TMCP #620: David Kruk And His 1970 Super Bee “Speedtech Equipped” AutoCross Monster!

The muscle car plays online podcast, episode number 620.

This week, to get ready for Holly's second fest in bowling green Kentucky event of the year,

the big Mopar-only event called Moparty is upon us, and the Kibbe and French show will be

descending upon it for the fun.

While there, they will get to hang out with David Crook, where his Gen 3-powered, full-speed

deck-equipped 1970 Dodge Super-B will be carving corners like a Porsche 911.

Only it's the size of an aircraft carrier and twice as loud.

David's a great car guy, and this car is like a part of his family.

He and his wife work on it together.

They do everything with all events together.

It's been a labor of love, a work in progress, a learning experience, and along with that,

maybe best of all, a daily driver.

I drive my car daily.

I don't just take it to a race track.

I drive my car to work.

I take it to the grocery store.

We go to car shows.

We drive it everywhere.

I think between 2022 and now, I think we've put almost 80,000 miles on the car.

This is the Muscle Car Place online podcast, brought to you by National Parts Depot.

This is the weekly show dedicated to people worldwide who love American muscle cars.

If you're buying, selling, restoring, even racing them, this is the place for you.

Now, here's your host, Rob Kibbe.

Yes, indeed, I am Rob Kibbe, and welcome to the Muscle Car Place podcast.

Well, here we are, everybody.

It's the second episode of September 2025 already.

And Moe Party 2025 is upon us.

Our guest is David Crook.

He's here to tell the tale of his 1970 Super B, and he's just a dude

who's been building your car with his wife over the last number of years.

Every year, they've done something a little bit better,

and every year, they've gotten a little bit better.

Sometimes it's worked, sometimes it hasn't.

But this year, he'll be competing at Moe Party and cutting up the autocross,

among other things, and hopefully get a chance to see David and his wife

and see this car in person.

Now, we recorded this interview about a month ago as a preview

for what you'll see at Moe Party.

And I'm sure you've seen this post on social media,

if you're into this type of thing.

But this thing has steamroller tires on all four corners.

It is an atypical thing to see a corner carving B-body Moe Par.

I mean, it's just not a, it kind of defies the laws of physics

to see that they got there hustling it.

But it does.

He and his wife put 80,000 miles on this car in the last few years.

I mean, it's their transportation.

I just love it.

You're going to thoroughly enjoy it.

This is proof that you can have nice things

if you're willing to do the work

and make improvements as you go.

It's really, really awesome.

We met them actually at one of the parking lots

at Moe Party a couple of three years ago.

It's been a joy to follow them ever since.

So now here, the Kibbe and Friends gang

is gearing up for Moe Party.

And there are three of these Fest events.

Holly has lots of events throughout the year,

but they have three kind of signature ones

in Bowling Green in September.

The first was called LS Fest.

And now it's really a General Motors thing,

but it's anything LS or LT-powered.

It doesn't have to be a car that's a General Motors car,

but Power Plant's got to be an LS or an LT.

And then this is the Moe Power event,

and it's got to be Moe Power Power.

I'm pretty sure it has to be Moe Power-powered.

I think by the, I mean, you could show up in a Corvette

if it had a Moe Power under the hood,

and it doesn't have to be a Gen 3 Hemi or anything.

It just had to be Moe Power-powered.

Then there's the Ford Intergalactic Fest,

and I assume that that one's got

some Ford-specific rules to it,

but it's probably anything that's a Ford vehicle.

Those are their three signature events.

We go to the Moe Party event,

really for our sister show,

the Kibbe and Friends show

because of our tie to the Dukes of Hazard.

I've taken my generally almost every year

that I possibly could, and it's awesome.

But this year, for the first time ever, I can't go,

and I can't go at all.

There have been years passed

where I had to skip the Friday

for a kid event or something like that,

but I'll get to that in the Dallas Kibbe Racing update,

but I cannot go.

But the whole remainder of the Kibbe and Friends gang

is going, and actually it'll be a bigger group than normal.

We have producer, Bernie McPartland going,

Justin Cornette going,

he's the co-host of the Kibbe and Friends show.

We have Scotty Stapp, our show writer,

and then on the air, God help me,

as a member of our broadcast team,

Nathan Warren of Warren Customs.

And he is a charming Southern gentleman with a heart of gold.

He built my generally, it's very fun.

It's going to be very fun.

I am sad to miss it,

because I love hanging out with those guys.

I'm sure we'll have interviews and things for you

on this show next week,

maybe also the Kibbe and Friends show.

I'm really not sure.

I'll find out what they get too.

It should be a really good time.

They're either gonna come back with nothing but gold

or we'll be out of business

because they've done something dumb.

Hopefully we'll be go out with a blaze of glory.

I'd like to stay employed, but it's up to them.

So that will be this week.

We're releasing this muscle cart place episode

earlier than we normally do.

Normally muscle cart place goes out on Friday.

I'm hoping that we got this out by Wednesday of this week,

should be out by the 10th.

Moe Party is the 12th through the 14th

in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

If you're just hearing this,

you still got a day or two to go.

Just take the weekend off and knock yourself out.

I've had the best luck finding the Nashville

and just driving up.

It's about an hour drive from Nashville Airport.

Okay, just one more thing to share

before we get to the Dallas KB Legends Care Update.

As you know, my personal life here,

we live in Ames, Iowa.

And it was the big Iowa Iowa State football game

this last weekend.

And here in Ames, Iowa, that's a fun game.

It's a big game.

It's always a hard game.

We don't win a lot here at home.

And we have not won it at home since 2011

until this year.

Bern, will you queue up the call

from Learfield Radio Sports, please?

And oh, Bern, a little Iowa State fights

underneath, if you will.

In the middle of the field,

a 54-yard field goal attempt again

by Kyle Conrarty.

Cross into snap, Perkins to hold,

kick on the way, a low line drive,

and over in, and it is done!

Kyle Conrarty's hit another 54-yarder against Iowa.

And the Zyklos take a 16-13 lead.

Iowa State fans got to enjoy this

in Jack Trice Stadium.

Beck takes a knee again, and that will do it.

And that beautiful Iowa-cored side-hawk trophy,

which has enjoyed its stay in Iowa State.

