The muscle car place, online podcast, episode number 621.
This week, it's the recap from Holley MoParty 2025, done in conjunction with the Kibbe and
French show gang.
Now, if you know anything about these Holley events, they put the fun in everything.
But MoParty is just a little unique.
It does have all the normal stuff.
It has a car show, it's got a Swatman, it's got a drag race, it's got an autocross,
it's got the stuff.
But it also has monster trucks, and it has mullet contests.
And over on Kibbe and Friends this week, we had Dylan McCool and Tommy Boshers of YouTube
and TV fame.
We had a kid named, I think his name was Skid Will.
He had a straight axle Jeep with a straight six out of Blower, and he was autocrossing
it.
On muscle car place this week for you, we have Steve Sparkman from Holley, Dave Swaringer
with Rust Bucket Restorations, Blake Anderman with Sublime Technologies, and we will
start out with legendary drag racer, Paul Rossi.
He gave us all a lesson in that you win at your strengths, not at your opponent's
strengths.
You win races with torque.
Because I could not outpower the Cobra Jets or the 454s.
They've just made more suds, period.
Their heads are bigger, they flow more air.
But they don't make more torque, not at these speeds.
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 Kibbey.
Yes, indeed I am Rob Kibbey, and welcome to the Muscle Car Place Podcast.
Well, here we are.
The final episode of September is here, and by the time you hear this, it may
actually legitimately, legally be fall of 2025.
And what it also means is that Mo Party 2025 is now done.
It's in the rearview mirror.
It's over.
This happened.
So if you listen to the Kibbey and Friends show gang, you already are in the loop.
But the entire Kibbey and Friends gang, the whole staff, the whole bananas, minus me, unfortunately,
went down to Bowling Green, Kentucky and had the time of their lives at the biggest Mo
Party that's happened to date.
We kicked off our coverage over on Kibbey and Friends this week, and we're going
to finish it here.
So here in this show, you're going to have Steve Sparkman from Holly, Dave
Swaringer from Russ Bucket Restorations, Blake Andromeda Sublime Technologies.
Blake is the coolest.
He has a lot of very elegant, simple little techie ways to accomplish motor swaps with
his company.
We're going to start it all out, though, with legendary drag racer, Paul Rossi.
And that was an interview put together in a range for by Jimmy Day himself of FM3.
Really nice that he did that.
So on Kibbey and Friends, we had Dylan McCool and Tommy Boshers.
And you'll want to check all that out as well.
So I'm just telling you, listen to both shows this week.
We picked the interviews that kind of went to each show, but the whole event was just
the funnest.
I just want to say personal thank you to, of course, Bernie McPartland, because Bernie
led the team remotely without me.
And as Bernie will tell you, Bernie's an old man.
I only received a photo of Bernie laying flatbacked on a trailer once.
I received a photo of our show writer, Scotty Stapp, asleep in a chair at the
after party.
Our man, Corn Dog from Kibbey and Friends and Nathan Warren, builder of My Generally.
They were both there.
They did interviews.
They were cracking up and had a good time.
Jimmy Morrison, the anointed, appointed president of the Kibbey and Friends show.
Patreon entity, I guess we call it.
He was there and provided a grill and steaks and cooked for everyone.
Ryan Brutt, the autoarcheologist, even did a nice job.
And that's hard for me to say.
I feel like I need to take a shower now.
But it was awesome that all those guys did that.
Quite honestly, they choose to do this work.
I mean, this is a labor of love.
There's a lot of effort that goes into this.
There's a lot easier ways to make a buck here and there.
But they choose to do that.
Now, Jimmy Morrison made nothing, nothing he just chose to do it.
So God bless you, Jimmy.
Thank you.
And I assume Ryan Brutt is sitting on the, well, not the Cadillac seat.
What would be the best Chrysler Fiat option?
I don't know.
Probably one of those EVG's or something.
I don't know.
Whatever you're like, Ryan, he's sitting up top.
Everybody, thank you.
So where was I?
By the way, all those interviews are coming up here shortly.
Where was I?
Well, burn, cue the Dallas Kibbey Legends car.
Racing update intro right here.
The rear end loose, car is fast.
Loose is fast and on the edge, you're out of control.
So here's the reason I wasn't with the gang in Moe Party.
So as you know, for my son, Dallas, he has a desire to race cars professionally.
This is an all chips in year for legends car racing.
Our goal was to hit 30 races, just develop his skills, get really good.
I don't think we knew when we started the year
that we'd basically only be doing asphalt racing.
But that's basically what's happened.
So he is preparing right now for the Asphalt Nationals
Finale event in Las Vegas.
And there are several national events
and all you have to do to qualify is register.
But it's kind of like a track meet.
You'll show up on a Thursday in practice.
And on Friday, you'll see if you make the cut to race on Saturday.
And Dallas has some experience
at this at a national event going to Charlotte.
He went to Charlotte in June.
So this will be kind of a nice book in any way to prepare
for the Asphalt Nationals, which are held in Las Vegas,
the Boring in Las Vegas.
We needed to find a track, a local here that was kind of close.
The only track that's basically as close as we can find here
is called Elko Speedway.
And it's in Lakeville, Minnesota, but it's basically the Twin City.
So if you've ever gone in and out of Minneapolis, Saint Paul,
even just flying through, that's where we work.
Dallas did a great job.
And I am proud of him for that.
But the real value came is that we actually thought
we had another race there this weekend.
Now, his coach was only available for the first weekend.
That's why we really had to go.
But I thought I'd take him up to this weekend.
We'd race again.
This weekend either got canceled or postponed.
We can't go back.
It was a one-and-done.
Had we not skipped Moe Party to be there,
he would not have got a chance to race there and prepare.
And I'm so glad that we did.
Because when we got there, he was not very good at practice.
And what he got another lesson in, and that's the beauty of these.
You should never look at any of these as,
boy, I didn't do well there.
You should always say, here's what I learned from it.
And for Dallas, what he learned is how to communicate to his coach
when he really only feels what's wrong with the car.
And where his coach is so excellent is saying, no, Dallas,
you're over-driving it here.
No, Dallas, you're absolutely right.
There is something wrong.
And help him pull that out of him.
And that got better this weekend.
He went from having a car that was not very fast
to getting that second place.
Now, out of the field, I don't know.
There was probably 18, 20 cars in the field.
Out of the field, the top three were all from our team.
