Roadkill Garage

This is the pilot episode of an all-new show that will be appearing exclusively on Motor Trend On Demand monthly in 2016. Roadkill Garage features David Freiburger from Roadkill and Steve Dulcich from Engine Masters (but, don't worry, Mike Finnegan is still the co-host on Roadkill). RK Garage will show Freiburger and Dulcich wrenching on Roadkill project cars and other things that meet the Roadkill vibe. They'll show you how to do the wrong things the right way. In this episode, the guys attempt a three-day overhaul of the 351 Cleveland engine from the '67 Mercury Cougar that belonged to Freiburger when the show began, but that transferred to Dulcich before the shoot was over. The "rebuild" is not exactly kosher, but it's dirt cheap and generates good tire smoke!

Hosts David Freiburger and Mike Finnegan met up with Steve Dulcich to drag a '70 Plymouth Duster out of a purgatory of mud at Dulcich's farm, then stabbed a big-block Mopar under the hood and blasted 12.34 seconds in the quarter-mile. In this episode of Roadkill Garage, the Crop Duster is back! It has a fresh, 500-horsepower 383 engine now, and is fresh off the road from Hot Rod magazine's Drag Weekend event where—it will come as no surprise—the car had some trouble. That included a wiring fire and a fuel-delivery problem that held the car back to a 12.06-second e.t.—not much better than the old 12.34 considering the newer, much more powerful engine. In this Roadkill Garage, Freiburger and Dulcich attack those demons, have a lot of fun in the process, and return to the drag strip in the hunt for the elusive 11-second timeslip.

Roadkill Garage is all about what two average guys can get done in a single weekend of wrenching, and this time hosts David Freiburger and Steve Dulcich will show you how to revive an engine that's been rotting outside since Ronald Reagan was president. The patient is a gutted 1975ish Dodge pickup with a 360ci small-block V-8. When the adventure starts, the guys have no clue if the engine can be saved at all, but in the end, it's out doing donuts! Watch and learn how to get a long-neglected engine back on the road.

Meet the new project tire-fryer we call Vanishing Paint!In the last episode of Roadkill Garage, Freiburger and Dulcich had a blast getting an old Dodge 360 small-block V-8 running and driving in a gutted, old truck. But there was a plan behind the stupidity: jerk that engine and revive a '70 Dodge Challenger that had been off the road since at least 1989! It's a simple plan that ends well—but not without some fubar Roadkill action along the way.

David Freiburger and Steve Dulcich thrive on rescuing long-abandoned vehicles from rotting neglect, and this time they revive a 1967 Jeep J100 panel truck from the backyard of Jp Magazine Editor Rick Péwé. The truck is an Army-issue Audio-Visual Panel Delivery that was used for field media production and, from what we can tell, only about 2,500 of these trucks were made. It's loaded with an AMC 232ci straight-six, three-on-the-tree manual trans, and Dana 20 transfer case for four-wheel drive. It's sweet, but it has not been on the road since 1995, and Freiburger's on a deadline to drive it up to the Southern California Timing Association's land speed races at El Mirage Dry Lake so he can work patrol duty…and then do some four-wheeling with the old beast that's now known as the Flannel Wagon.

One of the most popular project vehicles on the Roadkill series is the Muscle Truck, a 1974 Chevy stepside pickup loaded with an LS6 engine. This time on Roadkill Garage, the truck gets a mini-makeover in preparation for the 2016 Hot Rod Power Tour. Some of the planned changes are designed for better highway cruising, but there's an important question to be answered: is the Muscle Truck still capable of massive burnouts for distance? Of course we find that out the fun way in Roadkill Garage episode 6. Thanks to LMC Truck and Jegs for product support on this episode.

David Freiburger finally gets to do some four-wheeling on Roadkill! Or Roadkill Garage, anyway. In this episode, he and Steve Dulcich attack the Jeep Scrambler that's been in the Freiburger fleet for about 20 years. It's a quality, old-school rockcrawler with 42-inch Swampers, Dana 60s, Air Lockers, 7.17 gears, an Atlas transfer case and NV4500 trans, and spring-over suspension. But it's been neglected for a decade, with only occasional car-crushing action. The guys pull it out of hiding, spiff up the mechanical glitches, and head out for some hard-core rockcrawling—with predictable #BecauseRoadkill results.

The action, the wrenching, and the budget are all extreme on Roadkill Garage as we introduce a new project car: the Crew Cab Chevelle! Have you ever wished you could have an old muscle car but couldn't afford one? We did, and that's why this episode is about doing it dirt cheap and living with a couple of extra doors as we build up a cool, vintage body style: a 1966 Chevy Chevelle sedan that we bought for $1,000. David Freiburger and Steve Dulcich show you how to revive a long-dormant engine before rolling into the predictable Roadkill-level snafu that has them changing an entire engine fast and cheap. The goal: bucketloads of sideways action on a homegrown oval track!

Steve Dulcich – "Roadkill Garage mixes low-tech wrenching for the glory of achieving better than expected performance and plenty of fun. In episode 9 we performed simple but effective modifications to a junk 1966 Chevelle four-door sedan, including an all-used drivetrain. The capper here is a head-to-head autocross shootout against a very well set up Pro Touring style Chevelle with surprising results."

The Crop Duster is Roadkill's back-to-basics street and strip machine with big-block power. In this episode, you'll see it run in the 11s for the first time and make its quickest quarter-mile run ever--and that's in no-prep track conditions--after David Freiburger and Steve Dulcich rework the suspension and hack 100 pounds out of the car. The engine currently in the Crop Duster is a 508hp, 395ci big-block that runs on 91-octane pump gas. The transmission is a TCI Torqueflite 727, and the rearend carries 4.10 gears.

For no good reason, David Freiburger has always wanted to drive a Pontiac Bonneville to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah—a freakish landscape of dead-flat, hard-packed salt where land-speed racing has been taking place since 1914. It's also where Freiburger has set a number of records between 225 and 251 mph, but this time it's all about the vacation and not the speed. After Steve Dulcich buys a 1967 Pontiac Bonneville station wagon, the guys do minimal prep and hit the road for adventure and zip tie–wielding fun before they arrive at Bonneville for a big surprise.

In Roadkill Episode 58, David Freiburger scored the car he'd wanted for 20-plus years, a 1971 Plymouth Road Runner. It was a decent car, mostly original with 95,000 miles on it, but a repaint had turned to chalk, and it looked ridiculous with tiny tires. In this episode of Roadkill Garage, we head to the Steve Dulcich Dog Farm to fix all of that and start turning it into a daily driver. You won't believe the paint's transformation!

David Freiburger's 1971 Plymouth Road Runner is all neato and stuff, but it's shamefully gutless. In this episode of Roadkill Garage, we'll show you how to do some basic engine checks on an older car to find out why it's not making power. The guys will also hop it up a little with a vintage intake manifold and fresh Holley carb, then "scientifically" test the results.