Ames, Iowa, for the last year,

is going absolutely nowhere.

It's staying right here as the Zyklos have now won

three of the last four in this series.

That was sweet, right?

That's the radio broadcast.

John Wolters and Eric Heft.

I love listening to games on the radio.

They paint the picture.

Bernie will tell you a radio broadcaster is the best

because they paint you a mental portrait.

And I love listening to the broadcast

and watching it in person or in TV.

Like, if I watch it on TV,

I mute the TV broadcasters and I listen to the radio.

It's so good.

That was a fun game to win, seriously fun.

All right, that's enough of that

for you Hawkeye fans listening.

Beat you!

Typically, you beat us, so it's nice to win one

every now and then.

Probably won't win the next one.

All right, Bernie, let's go up and queue up

the Dallas Kibby Ledgett's car racing update.

The rear end's loose, car's fast.

Loose is fast and on the edge, you're out of control.

Excellent update, and it's a short update this time.

The reason I cannot go to Moe Party, oh boy.

Well, it's because of what happened to Homer Simpson.

Excuse me, we wanted to see the geek

who valued the happiness of his children more than money.

Right here.

All right, you said his head was the size of a baseball.

That's right, I can't go because Dallas has a race.

Actually, I couldn't go on the Friday

of Moe Party this year anyway, both Dallas and Noel

have their first home game at Ames High

and she's on the dance team

and he's playing in the drumline

and I didn't wanna miss that

and that's her first game, first one ever.

So I was gonna be there Friday

and then my plan was to fly in Saturday morning

and then I found out that Dallas's race

at Elko Speedway in Minnesota

was the same Saturday as Moe Party

and I gotta go to that.

So he's training right now basically

for the Legends Car Asphalt Nationals

that's held in Las Vegas.

It's the last week of October and it's a big event.

It's a national event.

It'll be where he can compare his progress

throughout the year to people

who are all the best wherever they come from.

It's important.

The best opportunity we have to practice

at a Vegas-like track here is Elko, Minnesota.

He's never been to it before.

I've never been there.

We need to go when our race team

and our coach can go.

I can go set the car up if it's already set up.

I mean, I can tweak it.

I can change air pressures.

I can monkey with the shocks.

I actually understand all that stuff now.

It's really fun.

But I don't have access to a shock machine.

I won't have sprint.

I can't basically change the car too much

on my own anymore.

At least now, I'm not equipped for it.

I would love that stuff.

But again, that's why you're doing a race team.

That's to get to speed a lot faster.

So that's what we need to do instead of Moe Party.

The whole gang will be down there.

We'll give me and friends gang will be down there

but Dallas and I will be in Elko.

If it goes well, we'll probably go back to Elko

the second we can just buy ourselves.

Our race team won't be there that weekend

but we probably could just take the car ourselves

and get some more laps in.

Obviously the balance right now is not ripping the car up.

This is the car that he'll take to the Vegas Nationals.

And really after Elko here, there's only one more event

we plan to do and that's outside of Madison, Wisconsin

for a three day event.

And then that car will go to South Carolina.

It will get rescaled and set up.

It'll get rewrapped into special rapidition

with the race team, which is Miller Performance Motorsports

and then it will head to Vegas.

We'll actually do the October 18th weekend.

That's the season finale of that track.

It's not a national event.

It's just a season finale

but we're gonna use that as a learning experience.

And then the following weekend, we'll go back out again

the cars and the track and the team will stay there

and then we'll join them and then we'll race the weekend.

So that is the Dallas KB Racing Update.

If you would like a little bit of merch,

click the link below.

We still have a few items left.

We don't have much.

We don't have any mediums of wider black shirts

and we don't have any double X black shirts.

We've got a little bit of everything else left

including some sweatshirts.

Cue the outro burn.

Also an excellent outro.

Thank you, Bert.

Okay, I think it's time we get to the interview.

Don't forget the interview is presented

by National Parts Depot

and every month we have Mr. Rick Schmidt

from National Parts Depot

on to talk all things National Parts Depot

and you can ask him anything you like.

Send in your questions to me,

robert at themusclecarplace.com

and of course visit nationalpartsdepot.com

to prove us for all your Muscle Car Parts needs

because they find the source,

they spec the best, there is a difference

and they've got the goods.

Already up next here is Mr. David Crook

talking about his Screamin' Yellow 1970 Dodge Super B.

Now I love this guy's story.

He knows why for genuinely nice people.

They are a team as well.

You'll see them at all these events together.

And what I did not know

until David walked me through it

is exactly how much he has built this car

over the years continuously.

And again, this is an example.

You can have nice things

if you're willing to earn them incrementally

and do the work.

And he and his wife are helping

to have a lot of fun along the way.

So roll and burn.

The Muscle Car Place Weekly Podcast Interview

is brought to you by our good friends

at National Parts Depot.

See them through the link at themusclecarplace.com

Today we're speaking with David Crook

and we're gonna talk about his

flying yellow 1970 Dodge Super B.

Now this will be a behind the car type interview

but with a twist.

I've met David before.

We've chatted.

He's a nice guy.

But other than a few brief interactions

and following his car posts online,

I know nothing about David

and he will probably say the same about me.

But the reason that he's on though

is I've watched his 70 Super B evolve

over the years through multiple configurations.

Like so many of us have done.

I've seen big blocks, bolt-ons.

Now it's a full tilt speed tech equip,

335s everywhere,

Jen 3, him into the hood, just killer.

And I wanna know why he's done that

and what the trade-offs are.

So let's get to know that and him.

David, welcome to the show.

Hey, how's it going?

Glad to be here.

Yeah, likewise.

And this has been a while coming.

We've had this scheduled once or twice

and just due to issues on our side

with scheduling, sometimes we gotta move things.

You were a very easy-going, amenable dude.

I think your response when I had to move it last time

was, whatever, no problem.

And it was that easy.

Yeah, I'm a pretty easy guy

and with the place that I work at

and my boss is very understanding

about how things move around

and timing and all the events that I do.

So he's pretty motivated

of allowing me to do things like this.

Okay, well, let's start at the beginning.

So David, where are you from?

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in South Bend, Indiana,

and I am in Elkhart, Indiana.

So I didn't move far from home.

And that's pretty much where I live most of my life.