Dallas's coach was actually running second.
Dallas was third, and the guy who lives up there
and kind of damaged that track, he's on our team too.
And he was in first.
When the race started, the track monster,
his name is Tristan, he got to first.
Dallas's coach was just right on him for a second.
And Dallas had to fight his way to third.
Dallas did end up not punting somebody,
but he had to move somebody,
or he was gonna end up in tenth.
And he got himself up to third.
Unfortunately, Tristan, who was running in first place,
he must have had an actual break or something.
His car just failed.
So he pulled off to the inside.
So Dallas's coach went to first.
And by that point, Dallas had fought his way
all the way to third to second,
and it was a good ways back to third.
That was great.
So another great well-used weekend to learn and improve.
And yeah, it's always nice
when you finish at the top of the leaderboard,
or even get wins, but sometimes you finish eighth
and have the best lesson of the day, you know?
This whole endeavor is to help him learn
and develop racecraft.
So job well done.
I thank the gang.
They're all rooting for him.
Jimmy Morrison was even wearing his race shirt,
which is just the coolest.
So just want to say thank you all for that again,
for going to Moe Party, so Dallas could run this race.
And that does conclude the Dallas Kidby Racing Update.
Roll the outro, Burn.
["The Outro Burn"]
I should mention in that,
right before we did the outro,
I am hoping that when we go to that Nationals event in Vegas
that there's some opportunities there to meet people.
Man, racing is a hard sport,
because you have to be noticed to make connections
and you have to be at places to be noticed.
It really is a chicken and the egg type scenario.
Do you get noticed by being places?
Well, only if you're at the right places
and how do you get to places if nobody knows who you are?
You know, that's the trick.
So I hope that we'll meet some people there
that kind of help us plan the next step.
I think he'll still be in Legends Card next year,
but probably not exclusively.
It's time to start moving up as soon as he's competent.
I mean, he's getting competent now.
That's the trick.
When are you so competent
or when are you competent enough to move on, right?
Everybody wants to know,
even when you're thinking about your life
or your friend or your church or your career,
like when do you finally realize
I need to move to the next level now
or I need to move to the next thing?
So that's what I'm hoping for Dallas in Vegas.
All right, I really should have included that in the outro.
Burn, run the outro again, may as well, right?
How about new?
Okay, before we move on to our interviews
and we have several and it's time to run them,
I struggled with whether to do this or not,
but I did want to take one minute
to address the Charlie Kirk assassination.
Now, I know a lot of you,
especially those of you who listen to The Cubing Friends
show, but many of you that come here as well,
you're looking for a little break from reality
and I get it, I get it.
But at the same time,
sometimes you're looking for your podcast
and friend Robert to acknowledge stuff
that's been on your mind.
Let me put it this way.
In our church this week,
our pastor didn't address Charlie by name,
but he did address evil directly
because evil is done to so many
and some are famous and visible like Charlie
and most you'll never know of.
But when a very visible figure is assassinated,
it does hit hard.
I wasn't a regular listener at Charlie's,
but I know people that were,
I know that you are really hurting right now
with the loss of your friend.
I'm sorry for that.
That is so painful.
If you listen to somebody via podcast like you do to me,
I know it.
This is how I feel about other podcasts.
You feel like a friend if somebody never me
and for many Charlie brought clarity to confusion every day
and now they're sad and scared
because who's going to bring
that clarity to confusion going forward?
What I know of Charlie is that he is absolutely
in heaven with his savior
that I feel quite confident of.
And I also believe that while God does not orchestrate evil,
he does allow good to come from it
because God does allow good in all things,
even things that he didn't create, such as evil.
So I pray for Charlie's wife and kids during this
and for you, if Charlie was a friend of yours
through the podcast,
I'd pray for you for that suffering here.
I think we can all agree
that silencing anybody you disagree with is a bad thing.
Murder is obvious,
but don't silence people because you disagree with them.
Never, you'll never get forward by being a bully.
Ever, it never works.
So I just want to say that, again, you come here
and you come to the Kid Me and Friends show for a break.
The rest of the show for you is absolutely 100% a break.
So with that said, let's get rolling to the interviews.
Don't forget once per month,
we do have Mr. Rick Schmidt from NPD
on for the Ask Rick segment.
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 for all your muscle car parts needs
because they find the source, they expect the best.
There is a difference and they've got the goods.
Rick will be on, we'll record this next week
as I talk to you right now.
I watched a fascinating YouTube interview with Bob Lutz.
If you don't know the name, Google him, you should.
Bob's, Jesus, gotta be in his 80s or 90s.
He is one of the most famous people
that shaped the development
of many automotive segments.
I mean, he's the guy behind the Dodge Viper.
He had a loyal run inside General Motors, BMW.
He kind of has a great business acumen
for the major manufacturer of automobiles and a crystal ball.
He'll tell you that the future right now is EV.
And for someone like Bob to say that, that is shocking.
He's also saying the future of EV is a ways out,
but that's the future.
He believes that because
of how battery technology is right now.
But I'm gonna play a couple of clips
from that interview for Rick, just to get Rick's take on it.
I'll tell you, if Bob Lutz says that
I have a tendency to believe it, I do.
So I'm curious to see what Rick has to say about it.
If you've got questions along those lines,
send them in to me, Robert at themusclecarplace.com.
And of course, visit nationalpartsdbo.com
to prove us for our muscle car parts needs
because they find this is part of what it is
and just got the goods.
I know I did it twice, but I was in my windup.
All right, Byrne, let's go ahead
and get to the interviews.
We will have Steve Sparkman from Holley,
Dave Swaringer from Russ Bucket Restoration,
Blake Andrews from Blind Technologies.
And we will kick it off
with legendary drag racer, Paul Rossi.
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.
This is Scott and Corn Dog.
We're sitting at Holley Mote Party 2025.
And we're talking to Paul Rossi,
a name that is synonymous with racing
in what, 70s and the 80s?
You did everything.
I did.
Give us a little bit of history.
Tell us who you are, what you do,
and why are we talking to you today?
That remains to be seen.
However, thank you very much for coming by and seeing us.
Yes, I've been in motorsport a long time.
I'm a Detroit boy born in Dearborn
and used to race Woodward Avenue and back in the day
when all the hot cars there, muscle cars.
So I came out of the muscle car time period
from the muscle car geographical area,
which was Detroit.
