this off on a positive note with a video! It has an oil leak and I need to adjust the throttle linkeage, but it runs!



Life happened and I wasn’t able to mess with the car for a couple months. Don’t care to elaborate.

Prior to the pause in progress; I had recently started the new engine. After a couple warm up runs, it kept throwing the alternator belt. I noticed a loose mounting bolt and suspected that was the culprit. Quick repair and an attempt to restart resulted in an engine that wouldn’t crank. I immediately suspected the 10 year old battery (batteries don’t live more than 2 years in Arizona). Attempts to charge were unsuccessful so I went to the local parts store. To my dismay the new battery was unable to turn over the engine either. I attempted to jump it with my Cumins (dual batteries). Click…hummmmm….. no crank. Crap! I ordered one of the bad ass Power Master starters, and pulled all of the plugs to see if the engine would crank. With no plugs it spun freely! Big relief!!!!! The new starter arrived and I swapped it out. This isn’t quick because it’s not like the local parts store stocks Hemi exhaust header gaskets. Fast forward a couple weeks and I’m ready to try the new starter. Everything connected, new battery charged, sitting in the driver seat and I hit the button……..click HUmmmmmmm. Damnit! At this point I knew it was something stupid that I did. I ran jumper cables from the starter mounting bolt to the frame. Hit the button…..click….HUmmmmmmmm. Grrrrr! I pinged a couple buddies, one is a member here, and they talked me off the cliff. Tony noticed a puff of smoke between my nitrous purge line and my fuel regulator (woaaaah!)…, amp meter, second set of eyes, etc… later and the engine cranked with a couple plugs in one head. Long story long: I ran a #2 gauge wire from the negative terminal to the mounting bolt of the starter and everything is happy.

What did I learn from this? Check the simplest things first. Just because you suspect the uber expensive piece between the frame rails doesn’t mean that it’s bad. Also, there doesn’t appear to be much of a difference between the NAPA brand starter for a 98 ram and the PowerMaster… except for the billet adjustable mounting bracket. If you have header clearance problems, buy the PowerMaster. I have 2.25 in primary and 4in collector TTi headers that didn’t need the PowerMaster. Guess What! I now have a spare starter.

Untitled by Greg Ault, on Flickr

Untitled by Greg Ault, on Flickr

Untitled by Greg Ault, on Flickr

Trust me and do yourself a favor and change that alternator belt to a Dayco TopCog belt, My hemi would throw that belt everytime I hit it. I changed the belt and I haven't had 1 problem in 9 years.

I must have lost the belt on the last test drive. Throttle linkeage fixed. I'm pretty sure that I fixed the oil leak (engine mount bolt on the side of the block. All I had was blue RTV, will see if it holds).

Old car cleans up okay. The hood is at The painters and should be done next week. My butt dyno says the hemi is faster than the wedge (wedge on nitrous). The car has no problem doing a rolling burn out with a small blip of the throttle. I drove as much as I felt comfortable with running off the battery. Will order a Dayco TopCog belt tonight. The engine revs up QUICK. Definitely not something that I'm used to.

Untitled by Greg Ault, on Flickr

Untitled by Greg Ault, on Flickr