Just Northern Indiana area, Notre Dame,

if anyone's not familiar with that area,

I pretty much have always been 15 minutes from Notre Dame.

Yeah.

When I think of Elkhart,

I think of RV stuff.

I don't know why, maybe I shouldn't.

I always do RV parts.

Is RV capital of the world

and the plywood capital of the world

because it takes so much plywood to make the RV.

So we use the most plywood in the country.

How about that?

All right, so growing up as a kid,

were your parents into cars and mechanical things?

How did that foster in you?

When I actually grew up around my stepdad,

we actually grew up around the Studebakers.

So he was in the cars,

well, I guess when he was younger,

he was in the MOPARS.

And then he got in the Studebaker

and I pretty much grew up around Studebaker,

the majority of my childhood.

Here in South Bend,

that's where the Studebaker was made.

They always have the largest Studebaker national car show

here in town and everything.

When I was actually a kid,

I used to ride around on a little bicycle

around the fairgrounds,

parking all the Studebakers and stuff.

So that's actually where I grew up around those things.

My first car I inherited

was a 64 Studebaker Lark four-door Daytona.

Maybe not the Daytona I wanted,

but that was the first Daytona I got.

And then I also inherited a 71 C-10 Chevy pickup truck.

And we just played around with those.

Same with my brothers,

they all have Studebakers, Bullet Nose.

We have a couple of Army trucks that were Studebakers.

But there was a charger when I was a kid

and I got a photo somewhere of me

standing in a Barney t-shirt.

And I remember the car very much.

It was a 68 Dodge Charger.

Used to sit in the chicken coop.

And when I was a kid,

I used to throw rocks at this car

because that was before a lot of video games and stuff.

I used to throw rocks at it

and we broke the grill,

we broke the windows out of this thing

because they were cats and raccoons and beehives

that used to live in the thing.

And as a dumb, idiot kid,

I used to throw rocks at a 68 Charger.

So, and I said that actually sold that car to my uncle

who still has it today.

And then come to find out it was a factory drag pack,

everything, delete car, 444 speed steel wheels,

radio delete, decal delete, factory green,

dark green car, straight-rated race car.

And I used to throw rocks at that thing.

Loops.

No, no.

Was the drive train decal in it?

No, the drive train was gone out of the car.

So, at least when I was a kid it was gone.

But my uncle still has the car today

and it's pretty much collected

a lot of the parts and pieces for it.

So.

After this interview,

I'm gonna text you some Studebaker pictures

because I know very little about Studebakers,

but my car is a 64 Chevelle.

My parents bought that car brand new

and they bought it because my mom's Studebaker,

whatever Studebaker it was, always had brake problems.

Okay.

And they just got sick of fixing it.

So, they traded it.

I'll send you a nose and you can tell me

exactly what it was.

I've never really known that would be cool.

So, did you do like shop in high school

or have you gone to trade school?

Like, I think you work on cars for a living now.

Is that true?

Yeah.

High school I went to was Clay High School

and it was the last auto shop in our area.

Unfortunately, it closed down not that long ago.

But I did go to Ivy Tech

because of trade school to become a mechanic.

And then I worked in a dealership for,

I would say a total,

I have from between two.

The same company but two different manufacturers,

Nissan and GM.

I think I did that for maybe 10 years or so,

I think maybe or so.

After all that, then I came to the shop that I'm at now.

So, which is a restoration hot rod shop basically

and maintenance and all that stuff.

Do you mind sharing the name or would they rather not?

It's Leading Edge Automotive.

They're out of Elkart.

And what started that company is that the owner

used to just install aftermarket like remote starts,

tinting, big stereo systems.

And a lot of people might experience,

a lot of people shops don't wanna work on classic cars.

Like a lot, some of the customers

were just having a hard time finding anyone

to fix a classic car.

So he just moved into this bigger building

and I liked what he was doing.

So I came on board and that's what we're doing.

How long have you worked there?

So we've been in this location,

I think it's been three years now.

So I've been working here for three years.

No kidding.

I have met your lovely wife.

Is her name Lily?

Elizabeth.

Elizabeth, Elizabeth.

Is she a native of Indiana as well?

Yep, we actually went to high school together.

We've been in a relationship

since our freshman year in high school.

How about that?

Okay, whenever I've seen you,

I've seen her, which is really neat.

She's super supportive.

I mean, she goes to all the races with us and stuff.

If there's an event that we can go to

where she can be a passenger,

she's in the car with me.

So she helps me unload the trailer.

She's helped me work on cars at home

and taught her how to weld and things like that.

And I think when I first brought my car home, my 70,

she took the carburetor off it and things like that

when we were back in high school and stuff.

So yeah, she's super positive influence

on a lot of the stuff that we do.

Okay, before the Super B here,

your email has nothing to do with mopars or Super Bs.

It's like 71 Chevelle SS or something like,

why is that your email?

Yes, growing up around the Studebakers

and that Chevy pickup truck,

that 71 C10 that I had,

I thought that truck was the coolest truck in the world.

Well, I guess I should remind a little bit.

The Studebaker that I had,

unfortunately there was a tornado that came through town

and it crushed the car.

So I lost it, but I still had the 71 C10.

I used to race that truck around my grandparents' field.

My grandparents had 13 acres.

I used to race that truck around a field like it was NASCAR.

I couldn't just ride around in the middle of the field.

I had to ride the fence line.

So it had a 250 straight six, three speed on the column.

And that's what I learned to drive on.

One day, the shocks were completely worn out of the thing

and it bounced across the field

and I had the wheel full turned

and it just went straight into a tree

and it completely crushed the right front corner of the truck.

Yeah, that was kind of a fine story on those two things.

So I always kind of had that truck in my memory

and technically I still have it.

I just gave it to my little brother

and he's been in the process of fixing that up.

But then after the truck,

I started getting into building cars myself a little bit,

learning other stuff.

So I bought a 70 C10,

learned how to paint on that

and I messed every possible scenario

of doing a paint job up on that truck.

Everything was bad on that truck.

I learned a lot.

Well, I did a lot of stuff wrong.

I guess I didn't really learn

because I wasn't sure which mistakes

were causing what problems.

So that's how a lot of my stuff was going on.

I've had every single truck from 66 to 72,

other than a 68, 68 is the only one I hadn't had.