So all the engineers would get down
and hustle down Woodward Avenue,
the Ford guys, the GM guys, and the Chrysler guys.
And so we'd all have it out on Saturday night
and the rest of us were trying to catch up
and be part of the show
and take our girlfriends down there.
Ted's on one end, totem pole on the other end.
It was a big, long deal.
And where mile roads were 15 miles, 14 miles,
we had a long time between lights.
That was a good place to race.
And all that you had back then was sun tax,
sticking up in the dash
and that's what the police used to follow, the sun tax.
They would see that and that was a sure indicator
that you were racing.
Nothing good is gonna happen here.
Yeah.
And they've been trying to crack down on that forever.
Yes they have.
And the scene is still going on
but you were at the very beginnings of it.
How did your on-track racing career get started?
Well it got started because Detroit Dragway opened.
They opened in, I believe, 59.
And so I had to go out and we had a place to race.
So that gave us the arena and gave us the motivation.
And we had a Sunday place to go and test our cars out.
And it was fun and no police were there bothering us.
We just paid and we could run all day long.
No worry about a ticket.
No, no, it was just fun.
Drag racing is just fun.
It still is.
Obviously you got involved with Mopar
and Direct Connection and how did your
Direct Connection come at that point?
How did you get involved with the sponsored racing teams?
Well, back then there was no Direct Connection.
I'm talking about the early 60s.
Exactly, yep.
So my first, I was racing a C-Sports car at Detroit Dragway
and I was asked to tune a Max Wedge car.
Long story short, it did very, very well after I tuned it.
And so I decided that I was gonna park my fuel injected
Corvette and get a Max Wedge 426.
So I went down to the first Chrysler dealer in Dearborn.
That's Ford World.
And so he opened up and he was excited
to give me a car at cost and I would put his name on it.
And I did.
And I towed it home on a wrecker.
I didn't drive it.
I didn't go get a milkshake.
I didn't go dating in it.
This was a serious thing for me.
So I took the car all apart.
Me and my buddies from high school.
Took the doors off, the trunk off the hood.
Everything scraped, all the fenders,
scraped all the undercoating off.
Cut the bolts off where they went past the nuts.
Put some aluminum nuts and bolts in.
Put some lead sheet lead in.
You could buy it back then and from the X-ray people.
Now you can't buy it.
It's hazardous weight.
And so when I got it all done,
I drove it to the racetrack.
No truck, no nothing.
Me and my buddies jumped in.
We had some tires, some sparks,
a few valve cover gaskets and off we went.
So we pulled up Detroit Dragway
and I was waiting for this day.
It was the biggest race of the year.
It was a dollar a foot, $1,320.
And it was the prelude to the Indy race, US nationals.
So everybody would come from all around the country,
tune up here at Detroit Dragway,
head over to Indy, you know,
get the air right and get your tune right.
So I was there and all these people were there.
So I pull up and the guys in staging like,
hey, polish your new car.
I was like, yep.
Said, hey, there's a big meat going on here.
You know, I don't know if you can,
you want to race here and I go, yeah.
He said, well, these got big trucks and stuff here.
I go, well, can I race?
He goes, yeah.
I didn't have to pre-enter.
He goes, no.
I said, well, I want to race.
So I entered and I raced.
And there were like 150 cars there,
Royal Pontiacs and Bob Ford's
and the people from the West, you know,
where they're Landy was there.
And at the end of the day,
Sunday night, there were two cars left,
Dick Thornton's Ram Chargers.
And I'll be damned if it wasn't Paul Rossi's
Westborn Plymouth and the others.
And I never bought another car.
Kept racing out.
I didn't win, but I went right to the final.
That's cool.
That's pretty cool.
I don't know if you can do anything like that today
because everybody had their own erector set.
That's what you got.
Those are the parts you could mix and stack up.
Now there's engine guys and there's this guys and that guys.
But back then you went and got the car.
That was your erector set.
That was your Legos.
So you put that together and however you stacked it up,
but it had to pass tech, of course.
There were specifications and they were real strict.
They tore my car apart at that race
because they thought there was something wrong.
All these other guys goes, who the hell is that?
And they go, what?
The engine must be bad.
There's something wrong with it.
And it wasn't.
They took it all out and it worked.
Yeah, one of the Raptors guys gave me a key.
Dan Mancini gave me a car and said, call this guy.
So I did and that was the end of that.
Dale Riecker was the same.
So we're standing next to your 1970 Challenger.
I saw that it's a 446 pack.
This particular car, can you tell us the history
on this particular car that we're standing next to?
Yes.
How long have you had this car?
Is this the same car that you had back then?
It is the same because it's the number two of two.
OK.
So the first one was built in 1975, the end of that.
And beginning of 76 and it was raced from 76 to 80.
Then it was sold to a custom car magazine in London, England.
End of 80.
And so this package was a contract that I got with Dodge
and I didn't actually want it.
Oh, really?
I took it at gunpoint.
Yeah.
Wow.
So I guess when most racers are running the Hemi, why the 446 pack?
That's what I told them.
I'm running a Hemi.
I just got through 1975 being Superstock NHRA World Champion.
I had the world's fastest Superstock in 75, going on 970,
back then with stock heads and those tires
in full grown 727 transmission.
And I wanted to continue my work with the Hemi
because I had done it in 64 and 5 and now I had the 68.
And they said, we don't have any budget for that anymore, Paul.
We're selling all the Hemi parts we can get
and we can't hardly get them.
So we don't need anybody selling Hemi parts.
They sell themselves.
And I agreed.
They said, this is the only project we have.
And it has a 440 in it.
I said, that's a station wagon motor.
And they put it in motor homes and some trucks.
It's not a race car engine.
And they said, but that's what we have.
And it went back and forth.
And finally I agreed to do it after they said,
we'll pay you if you do the clinics with the dealers.
And so we did a package that we went out and did dealer clinics.
And that's how I got some pay.
And I decided to develop this program.
Now, the 440 had never won any race
that I'm aware of in an HRA.
The 383 did with the Dave Bortman I'm one of our team,
but the 440 never.
So this car was in the hands of God rest his soul,
Dick Landy and Bob Lambeck.
My understanding is they gave the package back to Dodge
said it wouldn't run.
Ron Mancini had the package in Detroit.
Again, I'm a Detroit boy.
And he never got out of the 11s.
And so the reason I didn't want the package
is because these are good teams.
