TV Show Covering Re-Engineered Mopars

[dqhemi]

Dream Car Garage on Speed is covering the complete re-engineering of Classic Mopar 68-70 B and 70-74 E Bodies throughout their 2006 season. We are re-engineering every aspect of these cars other than how they look. We will be selling the cars as production vehicles as well as all the parts that are being developed for them.

The truly unique aspect of this is that the technology being used is truly state of the art technology, much of it typically only available at the OE level and for professional race teams, and all of the work is being done by profesional engineers in each area of discipline. For example, we are using a four post suspension rig to evaluate and dial in the suspensions. This is a computer controlled piece of test equipment that evaluates spring rates, damper settings and identifies any imbalances in the vehicle.

We also did full torsion tests of the vehicle before and after we made up chassis stiffening components.

We are doing two levels of suspensions, with the Level II being a complete redesign of the front and rear eliminating the torsion bars and leaf springs. We are also having brake packages designed specifically for the vehicles. We also have a full 5.7 and 6.1 Hemi engine development program and already have a number of high performance parts for these to upgrade them with.

Anyway, the TV show is covering the full development process, which is very unique. We also have lots of engineering information on our web site explaining what this stuff is and how it is being done.

The attached pics will give you an idea of what we're doing with one of our engineering cars.

Given the focus of this website, I thought you guys would be interested in all of this and enjoy the TV shows. There are 13 episodes, the first of which aired last week. Here are the times the remaining shows air each week on Speed (all EST):

Wed 7:00 PM
Thu 7:00 AM
Sat 9:30 AM
Sun 10:00 PM
Sun 3:00 AM

I haven't posted here before. If this is of interest, I'm happy to give you more details. If you take the time to drill through the engineering section of our site you will have a pretty good handle on what we're doing. I think you will find that much of it is being taken to a different level - Mopar or otherwise.

I hope you find the TV shows interesting.

John Buscema
XV Motorsports
www.xvmotorsports.com (http://www.xvmotorsports.com/)

[vanzuuk1]

John , cool cars , I want to see your showroom when its ready.

[derekf]

Welcome to the site, John. I did catch the first ep of this season of DCG and did see some of the stuff y'all are doing. I'm sure you'll be getting lots of questions from the folks here about what you find.

[southernfriedcj]

John,

I saw the first show Sunday. What are your price points?

Jim

[dqhemi]

John,

I saw the first show Sunday. What are your price points?

Jim

All you want to know is the price?

We're still working on pricing for vehicles, but we expect the cars to range from $120K to $250K. We expect our average car to be about $150K
The price is determined by what goes into a specific car - engine, suspension and brake packages selected, 5 or 6 speed and other options - and also what vehicle we start with - year and model, hardtop vs. convertible.

70-71 Ebodies are more expensive than other year E Bodies. 71 barracudas or Cudas are the most expensive for us to acquire. Convertible E bodies are the absolute hardest and most expensive. 72-74 Cudas can be done for much less than a 70 or 71.

B Bodies are cheaper than E Bodies, generally, but Chargers are harder to get and more expensive.

So a maxed out convertible E body will be at the top of that scale. We have a pretty good inventory of bodies for builds right now including a couple of convertible E-Bodies, many hard top E bodies, a couple of Chargers and other B Bodies (roadrunners and GTX).

Every car undergoes a full rotisserie restoration and are re-built from the ground up. Web site has specs of what the builds look like. For the money, buyers will be getting a lot and a package that has been very fully engineered and tested.

We're also happy to sell virtually all of the parts we've developed for our cars as well. So if you want to do it yourself, you can build something very similar on your own.

John Buscema
XV Motorsports
www.xvmotorsports.com (http://www.xvmotorsports.com)

[Bigblue73]

John;
I caught your segment this morning on DCG and have placed a phone call into you. I've very interested in the suspension work / components that you have developed for the E-bodies. Do you offer the suspension work only?

By the way, welcome to the site. It's great to have you on board offering Mopar solutions.

[dqhemi]

John;
I caught your segment this morning on DCG and have placed a phone call into you. I've very interested in the suspension work / components that you have developed for the E-bodies. Do you offer the suspension work only?

By the way, welcome to the site. It's great to have you on board offering Mopar solutions.

We are selling complete cars and all the components and sub-systems we have developed for them - so yes you can get just the suspension.

We are developing two levels of suspensions for the cars and both are being done using state of the art technology and techniques that have never been applied to cars of this vintage. We are also having professional engineers doing the development work, all of whom work on full race and OE road car projects.