And then I had a Chevelle

and then I had Firebirds and Transams

and it was a lot of like horse trading

and trade-offs here and there.

But I was just around a lot of Chevy's

was I would say when I was a teenager

kind of coming into high school

and that's kind of how the 71 Super Chevy

email started out.

And then one day I was actually getting parts

for a 70 C10.

I don't know if you notice or not,

but I notice this quite often.

Guys that are interested in 68 to 70 B-body Mopars

seem to have a lot of 67 to 72 Chevy truck parts.

I didn't tell this moment.

You're right.

Yeah, I come across it a lot.

I mean, I'm surprised at it.

Unless it's just an Indiana thing, but...

No, that's true.

Wow, I never put that together before.

Yeah, I have no idea why that is either.

Where did the Super B come from?

Is that your first Mopar?

No, technically it's my second.

When I was out getting parts,

this was before Facebook Marketplace

and Craigslist was really popular.

I was restoring the first, the 70 C10.

I put it at on Craigslist, looking for parts.

The guy contacted me here in town

and went over there, just saw the parts I needed,

got the parts, and I looked in the back of his field

and in the back of some cars I wasn't familiar with,

but they looked really cool.

One was a 1968 Dodge Super B

and the other one was a 69 Roadrunner.

He told me these were his parts cars.

And I was like, and they're already parted out.

They're ready to go to the junk car.

He's gonna crush them.

And I'm like, wow, okay.

And then I told him I was really interested

and we wanted to look at it.

He said, pick which one I want, $400, take it home.

So I picked the 68 Super B.

The 68, unfortunately, it was a solid car,

but it was completely picked clean.

Had a Dana axle in it at the time, but he kept that.

It was a 383 with a four speed

and it was a dark green car.

The Roadrunner was a mission car.

It was more together, but it was completely rotted out.

So the guy let me borrow his trailer, his truck.

He didn't know where I lived or anything.

Took the car home, came back,

brought his truck and trailer back

and we were friends for a really long time.

Everyone in high school that I knew,

the janitors, stuff like that,

they liked the 68 Super B that I just bought.

That just went to, hey, I know where there's another one.

And I'm like, oh, okay, and it's a parts car.

So that led to the second car that I purchased,

which is now the yellow car that you see today.

And it was just supposed to be a parts car for the 68.

My little brother actually graduated high school,

so I sold the 68 to my little brother

who still has it today.

And we post videos about it at home

because we just started this year

heavily on the restoration process on that car.

You guys must be some old souls.

I don't know how old you are,

but you're definitely younger than me.

Yeah.

How old are you?

Like 30?

34, man, I had to have my wife that, but we're 34.

It's awesome, but you're young

to be into the 60s and 70s muscle cars

at the high school age.

It's frankly awesome.

I mean, those were the cars that were cool

when I was in high school.

I graduated high school in 1993.

I was towards the tail end of people doing that

when I was in high school.

There's something right in your genes.

I don't know.

Yeah, we listen all sorts of type of music,

but usually we're in the car.

Usually we have some sort of music

that's around that era and that same time.

So, I shouldn't say the area.

The movie days to confused.

I love that soundtrack

and that's kind of the go-to soundtrack

when I'm riding on that car,

that Ozzy Osbourne Black Sabbath stuff.

That's what we like to listen to rolling around the car.

It's changed over the years here and there,

depending on where we're going,

but I do hear that a lot,

that I have an old soul, I guess.

I don't know if that's good or bad, but yeah.

It just is, how's that?

I admire it.

So, you pick up this 70 Super B

that's supposed to be a parts car

and then it becomes the car?

Yeah, it becomes the car.

It's had in the barn for 20 years.

It was painted, it was a yellow car originally,

but someone rattled canned it black

and the black was fading

and the yellow was kind of pulling through the black.

It was a very clean car,

but we primed the oil pump system in it

after we got it home

and we hit the key and the thing fired right up.

Was it a big black car?

Originally a 383, but someone put a 440 in it.

Unfortunately, some people stole some components

and parts and pieces out of it, unfortunately.

And we swapped parts from the 68 to the 70

to get it rolling like, for example, the radiator,

but then come to find out everywhere I went,

I had to take an extra gallon of water

to fill the radiator back up

after I was driving it

to the highest school and home and everything, so.

Okay, so you get yourself a 72, it runs, you drove it.

Like you drove it for a while, like that?

Between projects, we drove it,

I think for four years,

looking like a little old ratty barn find.

I kind of polished out the black faded paint

and you could still see the yellow coming through.

We went to car shows like that.

We actually put some Hoosier, I think,

60, 20 circle track race tires on it

because that's what I could get for free at the time.

The sidewall flex on that was crazy.

I actually wore through the rear inner fender wells actually

because it was rubbing for so much.

So we had to repair that, but it was a very clean car

for a very long time.

It was obviously wrecked also at some point in the past

because it had a different color fender on it

and it was very clear that it was wrecked at some point,

but it was also originally a California car.

So at some point it ended up over here.

So what was your first round of mods here?

So when I saw the car a couple of years ago

at Mo Party, I would tell you that it was yellow,

but I know for a fact,

it was in a totally different configuration

engine suspension wise.

So what was your first kind of version of the car?

First version of the car.

Well, other than it trying to be a parts car,

we after four years of driving it,

a rust spot started on the car

and we were like, hey, you know what?

We need to do something with it

before it starts overtaking it.

I had a 69 Chevelle at the time also.

I sold the Chevelle back to the original owner

of the Chevelle, which was a cool story.

That took the money to paint the car,

do any metalwork to the car

and then that also purchased my first EFI system.

And I put a Holley Terminator four barrel system on there.

It was before the new Terminator,

it was a, I like to say it's the old fashion Terminator

like an HP setup or something.

And that paid for the paint job

and to do the Terminator system.

So we went through, me and my wife,

we have photos and stuff.

We stripped it all down to bare metal,

took all the trim off of it.

We did the majority of the body work ourselves.

I had a friend though finish it off for me

because I was still learning at the time

and I knew I was gonna keep this car.

And I messed up a lot of stuff because I was learning.

So, and they didn't really have a coach.

I had a friend do the final stuff on,

I made sure that the blocking was good

and then they actually had a booth.

So then they actually sprayed the yellow

on the car for me back then.