And if they couldn't get it to run,
you know, I'm not starting out in the basement,
I'm starting out in the sewer.
So I was against it because I thought
I didn't have the package.
So I just assumed that they had done everything they did.
The problem with those programs on both of their teams,
unfortunately, they tried to make it into a Chevy.
It's not a Chevy.
It's a torque machine.
And if you understand that and understand the torque
and then you can find out,
if you're fortunate enough to hook it up,
you can win races with torque.
Because I could not outpower the Cobra Jets or the 454s.
They've just made more suds, period.
Their heads are bigger, they floor more air.
But they don't make more torque, not at these speeds.
And we have a very short RPM band.
So you haven't got room to gear it.
And I should have a 20-speed transmission,
which I couldn't probably drive anyway.
So once you got into the 80s corporate scene,
you were talking about that?
Where did you go from there?
That's a good question.
A couple of different directions.
I decided that I was help other guys out
that I thought were good drivers
and good competitors and clean cut teams.
And I've provided them with a car and an engine.
So I had a team dodge in the same color scheme.
I had four or five cars that were out there
and they did well.
They represented well.
And I helped them with the engine work
and whatever sponsorship I could get them.
I divided it up so everybody got a little something.
That's what we did.
But in the meantime, they asked me to do IMSA,
which was road racing.
So I did, started with that.
Now we got to remember,
Chrysler Corporation in 1982,
their lead car was a K car.
Had a 1.6 in it.
I never thought I'd ever see
a rear-wheel drive car in my life again.
So I'd help a little bit get the GT started within HRA
so they could put an older big engine
in a front drive car and make it in rear-wheel.
And they adopted that eventually
and had a lot better ideas than I did.
But at least the concept was
because I didn't think
we're gonna have any rear drive cars.
I was wrong.
And that's the same thing now.
Everything, never panic.
The Hemi's gone.
Don't panic.
They'll come back around.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Take it easy and the right thing will happen
because the water always levels up
and people figure out
if they're not selling what they wanted to sell
and their customers aren't happy,
they'll make them happy.
And we got a new team boss now, Tim Kaniscus
and he's making people happy.
Yes.
He did a great job
and then they changed their minds
and then now they brought them back
and we're back on track.
We got a brand new SRT performance car
coming out next year.
And it's gonna be a factory super stock car.
So it's really the Hellcat Demon drag pack
on back half,
which means you take out the back
and you can put the big tires in it.
So this should be a sensational hot rod
and it'll be debuted at SEMA in the mother's area.
And so if you get a chance, come out and see it,
shake some hands and we'll show you all about it.
Yeah, we didn't mention that.
We are standing in the mother's booth
surrounded by mother's protectants and cleaners
and how did you get into this?
Well, this is a beauty shop for show cars.
So if they need whatever they need, we got it.
We got air spray, we got shampoo, we got waxes,
we got greases, we got window cleaners,
we got chrome cleaners, we got tire washes,
we got everything. Yeah, this is it.
So this is first aid for your show cars and drag cars.
And mothers, Jim Holloway and Nick Tosi,
the general sales manager,
they've put this in progress and I'm out doing my tour.
And so they decided to hook this up
and now we bring mothers along
and it's all part of the show
and now we're all together.
It's just a good program.
Yeah, it's a good fit, thank you.
The product definitely has the car looking beautiful.
It looks like it was just freshly built this year.
Well, actually it wasn't, it was built in 22, but thank you.
Mothers has the products to do that
and I'm not a guy that likes to spend a lot of time
cleaning things because that's never been in my nature.
You just only go fast.
Yeah, it was go nut show.
In this particular thing, they've got a,
I love this waterless cleaner that they have.
It has wax in it.
You just spray that on and wipe it off.
It's fantastic stuff.
And we got some new ceramics that are really the raspberries
and that's all brand new at SEMA
and people are having great luck with that.
Looking back on your career, obviously they're here,
they're gonna give you a tribute,
you know, you're gonna go back down the track again
and all that.
From the start back on Woodward in the 50s till now,
what do you think of the hobby?
What do you think of the changes?
Where do you see the hobby going in the future?
Well, most of my career, it's grown.
It's grown and grown and grown.
And then something happened,
I guess it's the iPhone, the internet, I don't know.
And there seems to be more competition for young kids
and you see less.
And I wanna go back to the schools
because I like the shop classes
and I like working with their hands.
And that at a certain part of my life
almost became a liability.
People look down on people that work with their hands.
I was an airline pilot for Trans World Airlines.
Oh, cool.
And so that's working with your hands
and your head as well, but you still.
And so it seems like we've lost something here
in the culture and so working with your hands,
that's for other, you know, we pay for that.
Well, that's sort of what we do.
My whole career, I did how-to,
I did cookbook articles in Hot Rod
and popular hot rodding, car craft
and we were simply trying to give the information
to everybody so they could go build their own package.
And I call the 440 the blue collar hemi.
Because it's cheaper.
Something everybody can access.
Yeah, yeah, you can buy the engine on a motor home
and now there's companies like Trick Flow,
their American company,
they're one of the best cylinder heads for these.
By the way, when I did this project
there were no cars, if you remember,
winning an NHRA.
Now my understanding is it's the number one
big block parts machine, the big block mopars
save the big block Chevy.
It's number two.
So they sell more of this stuff
because it's available than the Fords
or the Pontiacs or the Olds.
This has passed them all up.
The hemi, you look, you know,
oh, that car's a hemi car.
Oh, that car's a hemi car.
The engine in my charger came out of a motor home.
Yeah, actually it did.
Yeah.
Yeah, that is a motor home block.
Yeah, nice.
And my race cars were because I use brand new blocks
that we got from Chrysler
and they were all the motor home truck block.
Yeah.
So if anybody wants to find out more
about what you're doing
or more about your history even
where would they go to look for it?
Well, I think a good place would be Dodge Garage.
Okay.
They keep up with that.
We have a website.
We'll be doing more posting with mothers.
We're gonna be doing some podcasts and so forth.
I do a podcast with Jeff Smith and Cam Bente.
It's called Confessions of a Car Guy.
Okay.
And that's kind of fun.
We tell stories there and we got time.
We usually do it at the Roadster Show.
And then stay tuned because we're gonna go
into the Gen 3 stuff with Jeff Kirk.
He's Blackbird.
He's the local guy here
and he's making lots of power.
