Roadkill (2012–2020): Season 1, Episode 7 - Roadkill - full transcript

- We just bought this
Jaguar for a thousand bucks,

installed that blower in a parking lot,

went drag racing and cruised it home.

- What did you do today?

(accelerating car motor)

(car engine revving)

(tires screeching)

(uptempo rock music)

(car engine running)

- [Voiceover] In this episode of Roadkill,

we're in San Francisco.



My friends Matt and Darin

from White Flag Racing in Washington

dared us to buy their old
small block powered Jaguar.

We had a Weiand 6-71 blower
and a set of Holley carbs

sittin' on our desk.

We told 'em, drive the
Jag to San Francisco

and we'd meet 'em there
with a thousand bucks

and they'd have a deal.

- This is too good for us!

It clearly too good for us.

- [Mike] It's too nice.

- [Matt] She's a runner!

- Is it fast?

- It's got to be fast,



it's got duct tape on it, look at this.

(car motor starting)

- Wow!

- That started too easy
I'm a little worried.

- This is sweet!

- [Matt] It runs good!

(car engine revving)

- And it's a '74?

- [Darin] '74.

- It's smog exempt!

- Oh, we're going to have fun.

- [Mike] Look how nice the trunk opens,

it's like English quality.

Straight from Coventry.

- Aw, dude, you can smuggle a
lot of hookers in that trunk.

- Wow, you can.

- A lot you can do.

- Okay.

Ready? You got it?

(groaning)

This door doesn't open.

You trying to sell us a bogus car here?

(car motor starting)

- The seatbelt's gooey enough

that I feel safer not wearing it.

- I know. It's kind of gross.

- Is the heater on?

- Seriously.

- Yeah it is, it is. You
got to turn your fan on.

- We have to have the heater?

- Oh, when we turn the radiator fan on

it also turns the heater on.
- [Matt] Yeah.

- [David] Wait, why does this say V12?

- [Mike] This is a V12 car.

- [David] You always wanted a V12

ever since you drove that
Lamborghini, remember?

- [Mike] Somehow this is coming
a little bit short of that.

- [David] You feel jipped
by four whole cylinders.

- [Mike] Yeah.

We'll add a blower to make up for it.

- [David] Oh it's peppy.

Am I going to have a,

this-is-too-nice-to-ruin-it
moment with this car?

- Yes you are.

(laughing)

- This is pretty sweet.

- That will just make you wrong.

- This is not too nice to ruin.

- When you bolt the small
blocks jamming in a Jaguar

does it just automatically start leaking?

- Probably leaking before the Chevy

ever made its way in there.

- Or does it have, like, organ rejections?

- Is that wide open?

Ooh

(laughing)

Oh that's not good.

- That's fuel

- Fuel starvation?

That's always a good
idea on a super charger.

- Yeah let's put a blower on it

that'll fix that right up.

- This thing's a pile,

it's perfect for cutting a hole in.

- I actually have no issue with that, but

I'm saying over all this
is just too comfortable.

I'm not suffering at the
level that I'd like to suffer.

- What do you mean?

The windows are up and the
heater's stuck on, dude.

- I feel good.

- It can only get worse from here.

- The blower is not going to help

any overheating situation.

I hope

you're aware of that.

- I'll just drive faster.

More wind.

- Okay.

You won't be able to drive faster.

The blower will self compensate that way.

- [Mike] Yeah.
- [David] Yeah.

- I can't believe I'm saying this,

but I'm excited about the Jaguar.

- Thanks for everything.

- Thank you very much.

- You just want to say good-bye

and run as fast as you can, don't you?

- You now assume no responsibility, right?

- I have no responsibility whatsoever.

As is, where is, how is.

No warranty express implied.

It's yours, you bought it.

- I'm approving of it.

- Let's go put a blower on it.

- We need to find a spot to do that.

We should be near a parts store

or do we live dangerously and

not be near a parts store?

- We're going to need a parts store.

- [Mike] Less than a mile from the airport

is Gotelli Speed Shop

so, we're camped out here
in their parking lot.

The Jaguar runs pretty darn good.