But that was technically the first thing I did.

When did you put your first suspension on?

Cause when I met you,

you were at the point where you're autocross in the car.

Was that your first foray

into performance driving events

where like Holley events or ultimate streetcar events

or stuff like that or good guys events?

No, I had some friends.

Well, we used to just cruise the car too.

Well, you know, be body mopers

when you were hit with factory suspension

and no sway bar stuff, you'd turn to corner

and it felt like the car wasn't gonna flip over.

So we just did QA1 portion bar systems on the car.

We left the leaf springs on the rear of the car.

We upgraded them to, I think it was a Hoshkas leaf spring

I think in the rear.

And that was just to get a better cruising.

It was a single adjustable, actually no,

I didn't have a single, I had a coil over style load shock

from like auto zone on the back of the car

just to kind of make it ride better.

And then we cruise it.

And then my friends went drag racing.

We had a drag strip that was really, really close to us.

It was a really old drag strip

that just recently closed down.

We went drag racing.

It was the slowest car ever.

We blew up the tranny probably two or three times.

It just had no power.

I think it was like a 14 second car.

It was for today's days, it was pretty slow.

It was automatic.

Yeah, 727, we burned up those.

So I'm pretty fluent with 727 stuff now.

Big block, 727.

So I can almost overhaul one of those

and with the lights off now it's, so.

So we went drag racing with a little bit.

And then what really got me going

was a friend of mine by the name of Scott Walshram.

He works at a company here in Michigan,

just an hour north of me at Lane Automotive

also known as Motor State Distributing.

They have an event called the Motor State Challenge.

Chris Mayer, he goes,

Hey, you got to come to this pro tour event.

And I didn't even know what pro tour was.

I thought pro street is what he was talking about.

Some car with a big blower on it

and big rear wheels and just looks fast, right?

We show up, we met Chris and Linda Jacobs.

They had their Wimpy out there, the 66 Chevelle.

And then Tom Farrington were there.

Jim had his green split muffler Camaro out there

and all these 18 inch wheels.

You know, the first time I saw forage line wheel.

That's where me and Chris and Linda,

Jacobs really met each other.

So I was really interested in these wheels.

Like, oh, you look really good.

And I just had some five star Craggers

on the car at the time.

So that's kind of where we went from there.

And then I took a ride with Valerie Pechette

and her Firebird on the road course.

And I was like, oh man, we got to try this.

And I think the following week

we went and tried our first autocross

of the tire rack here in town.

Oh my, it's interesting because while it's

a great big world out there in our world,

it really isn't.

All those names, all those people,

the Farringtons are the first people I met

when I entered the business

because I needed a ride to get from the SEMA show

to the OUSCI after SEMA.

And I rode in their Chevelle.

I mean, it's a drug.

When you're into old cars and you finally get in one

that turns and handles and goes fast

and isn't terrifying in a bad way.

It's terrifying in a good way.

That's an addiction.

So what was your next move for your Super B after that?

So after that, well, I was terrible at autocross

in a Super B, but knowing Chris and the Jacobs

and the Farringtons, they have a really,

obviously since they do it, like you just said,

in a really big car that was kind of motivating for me.

Like, hey, look, they can do it in a big car.

Big cars can do it.

We'll just keep going with this.

And also that was the car I had at the time.

So after that, man, the next upgrade that I think we did,

I think we just changed the car

to a double adjustable shock from QA1.

That was way better.

I think we had a 235 tire on the car at the time.

And I think it was like a 300 treadwear tire.

It was really, really bad.

I think we cuffed the tires

after our first autocross.

I very clearly did not know what I was doing.

I was actually so bad at it.

A guy from Tire Act actually asked me to stay

after the autocross and he was gonna leave the track

open for me and he was gonna teach me

a whole lot of stuff.

His name is Luke Pavlock.

He's over at Tire Act.

But yeah, so then we did that and see,

what was the next thing?

I think we did another motor state challenge

with the car.

I couldn't go more than a lap and a half

without having to pull back into the pits

because it was, you can so much fluid

out of the transmission pump seal,

the pyre steering pump started dumping fluid,

the engine started smoking

and we couldn't do more than a lap and a half at a time.

And then that's harder than that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Other than that, it was great.

But that was actually the first time

I actually met the company QA1.

Like they were there at the motor state challenge.

They had a booth.

They started asking me questions

and they were going around trying to find fluids

and buckets and things like that.

I could catch the fluid that I was leaving

in the paddock area and stuff.

It was awesome.

Me and QA1 really hit it off.

They were very, I would say,

motivating as well.

Like, hey, you know, great job.

Keep it up, let's keep going.

And then we just been in great contact since.

And I think we did another year of motor state challenge.

I was kind of tired of the big block

having all these problems.

It was smoke.

If I was too many Gs in a corner,

I actually took the 440 and stroked it out

to a 512s cubic inch stroker.

And I think that's around the time

Holly Moe Party started.

We went and did the autocross at Holly Moe Party.

Then we did other upgrades.

Like just there was random upgrades

that happened throughout the year there.

We ended up putting a gear vendor behind the 727.

Then we had that stroker that was in it.

That was a lot of fun.

There's actually a video at Holly Moe Party

where we were doing what would be the speed stop challenge

in our ultimate street car.

We were doing it at Moe Party

and I downshifted coming into the corner.

I downshifted way early

and I learned how to drift the car.

So there's a really good video on my social media

and stuff of me just taking the car,

swinging it way out wide.

I didn't hit a single cone

and it just kind of came around

and we stopped in the box.

And it was awesome.

And then I kind of started doing it on purpose

because it was fun.

So we weren't going any faster.

So it was like, well, we might have had fun with it.

But that was my first Holly Moe Party experience.

At Holly Moe Party, we actually our first year,

we only signed up for the autocross

because I had no idea what the Grand Champion class was.

I got really jealous

seeing all the other competitors out in the drag strip.

So every year since then,

I always signed up for the Grand Champion.

And I always tell people that

you can sign up for the Grand Champion.

You don't have to run the drag races

if you don't want to,

but I'm telling people they're gonna get jealous

if they don't.

So I guess that was kind of the order

that a lot of that stuff went for the events at least.

But now, I mean, you've made a pretty big jump.