And so we're gonna have his power in our new car.
Tony and Phil Mandela from PMR,
they built this car in 22.
They also built the Ford electric car
so it's a real top team.
It's one of the best there is.
They're building the new car
and we're gonna be debuting it, unveiling it at SEMA.
This year.
Both of these cars will be at SEMA
in the mother's display.
Okay, thanks so much, Paul.
Appreciate it.
Thanks for taking your time to see me today.
And I hope that everybody found this
a little bit interesting.
Thank you.
Well, we're still at Holly Moe Party
but we're in a really comfortable place.
A little breezeway here.
Got a big Holly sign behind us
and that means probably we're gonna talk
about some Holly stuff, which will be fun as well.
Here with Sparky, just before you guys are setting up here
for a demo of some good plug and play stuff
and Holly EFI and all that.
First, man, just thanks for your support
for the podcast and as a company
with getting some good reviews
and it's really helping out.
So we say thank you for that.
Yeah, I'm having you guys out here, man.
So a lot of people in our audience
are really into swaps.
That seems to be the big thing these days.
Oh yeah, the Gen 3 Hemi Swaps
is starting to become very popular now.
Can you run down what Holly is doing with that
and maybe what's new coming down the pike?
Well, new, I can't really disclose a lot.
Unfortunately, we're a publicly traded company,
so sorry, it's like Christmas time
when we come up with something new.
Surprise.
Yeah, so we got a line that's called Hooker Blackheart
and we have a lot of swap parts
especially for the Gen 3 Hemi stuff.
We offer you guys motor mounts, cross-member mounts.
We'll basically give you all the solutions
that you need to do a engine swap of that kind of nature.
You know, also we got some of our other companies,
Flowmaster, we offer exhaust systems.
We do a lot of stuff for some of the A-body stuff,
B-bodies and E-body stuff, Mopars.
But yeah, Gen 3 Hemi's are coming around.
Another thing we got from Holly
is we got with their mid-mount accessory drive.
Basically, if you're trying to put a Gen 3 Hemi
in something compact, like an E-body,
we have the whole front drive accessory
that keeps everything nice and tight and tucked
so you don't have to worry about anything
that kind of issues but you still have
the modern power steering, the modern water pump
and obviously AAC, that's a good thing.
And it's a great thing in Kentucky or in Texas
where I'm from or Mississippi,
wherever air conditioning is, that's a great thing.
Are there specific things, differences
than the Gen 3 package that are hard to address
or just maybe a challenge to address
from the old systems?
Nothing really, we just obviously
we gotta figure out how we can make these big motors
fit in smaller, you know, classic cars.
Basically, it was our big issue that we were having.
You know, we obviously got our Terminator X kits now
that does the whole standalone ECU
that basically if you get a junkyard Hemi
and you didn't get the harness that came with it,
you know, we have that solution.
Obviously it lets you get into the ECU
where you have full control of it.
That's kind of a nice thing when it comes to tuning,
especially when guys start hot rotting
and making race cars out of them
and you wanna have full control of your ECU
and that's where the Holly Terminator X
or Terminator X Max kit, you know, comes in play.
It changes a little bit every year
but what would you say is your sweet spot in spots?
Who are you getting calls from to do this?
As far as like the public, you talking about?
Yeah, yeah.
Just that, you know, every day calls, you know,
our public calls us and, you know,
a lot of these guys are getting, like I said,
they're taking these classic A bodies, B bodies
and E bodies and they're upgrading something
into more modern with better fuel injection
and fuel economy.
So that's why they're all going
through these Hemi motors now.
So we're standing under this awning here
and you are getting ready to do a seminar
for the, is it the Sniper 2?
Yeah, it's our Sniper 2 EFI seminar
we're gonna get ready to do.
Basically it replaces your carburetor.
Basically you can bolt this onto any kind of 4150 flange
style intake and basically it gives you
modern fuel injection and what I mean by that is the,
you know, basically your front flow bowl
will now become two injectors
and obviously the rear flow bowl
is now two injectors also.
Basically you got standard wiring, it's pretty easy.
It's basically four wires.
You got, you know, a power to your battery
and then a negative to your battery
and then you got a key 12
and then you got one blue wire
that's gonna trigger an electric fuel pump.
You can either do the one in the tank
because we have a lot of different retrofit
basic modules that go into
where your old fuel sending unit used to be
and that becomes now your fuel level
and also becomes your pump.
And then the nice thing with that is
when you keep your fuel pump in the gas tank
it keeps it submerged, it runs cooler,
helps the longevity of life with the fuel pump
and then obviously you don't hear it as much
because it's submerged with the fuel.
We give you a bunch of different options too
so if you have new modern computer control transmissions
now we have a trans control.
We also have now our Bluetooth module
so instead of using a standard three and a half inch screen
we have now an option to do the Bluetooth control
where you can basically adjust everything
off your phone or iPad now
and then obviously we have some different screens tune
you can use.
We have a five inch screen, we have a six 8.6
and then we have a 12.3 screen.
We've got some other cool stuff too.
We got a, it's called a PDM
it's a power distribution module
that basically makes the wiring of this thing
a plug and play
and also when you plug all the wires to that PDM
that PDM basically is a solid state relay
so it's kind of nice
and then it also has little warning lights on there
so if there was a problem that tripped it
you can go look at your PDM
and your PDM basically is like your little miniature fuse box
for your sniper too.
And that's a new product though
like maybe the last year or two maybe?
Yeah, it's been out just over a year now.
Yeah. Yep.
Obviously we have the whole hyper sparking mission
if you're an old school guy
and you used to have to don't have to worry
about points and condensers anymore
and you don't have to worry about getting your timing light out now
pretty much when you have a hyper spark ignition
you do everything from your handheld
or from your Bluetooth phone or iPad.
Pretty much you just tell the computer
hey I want you to start up at 15 degrees
give me total timing of 32
and boom it's done.
You don't have to like I said
get the timing light out or anything like that anymore.
Yeah and that unit's a lot smaller than the original.
Yeah. Probably half the size.
Yeah basically it's a little miniature ignition box
basically a MSD6 box
and then obviously you get a new coil
and a new distributor.
Very nice.
Okay, well we appreciate the time
and thanks for the support
and catchin' us up on everything.
And yeah, love havin' you guys out here
thank you guys for supportin' our events
and yeah, look forward to next year
have you guys out.