It's got a Vortech 350 in
it and a Turbo 350 trans.

Not fast enough though.

- Not fast at all.

- We're going to cut a giant hole

in the hood of this thing
and put a supercharger on it.

(uptempo rock music)

- You're not going to believe this,

but the water is going in the bucket.

- You're right I don't 'cuz

you're usually the guy that just puts that

big eight foot round stain on the ground.

- I'll make it clean.

- 1:00 we started,

5:00 it runs.

(metal tools clanging against each other)

(hood hits Mike)

- Hey this is a roller cam motor

and it's sludgy.

- Wow this guy was big on
oil changes and maintenance.

- I feel real good about it.

- This thing's so filthy inside

it probably doesn't even
matter if I scrape gasket

into the valley and leave it.

- Well, if you're going to clean the bolts

then I'm going to clean the
sludge out of the lifter valley

just because I feel guilty.

- Don't even bother.

(aerosol spraying)

- That's performance
oriented, this is cosmetic.

(laughing)

- As of right now, we're 38 minutes in.

(hand tool cranking)

(uptempo rock music)

- Wow
- [Mike] That's beautiful.

- I can hear the awesome.

I can taste the boost.

- They'll want to put it in a museum

and it's going to look like art.

- I don't know if you know this,

but we have a Jaguar with
a blower bolted to it.

- Few things in life look
that cool right there.

Most of those things are naked women.

- There are no other cars
that look as cool as that.

- We've got miscellaneous
lines to hook up,

cut the hole in the hood,

put a fuel pump in it.

It looks like it's really
close to being done,

but we've got hours of work left still.

- We just installed $1600
worth of carburetors,

on a $1,000

P-O-S.

- I'm putting the
throttling glitch together,

actually I'm putting it
together and taking it apart

over and over again

until I get it just perfect

so that it opens full
throttle without sticking.

- This is an MSD boost timing master.

It retards timing in proportion to boost,

so you don't detonate
the engine and kill it

and we're going to need
all the help with that

that we can get.

Okay that's my three out of four,

ain't bad,

MSD mounting method.

What do you think?

(guitar solo)

Right here? Not so much.

Over here? Nice and attached.

(drilling)

- Throttle link needs a little adjusting.

Had to move the mount for it,

so I'm just being lazy right now

and I'm just going to drill the new holes

on the motor.

(guitar solo)

- Fixed.

- Done.

- I am the smartest man alive.

Look at the action on that baby.

- All right, look at that.

And that only took

three hours?

- One hour.

- One?

- If I read the instructions

it probably would have
worked in stock form.

- I don't think so.

- Well the throttle linkage
is a thing of beauty.

We have the original cable

in some mishmash bracket

with some junk hanging off

that we don't even need.

Followed by a thing of beauty vise grips

holding it all in place.

The zip ties, of course,
for holding the wiring.

This is a factory wide end bracket.

This is a wide end linkage.

This, not so much.

That's an extension so that
we could lengthen the cable

to get wide open throttle.

Then, of course, there's the beautiful

and NHRA legal dual return springs set up

being held by

the crimp connector eyelet

underneath the valve cover bolt.

That's a genius.

- I graduated college.

- For that!
- [Mike] For that.

- (laughing)

Ready?
- [Mike] Yep.

(car ignition turning)

- Woo hoo.

- Okay, we made it run at 6:30.

Only an hour and a half
behind schedule, right?

- That doesn't really count as running.

- It ran.

- It coughed.

- It ran.

It sounded to me like it
still needs more advanced.

- [Mike] Yeah.
- So, I'd just crank that in.

(car engine turning)

- Wow!

I have never heard such
a weak blown motor.

- Sounds stock.

- It's stock!

- But, I can hear a pulley.

- Kind of.

(blower sputters)

That was no good for that poor blower.

Okay, there's a big water leak over there

that you might want to handle.

- Oh, there's no radiator
cap on this thing.

- That's probably why.

- Who was in charge of that?

- Uh.

- Not me.

Success!

Car runs.

I don't know if it moves,

but it started up and now
we got to set the timing,

play with the car a little bit,

and cut a big giant hole in the hood

so we can put the scoop on.