So the reason I reached out for this interview

was that I followed this industry

and I've been in it for a very, very long time.

What QA1 has done over the years is just remarkable.

So now Detroit Speed is under the QA1 brand

as is SpeedTech.

They're becoming the suspension company

in our industry.

Now there are more and there are others

and there are other good ones,

but what QA1 is doing is unique.

I am absolutely a fan of all three of those brands

we just talked about and I have all of them,

except SpeedTech.

I'm interested in SpeedTech.

So tell me why you ended up choosing

what you chose for SpeedTech?

Cause right now you've got like steamroller tires

on all four corners of this car

and a Gen 3 Hemi in the hood, I think.

Right.

Walk me through this version of the car.

Well, yeah, so it really took a turn on,

again, we were at the Motor State Challenge another time.

I had a valve train problem with the big block

with the 512.

I couldn't get a water pump.

I couldn't get valve covered gaskets.

So I was like, you know what?

We have a Gen 3 Hemi, let's just toss it in.

So we tossed the Gen 3 Hemi in and never looked back.

I mean, the mileage I get out of the thing was amazing.

I have the eight speed, the eight HP 70

behind the engine as well.

I'm getting crazy gas mileage with it

and I can get parts for it anywhere.

The water pump gasket did work.

Pull out from a truck, a car, what is it?

Yeah, we got a friend who had a 2018 Scat Pack.

He just bought it.

He paid it off and everything when he bought it

and took it home, didn't have it insured yet

and a tree landed on the car.

I know.

That's terrible.

So we bought the engine and trans from them,

bought the seats from them too

because we have the modern day seats in the car too.

So that's how we ended up getting the drive train

out of it and we've never looked back.

And unfortunately I did blow up the motor

in the first 50 miles of doing the swap

because I don't know how to tune.

So we had to fix that before the next event

that we went to.

I thought I loved the Gen 3

because I mean it's just a NA 6.4 liter, 485 horse,

nothing fancy.

I got to get great gas mileage with it, with that setup.

And then what came after that was the QA1 coilovers

suspension system, which we won Holly's Mo Party last year

with that system and the Grand Champion.

And then we also won the Motor State Challenge

in our class as well.

And that kind of leads to the SpeedTech chassis.

I don't know if you remember SEMA last year.

I think Jimmy Day allowed us to do burnouts

before we got to do the speed stop challenges,

which normally is not allowed in Autopross.

But we were kind of putting a show on for SEMA, right?

You're referring to the Optima Ultimate

Streetcar Invitational, right?

Correct.

And well I was also kind of known for sliding the car

around especially after that one Holly Mo Party event.

But I also started to understand

that it was very easy to do in the car.

I know seat time is very crucial,

but I have had the car for 15 years.

I'm not getting any more rear grip.

So we decided to go with the SpeedTech rear torque arm

and we're getting ready to have it on order and everything.

And then at SEMA, we were doing all these burnouts

and I was having an amazing amount of grip,

which obviously just means that maybe

needed a tire upgrade or something.

After SEMA, we got the car home and we started overlooking it

and I realized that the front frame rails on the car

were starting to rust away.

We're right in the middle.

Cracks all the way around the side.

Rust was rolling out of the poles

where you set up the frame rails in the car.

The nut broke loose for the K member.

It got pretty bad.

So either we could have replaced the frame rails

with rails from all the metal direct

or just had the same 275 tire now at that point

because with the coilover system, they had a 275 tire.

We just like, you know,

the way one bought SpeedTech

and we're still in that same relationship,

the extreme system actually replaces the frame rails.

So we just kind of decided, let's just go that route

and we'll have the biggest tire

that we can stick on the car

and there's not really an upgrade from there.

So then that's kind of how the SpeedTech system

got led up to.

What does that take?

I have a general lead, but it's a general lead

and it's supposed to be a general lead,

but the Dodge Charger I own is the only Mopar I know,

but I am assuming stuff has to get cut out.

Maybe I'm assuming wrong.

How do you put the SpeedTech?

Is it a full chassis or is it a front frame

and then a rear suspension?

So yeah, so you can get it as a full frame

and we just took the two parts

and tied them together is how we did it.

So that way you can upgrade the front if you want

or you can upgrade the rear.

Say you want to upgrade all of it,

you can just buy it as a full chassis.

So, but yeah, there is some cutting,

but again, I had rusty frame rails,

so it didn't really matter too much to me,

but the easiest way to explain it is the first,

I think it's three and a half inches of the frame rail

from where the bumper mounts back.

That's all that's left of the front frame rail.

We cut the frame rail all the way back out

to the firewall and SpeedTech sends you new inner fenders

and their new torque box,

the version of the torque box

and then the K-member slides right in.

It actually bolts to their torque box

that you weld into the car.

Do you have to tie things to the firewall at all?

So they do come with down bars.

So they have a down bar that you can actually weld

to like I would say just on the above the firewall

kind of like, you know, where the sheet metal

kind of curves down under the hood area.

The down bar will actually bolt in there

and then it bolts to the suspension system

to try and dilate that whole section there.

Okay, that makes good sense to me.

You obviously, your Gen 3 is sitting in that.

How different are the inner fenders

from the factory Mopar ones?

A lot and they look really good too.

So if you're familiar with the area

where your fender tag sits on your Mopar,

the new inner fenders, they pretty much just come

as a straight, like a 45 degree angle straight down

from that point moves it way further into the car

and kind of gives it like a mini tub almost basically,

but it's all smooth, it's nice and square edges.

It all gets welded in.

And then the front of the core support and stuff,

all of that stuff still gets bolted to,

I should say subframe, I keep saying K-Member,

but it's a technically it's a subframe

and it gets bolted to that.

Okay, hopefully this isn't sacrilege.

It's very Camaro like as you think about it,

you know, it's like a Camaro or a Fiber or a Nova

like there's a subframe up front,

you just replace the whole thing

like you would with a Detroit speed system

or a speed tech system, I assume.

How about the rear?

What's the rear that you put in?

Yeah, the rear of the torque arm.

So I would say if you think about your third gen,

fourth gen Camaro's,

if you could think about how that kind of works,

it's basically that kind of system just upgraded.

But that was actually really simple to install.