Have fun with the seminar.
All right.
Thank you guys, take care.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
So we are here at Moe Party 2025
basically in the Moe Park connection booth
and we've stumbled upon another
soon to be friend of the show.
Yeah.
Current friend of the show.
Russ Bucket Restorations.
We're looking at his super bee here.
It looks nice, but he's got a really good story
goin' with it.
Go ahead and introduce yourself.
Tell us who you are, what you do
and why we're here standing next to this car right now.
Yeah, so my name is Dave Swaringer.
I'm based out of Ogden, Utah.
Maybe about five years ago or so
we started takin' on some pretty crazy Mopar builds
68 Charger, 71 CUDA.
We've got a 68 Satellite,
the Rattie Saddy
and then in January,
this car came available
and it was formerly owned by Kevin Shaw.
A lot of you guys may know it as the Zombie,
but he'd had it
and it has a crazy history
and it was just such a strange car
that needed a whole lot of love
and a lot of help
and I saw it
and I immediately reached out to Kevin.
I psycho called him, texted him, emailed him,
every possible way I could
and I even had other people get in hold of him
and man, actually between Christmas and New Year's
we drove 4,000 miles round trip
and drove all the way out from Ogden
to Nashville to pick it up
and yeah, so we started on the car
back around March 15th or so
and when we got it, it was pretty much just a shell,
frame rails and rockers, right?
And really since then we've had to completely
We showed us the picture earlier
and it was like,
I don't know if you could even say it's got frame rails.
The frame rails were surprisingly solid
for how rusted out the floors were in it.
But yeah, we had to do a complete front to back
belly pan on it
just to get the metal right
and then of course with the 70s
there's no aftermarket quarter panels
that you can get
so these are actually 69 quarter panels
that we had to shorten by about three and a half inches
and we also had to section in the scallops here
the 70 scallops
so a whole lot of work to get those right
but it actually turned out pretty good.
I don't, I haven't seen anybody else do it that way
but it worked out all right.
After that, we let it up everything
finished up all the metal work on it
and it is kind of a strange color
it's a factory beige with orange interior
so and then also with it being a post car
it could be a super low numbers
I don't know somebody that'd be crazy enough
to buy that combination.
Most Mopar owners would say it's a one of one.
I am documented the one of one
or even better than one of one.
Right, right.
It's like an orange creamsicle color.
So after we got the metal right
we reached out, worked with QA1
with Holley, US car tool, pipes,
cold case, a bunch of people
and so the car's all complete
front to back QA1 component
so it's got power rack and pinion tubular
everything on coil overs all the way around.
It's got a rear four link, a 354 Dana
and we found out today at Hall's ass so.
Finally today?
Yeah, yeah.
We also worked with Skog and Dicky
so it's got a stage four cam set up in it
but it's a six four Hemi pushing about 600 horse
and we literally finished it
the day before we had to load up
and drive 1600 miles to get here.
So the car has 35 miles on the build
we did a bunch of burnouts with it
once we got it right
and drove it roughly 30 miles
and loaded it straight on the trailer
and beat the hell out of it today
and it still runs.
So it's crazy.
It's been an every day, every night kind of thing
since the middle of March
and still in shock that it's here
but happy it is and happy everybody can see it.
You said it's got a very interesting backstory.
Is that something you want to talk about?
I don't know all the details of it exactly
but this car has sat for a really long time
and I know it's been to a lot of different shops
and it's been in various stages of disassembly
I think for the last few years
and so you saw the photos of when I got it right
so there's a few boxes of parts
and really just a rusted out shell that had been dissected
and yeah, I was on Dolly's when I got it
and looks like it does today.
So what's the future plans for it?
Man, I'm not too sure yet.
I know number one as I found out today
it's only got lap belts in it
and it's got my 68 charger seats in it
so I was gonna go to the swap meet today
and go pick up some actual Coronet
or Super B seats for it.
It might have gotten a little busy.
Yeah.
We need to get some better seats
and better harnesses
because I'm sliding all over the seat
the whole time we're out there
and but no, we just want something that we can run
and drive and reliably take anywhere we want to
drive across the country
or do power tour events with it
but we're just happy to have it here.
What made you to settle on the QA1 stuff?
I did it on one car
and now every single car I've got
has the exact same setup in it.
The charger, the Cuda, the satellite
they've all got the exact same stuff in it
and my philosophy is if I have to replace it
especially on something like this
none of these are rare number cars
or not Hemi cars or anything
so I wanna make them fast and fun
and if I have to replace it
it's gonna be something better
than what it was originally.
Very cool.
So are you doing the builds on
any social media platforms?
Where would people go to find out
more about what it is you're doing?
Yep, so I do document all the builds
in pretty painful detail
but I think it helps out a lot of people
with their restorations and stuff
but we document all that stuff
on our YouTube channel at Russ Bucket Restos
and then I do post a whole lot of like DIY things
on our Instagram as well
and just kind of more frequent updates there
but yeah we've got some fun builds coming up
and this is one that I'm again
I'm just still in shock that it's actually here.
So you say you have 30 some odd miles on it
prior to coming here
and I see you're doing the grand champion competition
can you talk about what all events are part of that?
So it's three different races
we've got the autocross that we did today
they're doing the drag racing right now
so quarter mile drags
and then I believe on Sunday
we're doing what's called a 3S challenge
I don't know a lot about it
but I've been told it's like a slalom course
and it's almost like parking a car in your garage
at 60 miles an hour.
Sweet.
So I can't wait.
I mean we were standing on the brakes today
thankfully they worked really good.
So you signed up for something
that you don't even know what you're doing?
No, I just knew I wanted a lot of track time
and have a lot of fun.
Yeah, do a good shake down with it.
Wish we could have done it before we came here.
Well very cool, thank you for grabbing us
and dragging us down here
I only know one or two of us
were kicking and screaming coming down here
but as soon as I heard the story
I'm like this is going to be a good thing
for people to check out
and see what's going on with it.
Saving cars that other people
would have just pitched into garbage.
Absolutely.
Well thanks for having me on, I appreciate it.
Thank you so much.
Okay, we're at, it's a pretty truck
it says sublime technology zone
we're here and I'm going to let you
introduce yourself back to our audience again
and then tell us what we're looking at
this little bitty lawnmower accessory
that you have here.