(airplane flying overhead)

- Don't let the vise grips

holding the throttle together fool you.

We care about this car.

(angle grinder cutting through car hood)

- This is about to be the
reason why we did all of this.

Yeah!

- Dude, it does not get anymore hot rod

than that right there.

- The Jaguar is born!

- That's tea and crumpets

covered in Jack Daniels right there.

(chuckling)

- I don't even need you in
here to make right turns.

- You can see a geo past that scoop.

- This made me high as a guy on a moped.

- Another good day.

- 8:33!

That's only, what,

three and a half hours past
when we estimated, right?

- The hood fits.

The cut's pretty good
if I do say so myself.

- We're going to hit the road tonight

and go find a hotel to stay at

and then tomorrow morning
we'll tune it up a little bit

head out to Sacramento Raceway.

(car engine revving)

(triumphant fanfare music)

(car door slams)

- Well, this is pretty awesome.

It's day two of our adventure

and we have a problem
with our throttle linkage

where the little arm is over-centered

so it's really, really hard
to step on the peddles.

- You pretty much just
have to slam your foot

on the floor to make the throttle work.

It's not the best way to try and drive it.

So we're going to raise this up,

bolt it all back together,
and then hit the road.

- I think we tried it four different ways

with the vise grips.

Two different ways there.

So that's eight times,

about five different ways there.

So that's what? 40 something.
- [Mike] Put that in the mix.

- Yeah, that's roughly 50 combinations.

(blower running)

- We're just going to have to adjust it

for extra medium throttle
at the race track.

- Yeah.

- It's a precision instrument
of horsepower here.

We get to pick whether it idles

or whether it has wide open

and right now we've chosen idle

and when we get to the drag
strip we'll choose wide open.

(engine revving)

Ah yeah!

And it died.

(laughing)

- This is really quiet.

(laughing)

(engine revving)

- Dude it just stuck the throttle open.

- Yeah, because it's up against the hood.

- No rails on here.

- Oh we didn't put a chip in.

(laughing)

Loose bound valve flow.

(electronic music)

- Like come on the
throttle has a hard spot.

- Yeah, where it's hitting the hood.

(electronic music)

- We made it over the bay
bridge on our way to Sacramento,

but the problem is is
that our new fancy linkage

that's actually functional
hits the hood now.

Which is a drag

because it tends to stick
at wide open throttle.

Fortunately, we're not making enough power

for that really to be a problem,

but it's a little annoying.

- We'll get there faster,
just won't be too safe.

(hood slams)

(blower humming)

- Oh yeah!

It's like butter now!

Now, when you don't
want to go full throttle

you don't have to go full throttle.

(engine revving)

(guitar solo)

So we're cruising along I-80,

heading towards the drag strip.

Probably going too fast,

but not sure because
we have no speedometer.

The temp gauge just started climbing and

climbing, climbing.

And we pegged it back there

and could smell a little bit of a coolant

so we stopped in here
to let it cool off and,

oh, it's dripping good now.

You could boil cabbage in there right now.

- It's the difference between
going from, what was it?

55 degrees last night,

70 during the day,

and now it's 103?
- [Mike] Yeah

- That's why.
- [Mike] It's hot.

I don't blame the blower at all.

- It's flawless. Yeah.

- Cool air is passing past it.

- We've really increased
the ventilation by

two square feet as far I--

- The aided back efficiency
is just off the charts.

- It's 102 degrees out

and I figure the fastest
way to cool this thing off

is to drive it through a car wash.

So that's what we're going to do.

(car motor turning)

If it starts.

(car motor turning)

(laughing)

That's not good.

- You think that gas is boiling?

- Want to pour some
water on the carburetors?

- I don't know why I'm doing this.

This is doing absolutely
nothing other than

entertain Finnegan.

(car motor turning)

(car motor starts)

It works!

- Thank you!

- It works!

You were right, I was wrong.

- Yeah, I'm claiming it.

Let's go cool the car off.

(car engine revving)

(funky, uptempo music)

- Oh! Okay windows leak.

Actually feels good right now.

(laughing)

(water jets spraying)

Oh that totally worked.