If you caught the last show, Larry Holt explained this and that we are using some of the same tools used by F1 teams they support for suspension development. They also do work for IRL, Champ, GrandAm and NASCAR teams, as well as suspension development projects for the OE manufacturers for production and special project vehicles.

In the next episode, they will show and explain how the four post rigs are used, torsion testing of the cars, CMM with Faro arm (there was/is no data available on these suspensions to build CAD models from). The software being used is what the OE's use to design their cars today and can run virtual simulations of the cars running around road courses or slalom courses.

Our Level II suspension should be about as good as it can be given the state of technology today for the given platforms we are working with. All of our Level II suspension components are being developed in aluminum, including control arms, spindles, K-member, rear links and panhard bar. It is an SLA seup in the front and three link w/ panhard bar out back, with true road race quality coilovers at all four coners that have been fully dialed in for track duty, but still deliver acceptable levels of driver comfort for the street.

Our web site has detailed info in the engineering section on much of this. We're applying the same levels of technology and discipline to every aspect of these vehicles, as much as we are able to. We're trying very hard to bring things to a very different level.

I'll give you a call when I have a moment.

John Buscema
XV Motorsports
www.xvmotorsports.com (http://www.xvmotorsports.com)

[boodlefoof]

Awesome! Just out of curiosity, what were the baseline torsional rigidity numbers?

[Steve Chryssos]

Very interesting. Good luck with the venture. Is the shop open for visits from the locals?

[dqhemi]

Awesome! Just out of curiosity, what were the baseline torsional rigidity numbers?

I don't have that info handy, but once all the engineering is done, we will post before and after results on many aspects of the suspensions.

We recorded base line track data for comparative purposes using a GPS based data acquisition system. We can overlay laps on the cars at the track before and after to see how we've done corner by corner.

John Buscema
XV Motorsports
www.xvmotorsports.com (http://www.xvmotorsports.com)

[dqhemi]

Very interesting. Good luck with the venture. Is the shop open for visits from the locals?

My showroom won't be open until May or June, here in NY and of course people will be welcome to visit there.

Cars are built and engineering is being done at another location, in Ontario, Canada.

John Buscema
XV Motorsports.com
www.xvmotorsports.com (http://www.xvmotorsports.com)

[Damn True]

Wow, that is very cool. I'd like to see that level of testing applied to more aftermarket products.

[vanzuuk1]

Cool, his shop is two minute from my house.

[gsxrken]

Very nice website, too. Good luck with your venture; the super high-end of the market is generally recession proof.

[ilovefirstgens]

Of corse once i dont have my 69 charger someone comes out with hardcore suspension peices.... dang!

[Mean 69]

Of corse once i dont have my 69 charger someone comes out with hardcore suspension peices.... dang!

They aren't the only ones doing good stuff for Mopars now, at least in terms of the suspension.
M

[High Plains Mopars]

Glad to see some serious analysis and upgrades being made availale for Mopars.

[dqhemi]

Wow, that is very cool. I'd like to see that level of testing applied to more aftermarket products.

We have been extremely fortunate in getting access to the tools and talent we have and are very grateful for it. Given the objectives of our overall project, we believe that the levels of testing, which are integral to the entire development process, are essential.

We are spending a lot of time making sure everything is tested and dialed in.

John Buscema
XV Motorsports
www.xvmotorsports.com (http://www.xvmotorsports.com)

[dqhemi]

Glad to see some serious analysis and upgrades being made availale for Mopars.

We fully committed ourselves to developing many pieces for the Mopars. Part of the reason we focused on them is because while they are wildly popular, the aftermarket has largely ignored them, other than for drag racing.

If you look at the Mopars relative to other high performance platforms its very puzzling so little has been developed. We are also behind the 5.7 and 6.1 Hemi in a big way. Many different products will be rolled out over the next several months.

We're applying the same level of discipline to every piece being developed. Part of that is because virtually everyone involved has racing backgrounds in many different venues.

John Buscema
XV Motorsports
www.xvmotorsports.com (http://www.xvmotorsports.com)

[High Plains Mopars]

Thanks John, I for one really appreciate it. With my background in oval track racing, I've always been amazed at the amount of misinformation and all around voodoo a lot of mopar owners subscribe to when building a decent street performance vehicle.

I did get a chance to catch the first episode of Dream Car Garage. It was hilarious to watch those old cars wallow their way around the track. What really shocks me though is how many people today are still, 35 years later, still willing to accept that in their classic Mopar.

I'm also jazzed about the new Hemi development as well. It's about time Mother came out with a modern engine that was worth getting excited about.

Muchas gracias!!