So I'm Blake Anderman with Sublime Technologies
and we are standing in front, two things
it's our test stand where we do a lot of R&D
and it is also our demonstrator
from when we come out to show people
how effective these swaps can be
and how easy they are to actually go through
with and implement them.
That's really what we have here
we have the full blown demonstration set up
we're going to walk through it pretty easily
and I'm going to verbally kind of communicate
what we're doing here and how quick this is.
So get this, we're going to get this engine fired up
we're going to install this wiring harness
less than three minutes and less than three minutes
we're going to turn the key and this thing's going to run.
We can't wait let's do this.
Okay, first thing what we need to do
is we need to look at the engine as a whole.
So for those of y'all sitting here today
the engine harness that is on this engine
on the stand is a factory engine harness
as it is pulled out of a charger or challenger.
There's nothing specialized about this.
If you were to buy an engine say from a salvage yard
or from a reputable auto parts dealer
it's going to be just like this.
You'll have the main harness
and then you'll have two connectors
a body connector which is the small oval connector
here towards the side of the ECU
and then there's a rectangular connector
this ECM connector.
That's all factory.
What we do is we take the factory ECU
that also comes with the engine
and we unlock its capabilities.
We take out the security protocols
that would prevent it from running standalone
and recalibrate it so it also doesn't need
all that CAN bus language to get it started.
All the separate modules that come in a modern car
there's no need for those in a classic.
We need to keep it simple.
We want the power.
We want the drivability, the reliability
but we just don't want all the headaches
and all those extra wires.
They're not necessary.
So our quick run harness kit
is a fully entailed quick kit
and its name really signifies what it is.
It's supposed to get you up and running quickly.
So you connect one ECU connector,
you connect the body connector
and then it's a simple five wire hookup after that.
Over here, what we call the loose ends.
We have a large blue wire
and they're all labeled.
This wire 10 goes to the positive post
on your electronic fuel pump.
Then we have a ground wire, wire 15.
You just ground it to your chassis.
Nothing really special about it
as long as a good, clean contact ground.
We have the larger wire right here
which is wire 21, large gauges
to the positive posts of your battery terminal
or battery supply.
Constant power, right?
Then we have wire 13.
You connect that to a source
that's 12 volts when you're in the cranking position.
So your ignition key is rolled to start.
That would be what you would tie into.
A lot of times what we do for those in the old Moparis
is we actually take the two ballast resistor wires
off the firewall, twist them together
and tie it to wire 19.
It's a perfect place to tie in.
Wire 13, I'm sorry, is the starter wire.
So that's when the starter is in the crank position.
Okay?
So we have those five wires hooked up.
Our kit comes with two additional wires
because let's face it,
I'm from Louisiana and I like air conditioning.
And it gets a little bit hot now in the boot.
And Mississippi, as you know.
So wire 22 is a wiring that goes through our system,
through the original harness
and connects to the AC compressor clutch.
So this gives you a nice tie-in for say a vintage air
or something like that.
Optional, doesn't make the engine run
but it's just nice to have.
This yellow wire is just number 51.
It is an optional starter wire.
A lot of times with these hemi swaps
people interchange transmissions.
They'll say, I really want to run an old school 727
or I want to run a four speed pistol grip.
Something that has a starter on a different side.
With these modern hemi's,
the starter can go on either side.
This wire is just an extra wire.
If you move the starter around,
you can just tap in here
and it will go to your starter solenoid.
Not necessary, but it's a nice to have.
And I've done a lot of talking just now
but this thing is ready to fire.
You ready?
I'm ready.
So we're going to go ahead and turn the key on.
That's it.
That's it.
It's that easy.
Surely you forgot something.
If anything I think I did forget,
I didn't plug in the gas pedal.
So shame on me.
There you go.
I did forget something.
Now I need this engine for my RAM charger.
This is 6.4 with an eight speed automatic behind it.
And you get all the power and all the MPGs.
I know a guy.
You're not too far away from me either, are you?
No, no.
How's it going?
Is it?
It's going really well.
It's going really well.
So we're really getting a lot of love from the community,
from the automotive community.
Sales have been growing tremendously.
A lot of it is due to shows like this,
getting that outreach out there.
So my wife, who is a school teacher for years,
God bless her.
She's awesome.
We grew so big I couldn't no longer keep up.
We couldn't keep up in the shop.
My wife quit her day job as a school teacher.
She now works for the business full time,
answering phones, shipping orders,
doing all those things.
Not only is she able to be home with our kids
and our family and do those things,
but she has a flexibility and she helps me tremendously.
So I get emotional just thinking about it.
Like the reception has been insane.
It's really taken off.
We're hoping to see things get even better in the future.
We're working on some new items and groundbreaking stuff.
Like I said, this is an R&D machine.
Right now we have this window in Hemi Swaps.
From 2011 through 2014 where those ECUs,
they're not usable in swaps.
We can't get them into a standalone condition.
We're working on that.
It takes a lot of learning and a lot of time,
but it's worth it.
It's worth it to be able to help people out
with their swaps.
Is there any support from the manufacturer
or do they just say leave us alone,
stop messing with it and you're on your own to do it?
You do get some help from maybe previous employees,
people that'll give you a little golden nugget
on where to look.
We've gotten some good stuff that way.
But as an entirety, you know where the help comes from?
The community.
There's so many people that have walked by today
and that have said, hey, by the way, I found this out.
And they come and share that with us
and they see it's a reciprocal relationship.
I'm gonna tell you the secrets.
I want you to be successful and do all these things.
And then it comes back full circle.
It really does, you know?
So I'll tell you right here, look on this run stand.
This alternator may not look like much, right?
This is a prime example of that.
There's an issue with these swaps
where if you have say an E-body or an A-body,
the alternator would come into contact
with the subframe on the front of the car.
It's very tight tolerances.
This is an alternator from a 2007, 2008 Jeep Grand Cherokee.
Right?
It fits the exact same time and cover.
It bolts from the front as opposed to the side
and it sucked in tighter.
That came to me from a friend of mine, Christine,
that does the Hemiswap seminars with us in Carlisle.
I got that information from her.
Now, they didn't fit the newer,
like say the post eagle stuff.
They really work well.
Like if you look at my orange car over there,
it's a direct bolt in, but with the newer stuff,
there was a pulley misalignment,
which is why we developed this offset pulley
to rectify that situation.
Other than that, it bolts right in.
But I didn't come up with that on my own.
People helped us.