You remove the shock mount,

you put in their shock mount,

you weld in a cross member that would pretty much

kind of goes in underneath the driver seat area

and that's where the torque arm goes to.

You weld in a couple of trailing arm pockets

and you're done.

Do you keep your factory rear frame rails?

Yeah, that all stays there with the torque arm, yep.

If I ever actually really wanted,

I could put at least spring back in the car

if I wanted it, it didn't remove

any of those pockets or anything.

No kidding, then you chose to tie them

together front and rear, I assume or is that required?

It's not required, you could just do the rear

if you wanted or you could just do the front

but it does come with brackets that you can weld in

that basically ties them in to essentially

make it a complete chassis at that point.

It just makes good sense to do so

and you chose to do it that way.

You're saying speed tech would just sell you

a full chassis direct, right?

Yep, they can sell you a full chassis direct

or they can sell you just the front clip,

the extreme clip or just the torque arm.

Speed tech also offers an independent

rear suspension system for these cars now as well

so you can put an IRS in the back of the car too.

Did that interest you?

It did.

I heard a lot of things about the torque arm

and that was really good for track use and stuff

and a torque arm is a lot cheaper than an IRS system

so that was kind of a way that we went that way

because the budget too, so.

Cool.

Because none of the stuff was free, so.

No, yeah, I mean, even when it's free,

it's not really free.

Exactly, yeah, and I actually get that a lot too,

like on social media, like, so we actually,

on my social media, every single time I

upgraded some of the car, I was posting like,

hey, here's what we did today

or you need to do this and blah, blah, blah.

The biggest thing that people says,

oh, it must be nice because you're getting these

free parts and it was not free.

You paid for these parts, so we decided

to go for these upgrades, so.

I want to say I saw you when you were fitting your,

or measuring out for wheels and tires

and did you put Forge Lines back on it?

Yeah, so I have my very first set

of Forge Lines finally on it.

So we went down to Forge Line,

we known Dave for a while,

we went to some other autocrosses and stuff,

that's how we met Dave.

We have a whole YouTube video

that I'm currently working on and everything.

Got a tour and they even got some GoPro footage

of them actually machining my wheel out

and everything.

We took the Forge Line to get it measured

because I didn't know how to do that.

Also, we have big brakes on the car now.

So Mike at Willwood gave me C7 Corvette brakes for the car.

We had to make sure that the Forge Line wheels

actually fit around them

because that's not obviously a typical Dodge wheel.

And of course a lug pattern change too.

With Speedtech, they use C7 Corvette hubs on this stuff.

So now I have a GM lug pattern.

And Dave was very familiar with that too

and he taught me how to measure

to get the right wheel sizes

and make sure everything's gonna clear the calipers

and things like that.

Is it a manual brake car?

Originally it was a power brake car

but it is a manual brake car now.

This was actually a change that I made.

It's been power brakes all the way up until this year.

This year we finally went to a manual brake.

It stopped just as good, if not better

than it did with my power brakes.

Do you run out like a proportioning valve

or a brake bias?

Yes, we run a bias and it's really interesting.

Mike sent me this, I would say it's like a six inch bias

and it has a little adjuster on the outside,

it has two separate master cylinders.

I have a front master cylinder and a rear master cylinder,

remote reservoirs and stuff.

I haven't installed it yet but there's actually a cable

that you can run from the bias in the engine bay

to the inside of the car

so I can adjust it in the car if I want to.

I haven't had a chance to install it yet

but that is something that you can do with this bias.

And it's not just like the little bias

that you typically see on the brake line,

it kind of adjusts the leverage

between the two front and rear master cylinders.

I have one of those, that's race car stuff,

swivel link, that's super cool.

What is the rear end in the car?

So when you get this SpeedTek torque arm,

SpeedTek's torque arm is not set up for the Mopar axles.

So we had to switch the car over to a nine inch

which when you order the torque arm from SpeedTek,

you can have it as an option.

If you have a preferred rear axle company

you wanna go with, you can use theirs.

But the one they run is Dutchman Motorsports

and they're a big circle track company

and they build a lot of axles for circle track cars.

They wash you already, weld in all the brackets

everything to the axle for all of your adjustments,

your shock mounts and everything.

When you get the nine inch from this company,

the torque arm and everything folds right up to the axle

and that's it.

I mean, there was nothing.

It came painted already, powder coated.

We ordered it with a eaten true track in it

and we went to a 308 gear in the car

from the original 323.

Really?

I'm sure you've done some math there

that must work really well with your transmission.

Yes, the eight speed, the gears are super short.

Honestly, the eight speed probably isn't really

the greatest transmission for all across

at least with my experience

because they're so shift, shift, shift.

Most of the guys that run, they have manual transmissions

and you have to leave it like what second,

maybe third gear the entire time on all across.

I think I'm like floating around with fourth and fifth gear.

Sometimes third gear depending on how slow

I go into a corner.

So that's kind of maybe one of the downsides

on the eight speed.

But I was hoping by going to that 308

that it would give me maybe just a few more feet

before I really have to shift before going into a corner.

So that was kind of why we went to a 308.

So I think you debuted the car in a booth maybe

at Good Guys Columbus and then you've now run an event.

Yeah, we went to Good Guys Columbus.

Automated Direct did a whole mo-par takeover at the time.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with these people

but there used to be the TV show weekends

like trucks and muscle car, hot rod TV and stuff.

There was a guy by the name of Kevin Tates

that he used to be on the show Trucks.

He runs a company called Team Education

and he's kind of taken me kind of under his wing a lot

especially when it comes to doing paint and body

and restoration stuff.

Even though he was a TV show host, he's an awesome guy

and he reaches out to me for mo-par questions

and I reach out to him 17 times

much more about paint questions.

So it's an even trade-off

but they were doing a sheet metal replacement

on a challenger at the Good Guys show.

They invited me to have the Super B down there

have it in display with a bunch of killer mo-pars

that were way custom, way more SEMA quality type builds

which was an honor to have there.

We got to hang out with all the

Automated Direct Guys while we were down there.

That was a really fun time

but that was the first showing of the car.

We actually went to Forge Line to pick up the new wheels

and then just drove straight over to the Good Guys show.

I think the Forge Line had like 50 feet on them

before we were actually displaying them

on the car at the event so.

And I should probably mention

we started the SpeedTech install April 8th.