It barely wanted to start
because it was so hot

and when I left the car wash,

needle was back in the
middle of the gauge.

Fired right up.

If that's the key,

we'll drive like 20-minutes
and then pull over somewhere

and wash the car.

(funky, uptempo music)

So we drove

10-miles I think?

Getting another car wash now.

Cool the Jaguar off so we
can go another 10-miles

and get another car wash.

It's Africa hot inside this car right now.

Holy cow, no wonder why
the car is not happy.

It's like driving down the freeway

with a hair dryer pointed at you.

The air hitting the radiator
is not doing anything.

Yeah, Freiburger is down for the cause.

As soon as we get here
and the windows roll up,

he jumps out.

Shit!

(sputters)

I guess that's what I get
for talking smack right now.

Ah, shit!

Wait.

(guffawing)

Engine's cold again.

Success.

(uptempo rock music)

Car wash number three!

We're about two miles from the drag strip.

Going to make one more
stop to cool the motor off,

then we're going fast.

Extra medium actually.

- It's actually 110 outside right now.

Look at the slime.

This thing was in air
conditioning two minutes ago.

Yuck.

- We made it 12-miles
between car washes this time.

Doing good.

My average is going up.

(car engine revving)

(uptempo rock music)

- So we drove two and a
half hours in the sweat box

at like 108 degrees,

but finally we're here
at Sacramento Raceway

and now we're going to
hook up an O2 sensor

so we can read the air
fuel ratio on the motor

and we'll go out in the street

and tune it up a little bit

and go through check inspection

and hope they actually let us race

with our cracked windshield.

Don't tell them.

Here's the thing everyone
watching this video

needs to understand.

This blower is cosmetic.

This isn't serious performance
equipment at this point

because it is on a bone stock

350 crate motor small block

who knows how many miles are on the thing.

It probably made 250
horsepower when it was stocked,

to be generous.

So with the blower five,
six pounds of boost.

Honestly, it's lucky if
it's making 300, 320.

And we found out the rear axle
ratio on this is 2.88 to one.

So, yeah, it's a dog.

But we look good and that's
what's important right now.

- Oh it looks amazing.

(engine revving)

- Installed our wide band O2 system.

It's telling us right now,

at different throttle positions,

whether it's running lean or fat.

Which we need to correct that

before we make a pass down the strip

and hurt the motor.

(car engine revving)

- You see I got a 14?

- Yeah, 14's fine.

- 14's fine?

- Yeah. If it gets any worse
than that I'll get concerned.

- 13!
- [David] There we go!

There we go!

- It's kind of good.

- It's fine.

- It's fine. Wow!

- That's not very good though.

- No it's doggy for sure.

- I think it might have been getting

down flow at some point.

It sounded decent,

and then it started
breaking up a little bit

then you shifted.

- That's where you're
supposed shift, right?

Down flow?

- Works for me.

(laughing)

- Oh, is that like that gasket?

(blower whirring)

Wow, that's real bad.

- Yeah, it's completely out of water now.

- It was trying to self cool,

see it was ejecting water onto the blower.

- Yeah.

- That's all it was trying to do.

- It's fine.

Can't kill this thing.

(guitar strumming)

All right, so we'll just
tidy up and get ready

and let this cool down.

Put some water in it, crack the block,

and hit the track.

We've been having some
overheating problems,

this might have a little
something to do with it.

113,

but it's a dry 113.

- Dry heat.

- The radiator is very dry.

- Could be you hot rodding around

with no water in the radiator.

- Nah, it's irrelevant when it's 113.

You can do what you want at that point.

- That's taking a lot of water.

- Yeah.

Oh it's going to take all of it, twice.

We're filling it up with water,

I looked in the radiator

and saw that there's like two
rows of veins that I can see.

Tubes running in the radiator.

Only two of them are squirting water.

This radiator is junk.

It's totally plugged up.

- Ah, cold water. Oh my god.

Woo. Steam is hot.

This is high-tech,

I think this is how NHRA guys do it.

Thank god there's no
tough on on those rotors.

Probably would have melted it out.

Oh I'm guessing the
rotors are pretty scuffed.

