With deadlines looming and no time for involved tuning work, the Hemi clone still ran pretty well at the strip. After wilting in LACR's stifling 104-degree heat, we skedaddled with a corrected timeslip that read 12.94 at 108.1 mph. An ultra-nasty bog meant 60-foot times were well over 2 seconds, and a few hours of tune-up time would've easily shaved a half-second off our best effort. So would a nice cool evening.
All '66-'71 426 Street Hemis came factory-equipped with a pair of Carter AFBs, but this one uses a single Holley 850 on a Mopar Performance dual-plane intake. Extensive flogging on Dick Landy's engine dyno resulted in 510hp at 5,900 rpm and 505 lb-ft of torque at 4,100.
N filter element. Also, since the Wedge-type motor-mount ears on the new Mopar Performance block offset the engine to the passenger side more than stock, the Shaker base had to be offset to fit properly in the hood.
The trunk is clean and simple and home to an Optima dry-cell battery housed in a Moroso battery box.
Center Line and BFGoodrich are the wheels and tires of choice for the Hemi clone. The popular Radial T/As are now available in 16-inch sizes--so the Mopar uses P225/50R16s in front and P255/50R16s at the back. The Fluted Billet Star wheels have 41/2-inch backspacing and are 16x7s in front and 16x8s at the rear.
M TorqueFlite trans, and the only real deviation from stock are the white-faced gauges from Instrument Service Inc.
After more than a year of waiting, and waiting some more, it's done. This no-holds-barred, build-a-brand-new '71 HemiCuda clone is out on the street, drawing crowds at cruise nights and blasting down the dragstrip.
So, what has been done with the car since it was let loose from Ultimate Rides? Well, exactly what's described above, as a matter of fact.
As soon as the car arrived in California, we snuck it up to Los Angeles County Raceway, where even in an out-of-tune state (it had a mongo-serious bog we didn't have time to cure) it made a few respectable passes down the track. After many chances to drool over the paint and bodywork, Hemi mill, new Year One interior, and generally flawless car-crafting efforts, we headed out to a few local cruise nights to test the car's wow factor. The tune-up when it came to blowing the troops away at a local gathering was in top form, as the car was the center of attention in the cruise-in parking lot.
Now that we've got your attention, here's a final look at this awesome street machine that was outlined last month and in the Jan. '98 issue of CC. While not an original HemiCuda, it's still a real one as evident by its 510-horse Elephant that makes it just as cool as any Hemi E-body built by the factory before it--if not more so.