We got it done just before the Good Guys show.

It's how it usually goes.

There's nothing like a deadline

to help you achieve your goals.

Yeah, yeah.

We started four months behind schedule

on the car unfortunately

and it was kind of a bit of a rush to it.

So we were hoping to have more seat time

in the car before our first event

but at the Good Guys show we were just on display.

And then last weekend was the Moche Challenge

and it was the first event

that we actually had the car at

with all of the new setup in it.

That was interesting, that was fun.

We loved that event.

Unfortunately it's the last year

of the Motorstate Challenge but we had a blast

with the new system

and we have to fine tune a lot of stuff yet

but I don't know if you saw my YouTube videos

or Eaton I think had a really good video.

The front left tire kept pulling up off the ground.

It was probably a good six, eight inches.

The front left wheel came up off the ground

on an autocross.

I did too.

It did it on a road course too.

Yeah.

It did it on a road course which freaked me out

because my car has never done that before.

So we were going into one corner this weekend

and I felt it lift a little.

And I was like, oh yeah, that's cool, that's awesome.

And then we came around another corner

and then it came up really big

and in my mind I'm like, everything is new.

Everything's new.

I'm like, what did I forget to tighten?

What's gonna come off the car?

You know, that's what I'm paranoid about

because we have no miles on it.

We just went straight to a race track.

That was what my mind was

and then come to find out

after seeing some photos and videos.

Oh, we just listened to

doing three wheel action stuff now.

That's cool.

So it freaked me out at first this weekend.

I'm sure there's more to do and more to go

but it's typically a sign of an amazing amount

of rear grip and it's working.

This stuff is working.

Definitely working.

It's definitely working really, really well.

We noticed improvements across everything.

And now with the SpeedTick

you're actually able to run either a 325

or a 335 tire on the front.

Now we're running a 315

but the 315 was a little more budget friendly

for me because I drive my car daily.

I don't just take it to a race track.

I drive my car to work.

I take it to the grocery store.

We go to car shows.

We drive it everywhere.

I think between 2022 and now

I think we've put almost 80,000 miles on the car.

That's awesome.

With doing all the work to it at the same time.

The next few months

I assume we'll be sorting what you've got

but is there anything you're already thinking

I wanna do this next?

There is like an event

that I would like to do next year.

We do have a list of events

that we're doing yet this year.

My main event I really wanna do is One Lap of America.

I would love to do that.

Here in South Bend

we live right by the start and the finish.

So I'd love to do that.

That's kind of like an all time goal

because if you're not familiar with One Lap

you have to drive it to all of these road courses

and track events or places

and compete and drive it.

I think it goes all the way down to

what is it like, Mississippi area and Florida

and then back up to Indiana or La Post

or something like that I think.

The whole week long thing.

I don't know the route.

But I actually kind of meant car wise.

Like is there any next?

Oh, I don't know.

You mentioned automatic.

Do you want a manual?

Do you want a different automatic?

Or do you just wanna sort out what you got and learn?

I think I'm just gonna sort out what I got and learn.

We got to obviously, it's not supposed

to pull up the left front tire.

So we're gonna probably mess around

with some coil spring in the rear of the car.

We don't have a sway bar yet in it.

So we're probably gonna look at doing a sway bar

but I don't wanna fully rely on a sway bar

to limit the front left corner coming up as high as it is.

I really think that's like a shock setting

or a spring setting.

So we're already working with speed tech

to try and figure it out.

Not a lot of people auto cross or race their motor.

So a lot of people put these chassis

and like speed tech under their cars

and then they just drive them

and a lot of people don't race them, which is fine.

So trying to figure out a setting

that works for performance and street.

That's what we're kind of working on.

Yeah, that's upgrade wise.

Man, if I had to upgrade it,

I would love to super charge the car

because I have experience this weekend

that I can't do burnout as much as I used to be able to

because it has so much encrypt that it just goes.

Which is slightly disappointing

but it's good at the same time.

David, you are a treat to talk to

because I mean, it's inevitable.

Of course it's gonna get super charged

and then the next thing because now you got too much power

and why isn't it hooking up more in like.

Yeah, I'd like to put a cage in it too

because as we've been getting faster

and we've been going to more events

and things like that,

I'd like to put a cage in it,

not necessarily for the safety,

but also to make sure that the car is just that much stiffer.

I know it adds weight,

but the fenders on a 70 Super B

and the quarters on a 70 Super B

aren't exactly the easiest parts to find.

So if there ever was an incident on road course,

those parts would be really difficult to find

and now that we're definitely getting faster

with Corvette parts on the car,

kind of want to do a roll cage

and maybe kind of redo the interior.

I guess that really is the next thing

because now it's just seek time to figure out the car.

Well, this has been a very fun story.

It's been a long time since I've been able

to get to know somebody new, learn their story

and then just kind of learn

how they've built a car along with their life.

That's exactly what you've done here.

That is the coolest thing.

How could people follow you

or to see these pictures from afar?

What would work best?

You can see me on all my social medias,

YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, Facebook.

You can find me by david.ksuperb.

That's the same one all my platforms

and you can also find a lot of articles on my car

from Mopart Connection Magazine

because I'm also a contributing editor

for Mopart Connection Magazine as well.

Excellent.

It's been good getting to know you more formally

than in the past and I look forward

to seeing you at Moparty, I'm sure.

For sure, make sure you bring a helmet

because I can give you a ride along in the car.

Well done.

All right, see you, David.

See you.

Thank you, David.

There you go.

All right, I hope that you guys

all get to see David run at Moparty.

He's taking the gang for rides.

I hope they remember to bring their helmet.

Please say hi to Bernie and Corn Dog and Scott

and Nathan for me while you're there.

I'm sure we'll have highlights for you next week.

And with that said, that is it for this week.

Between now and next week though,

hit me up on Facebook or Instagram anytime.

Be sure to sign up for our weekly email newsletter

and you can do all that on the homepage

of themusclecarplace.com website.

And as always, don't forget to keep chasing your dreams

like you've let me chase mine.

Thanks for listening, everybody.

Bye-bye.

Thanks for parking at the Muscle Car Place online podcast

TMCP #620: David Kruk And His 1970 Super Bee “Speedtech Equipped” AutoCross Monster!

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About this episode

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