(upbeat music)

- Well we got our junk
cooled down and running.

We're looking for tech inspection now,

which appears to be here.

Oh, that was great. Look.

Tech guy looks extremely cool,

sort of got what we were doing here.

So, we passed!

- I really didn't give us
a hope in hell of passing.

That's awesome.

- That's 'cuz you weren't here.

- That means our zip
ties and electrical tape

were well placed.

- It's completely dark,
we're running out of time

so I'm just pouring some

hardcore race gas in this thing.

Hoping we don't detonate it and kill it.

- We were going to install
a new set of spark plugs

so that after he makes some laps

we can look at them and read them

and find out how the motor's running,

but these are the wrong spark plugs.

So,

forget that idea!

Flying blind.

- We are everything
that we hate right now.

Guys on race gas with a blower who are

painfully slow.

We're posers right now.

- Yeah, but our car looks awesome.

- Isn't that basically
the definition of poser?

Looks awesome, runs slow.

- I'm ignoring the rules this week.

- You're ready to guess ET?

- Sure, who's driving?

- Rock, papers, scissors?

- Yeah.
- [David] Okay.

Ready?

- Rock, paper, scissors.

- Ah! Got'cha!

- Damn. All right.

- I always lose that!

- All right, but how fast are you going?

- Let's go around 15.80.

- Okay.

- At 90 miles an hour.

- All right.

- Maybe 89.

- I'm an optimist,

15 flat.

95 miles an hour.

(high tempo music)

(car engine revving)

(car engine revving)

Oh wow, that's pretty slow.

(laughing)

15.35,

well that's quicker than
he thought it would be.

Really slow though.

(laughing)

(tires squeal)

(car engine revving)

(car engine revving)

Oh shit.

Oh no.

Freiburger just puked all over the track.

This is the part where everybody hates us,

'cuz now there's no car
racing until they clean it up.

Damn.

And it's got, it's hot,
it's gotten slower.

I blame myself for that.

I had a feeling it was
going to get hot after

just one lap and probably
just start puking

probably should have told him to stop.

- It wasn't even hot when I left!

- It was hot enough.

- Was it puking right when I pulled up?

- 'Cuz the gauge was way low.

- When you took off,

all the way down the track.

(exasperated groan)

- I've never done that in my life!

- They hate us right now.

- I'm sure.

- We're done. It's not
going to go any faster.

- No, it's not. That sucks.

- You slowed down like,
almost 3/10ths on that one.

- Well, we came, we saw, we failed.

We did what we intended to do,

which was drag race the Jaguar.

I think it's no longer the Jaguar.

We can't do it.

- It's a drag trying to drag race it.

- Yeah, I guess that's true.

She's a cruiser, she's not a drag racer.

- This is a car for if you're
bonding your way to Vegas.

Pulling up to the valet and saying,

"Park this thing in a good spot."

That's what this is for.

- Drink, sleep, leave?

- Yes.
- [David] Okay.

- [Voiceover] It was dumb luck that

it was not only hot outside,

but the blower didn't help
our cooling situation.

So the next day we bought a
brand new radiator for the car

hoping that would help us get home.

And when that didn't work,

we just took the hood off the car

and strapped it to the roof

and motored it all the way home.

- You know, people have
been giving us flack

that we do things like things like

put engines in cars in parking lots

in the middle of nowhere

and then there's no burnouts.

So here we go.

(car engine revving)

- Get some, yeah!

(laughing)

Yeehaw!

We needed a dial back timing light.

Which probably won't work.

This is not a dial back timing light.

- They said it--

(laughing)

- That must have been the $99 one,

this is the $49 one.

(laughing)

All right, well, we were
going to time it but now we're

perfectly tuned.

- Dude, give me a dial back timing light

he's like, "Okay here. $49 or $99?"

Give me the $49, okay.

- That's great, all right.

- This will give you a good
idea of where things are at.

That's my wallet.

The ratio

of cash

to receipts

for stuff I've bought for the Jaguar

is a little lopsided and note that,

that's all ones and fives.

There's no 20s in there.

No extra medium bills.

Things are not going well.

(chuckling)