Before that was a frame notch.
Yes.
Did we talk about that last year?
Yeah, frame notch was what you had to do.
And if you have a really collectible vehicle,
like that car over there, for me was a dream car, right?
It is a real J code AAR.
And I probably would get burned at the stake
at an all out AARTA reunion for having a modern Hemi in it.
But I also knew that I wanted to have that ability
to go back original if I wanted to.
I didn't want to cut on that car at all.
This saved me from having to cut on that car.
And that was something I got from someone else.
Are there two lines of customers for you?
Are the ones that pull their own Hemiswap
or buy them great?
And ones that you buy great and then supply the package?
And we got a full mix.
Some people want brand new, 100% new.
And I met with an individual at Carlyle this year.
We kind of covered all the pros and cons of everything.
There is security in buying new crate engines.
So I never want to diminish that.
Mancini Racing was really a good one in the game
and they have great prices on new engines.
The issue is you got to look at things
from a whole perspective, right?
Do you want to have that warranty,
that reliability of a new engine
that say, yes, I bought this brand new.
I know if something's wrong, I could bring it right back.
That may have a specific weight to you,
but there's a financial advantage to doing a pullout.
You already have all your accessories.
You already have the ECU.
You have a lot of the components that you need.
You don't have to go out and buy.
So purchasing a low-mile pullout,
especially from a reputable salvage ore
that gives you maybe a 90-day warranty
or something like that,
why wouldn't you use that?
Because all of the extras really do add up.
Okay, now I have to buy an alternator.
I have to buy a AC compressor.
I have to buy an intake manifold.
I have to buy this, that, this, that.
It adds up.
There's a trade-off.
Do you want to know that you have something new?
Or in the case of this,
what's really funny is before this engine stand,
I had a 5.7 on here.
And that's in our new Jeep project,
which you may have seen on social media.
That was a salvage yard.
Actually, it was a police auction.
It was in the police salvage yard.
We got it from our Baton Rouge Police Department.
It was a 2018 Dodge Charger.
I thought it looked really clean
besides the gaping hole on the passenger side.
You know, I'm like, man, this car is pretty shiny.
It's got to be low miles,
but I bid on it anyway knowing
that it was T-boned really hard for it.
We got it home,
fired up the instrument cluster,
18,000 miles on it.
I paid $800 for that car.
The fuel rails were still polished
and the condition was great.
So I really implore people
to get creative and have fun with it.
And you don't need a brand new one.
It's nice.
Don't get me wrong.
But you're gonna save so much money
with accessories and all the little bolt-on things
that'll get you.
Is there a sweet spot for people who are coming to you
for a specific model year range?
There is.
I used to say there's no such thing as a bad Hemi.
Let's do them all now.
But the thing is, these engines are getting old.
The first ones are over 20 years old now.
Introduced in 2003.
Discontinuation of parts has become real.
So when you get older Hemi's from 2003 to 2008, 2009,
those old-style ECUs and connectors,
they're discontinued.
They're hard to get.
I had to buy a batch of connectors out of Europe
two years ago just to get them
because it's really hard.
It's hard to get some parts.
Now, when you look at new stuff,
15 and newer, it's everywhere still.
And the compatibility with eight-speed kits
and all the bells and whistles
and the cool tech that people really enjoy,
it exists with the 15 and newer.
So when you run the eight-speed kits,
you can run modern instrument clusters
and have them fully functional.
That's cool.
So yes, the sweet spot, I would say,
is anything 15 or newer.
Blake, tell us how they get ahold of you.
This is great.
We've been following you since the start,
before the sublime was sublime.
So we joke about this.
You guys, we've been together, man, years, years and years.
I remember having interviews with Rob
in my office at a construction trailer
at a chemical plant site,
I think before my kids were born.
I mean, way back in the day.
To go from that to maybe two years ago,
out here, showing parts that we made on a rag,
a shop rag on a folding table,
to what we have now, it's been crazy.
So I'm really appreciative of your support.
We're glad to do it.
And by the way, you've noticed
that there's somebody missing.
Oh, Miss Katie.
And Mr. Rob is not here with us here.
He thought he would just sit in the trailer
and stay cool,
but then he decided not to come at all.
He said, you guys got it.
I'm not so sure about that.
There's been a lot of security.
You have a handsome stand-in.
We do have a handsome stand-in.
A handsome stand-in.
He's running the camera over there.
Mr. Nathan Warren.
Don't laugh.
It just shakes the camera.
Makes it unusable.
That's not right, so.
I didn't know the fireworks started so soon.
Rob is dearly missed.
I do appreciate talking with him every year,
as do the rest of you guys.
So I appreciate you coming by.
You can get a hold of me.
Blake at DIYHemmy is my email address, direct.
Or Blake at SublimeParts.com.
Both of those still work.
Good to the same place.
The website is sublimeparts.com.
And you can follow us on all the social media channels.
It has been great to catch up with you again.
Thank you for the time,
for the demonstration.
I look forward to next time.
Okay, there you go.
Whole party 2025 done in the can.
And we're looking forward to 26.
Thank you again, gang, for going.
We will be off of this show next week.
No show next week.
It's the last week of September.
And we've already done three shows this month.
We will be back though,
for the first Friday of October.
Between now and then.
Hit me up on Facebook or Instagram anytime.
Be sure to sign up for our weekly email newsletter.
You can do all of 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.
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See you soon at the Muscle Car Place.
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.
About this episode
Recapping the lively Holley MoParty 2025, this episode features insights from drag racing legend Paul Rossi, along with industry experts Steve Sparkman from Holley, Dave Swearinger of Rust Bucket Restorations, and Blake Anderman from Sublime Technologies. The discussions cover everything from drag racing strategies to innovative tech in muscle car restorations. Rossi emphasizes the importance of torque in racing, while the guests share their experiences and advancements in performance parts and engine swaps. The atmosphere is filled with camaraderie, car culture, and a celebration of the muscle car community.
While Rob stayed back to support Dallas’s racing season, the Kibbe and Friends crew stormed Holley Moparty 2025 to capture the best stories on the grounds. From drag racing icon Paul Rossi sharing his trailblazing Mopar legacy, to Dave Swearinger’s track-ready “ZomBEE” Super Bee build, to new tech insights from Holley’s Steve Sparkman and Sublime’s Blake Anderman — this episode is packed with passion, horsepower, and the future of Mopar performance.