posted 03-22-2012 10:28 AM                  

Keep in mind we still need to complete welding it, and grinding smooth. Then everything will get smoothed out with the body work before paint.

I think its going to look mean!

We have been able to work on it pretty much all week. Lots of time into each piece getting the curve and fit perfect. But this is defiantly the best way to do this, all out of aluminum.
-----------
Here was the
Idea and concept with tape last week

Work in progress this week

posted 04-14-2012 08:57 AM                  

There is potiental drag and road course testing that week in north carolina. If all goes well i may just do it. We will see what happens. Im more for quality of the build than rushing it. I have a lifetime to enjoy it when it's done. I want to do alot of testing in north Carolina before bringing it back to NJ.

Will have more picts soon . Thanks for checking in.

posted 04-16-2012 08:50 AM                  

The group I ran with was called supercar challenge. They have to look  stock but they are super fast. Mid 12s some 13s http://supercarraces.com/main.html

I won best looking car of everyone racing across the entire day!! 

It was great thanks for your help! Ran great

Can't wait to put the prowler back on the track. It's gonna be great
Gopro videos are great

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG1f17wWLDA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2D8T7EdwZA

posted 04-19-2012 04:11 PM                  

He said I always really like the prowler but we should have put a hemi in it. Did you see our Howler concept?
I talked about POA and showed a bunch of pictures, he really liked the Srt-8 6.1 hemi project.

I was also sitting by his wife who said I love Prowlers!!

So many people from across the MOPAR world where into it and Im also hoping to have the car featured at the Chrysler Nationals in Carlisle PA on 7/6 if all goes well!

I also met the guys from supercar races, shown above that do old school cars that race and the crossfire guys.
They are sponsoring a track day in north carolina the same weekend that I hope to pick up the car on 6/2 if all goes well I just may join them on the track for some testing.

Yes I do plan on driving the car from Wilmington NC all the way back to NJ. This will not be a trailer queen car but one that rides to shows, gets on the track and looks good too!!

posted 04-19-2012 04:35 PM                  

Well the shaker hood is done and off to paint. It took much more to do it right well into 50 custom man hours but the Final product is going to be great.
 

So we started with a hole in the hood

Original concept was to build it up with fiberglass but the team moved to do it all in hand crafted Aluminum like the actual hood.

They shaped it using tape to set the design and then piece by piece build it up to match perfectly. 

Final completed hood before prep and paint.

The hood is off to the paint and body prep shop to get everything smooth and looking like stock and perfect color match. I will wait to see what it looks like before deciding if we will go with shinny black shaker coming through or red match.

No once the hood is built on the outside it also needs to be sealed underneath

In this pict see the  ring we made under the hood to close in the hood gap,

Only 1/2 was done in the picture, it has 3d curves in both directions and was made by hammering the aluminum over a sand bag until it was the right shape then welding in.

Now what  you see here is raw forged aluminum. May not look like much now bur When the finished product is posted next week it will all make sense.
Not this is all hand built craftsmanship by  the performance innovations crew.

posted 04-19-2012 04:46 PM                  

The way the shaker works is it pulls cold air from the outside filters it, and in the front of the shaker it ports directly to the throttle body which sits in the front of the hemi motor.

This is a stock shaker as provided by Afr for the challenger. The cover on the top can turn if you in a rainy day and all of the water drains all along the sides so it never gets into the engine

This guy put a bigger k&n filter on it for more intake but it shows how it mounts in the challenger hemi. I probably will buy this filter later

For the prowler We had to modify the front of the shaker and the air inlet pipe to clear the radiator and support. We cut the front out and have fiberglass drying to fill it back in right now. We also have to rebuild the front gutter on the shaker base that had to be cut out to clear the radiator and a/c.
You can see how the intake had to be customized to fit the prowler space

Now performance innovations is also making a hand built custom radiator which I will post more later. The first 6.1 prowler they built did not have a/c mine will. Will post more on that later.

So now the custom radiator is pretty much done, it has the a/c condenser on the front with mounting bosses.
You can see how on this picture they used the stock prowler condenser (black) and mounted it to the much larger custom hemi radiator needed to keep the big 6.1 engine cool.

We welded it all and pressure checked submerged in a tub of water to check for leaks.

The entire a/c piping will need to be customized to a hemi compressor and re tubbed with custom hoses for everything to connect perfectly to the motor, and existing prowler connection points.

posted 04-19-2012 05:26 PM                  

The second is a manual hemi computer.
Since we have a rear Trans this computer will not look for shift signals to run.

3rd prowler Transmission computer. This is in the car and controls the auto shift, auto Trans etc.

Now with this everything has to talk.
The guys from hotwire made us a custom wiring harness to connect everything and it arrived this week. This is the last step needed to start it up

It uses stock mopar wiring and points from the prowler, and Hemi cars to insure it works like a new car. Everything will be on the same page.

The V8 rumble is coming soon. We are getting towards the end and testing in the next few months.

posted 04-19-2012 07:55 PM                  

quote:

---

Originally posted by beachcat:
Looks tight. Has it got some room to shake Trey?

---

Thanks Beachkat. Should be room for some shaking going on.

Here is some feedback from the Brendan at performance innovations on the shaker spacing.
They are very calculating in all aspects of the build and true
Fabrication and engineering experts.

posted 05-03-2012 05:23 PM                  

Dave was also great catching up over dinner here in NJ!
Maybe I will see you again in NC when I go down to get it next month.

We are getting close to the end of the build.

The shop has finished up pretty much everything on the motor and engine bay. So to do it right no corners where cut and everything was taken out again to clean up the bay this week and do the final permanent mounting and install.

Here's a final shot of the 6.1 hemi getting prepared for final re install. The custom bell housing and engine mounts powder coated.

As we all know all hemi cars have a bolt on transmission.
So on a normal SRT-8 challenger or charger tranny would be bolted on directly like this picture

But as you can see for the prowler in previous post that gray piece was hand built to make this all work in the prowler.
That spindle on the end bolts to the stock prowler transaxle that was shortened to accept the larger engine and connects to the rear tranny. Pretty major stuff and there is no kit.

Just a quick repost of the 3.5 V6 before it shipped off to australia for comparison. (It's just "a little bit" bigger than stock :-) ha ha

One final drop in to make it perfect.

Here Is an empty prowler engine bay with mounts ready to accept the big boy  one last time for good

One last time back in.

All of the final wiring and harnesses
Are also connected.

The goal is to start it up for the first time hopefully next week!! I cannot wait to hear it!

After that they will tweak all of the AC hoses and connections. The last 6.1 did not run a/c.

Once it's all running and everything set etc. The final step will be the transmission upgrade. All Core components and clutches will be upgraded in the stock case to support all of that extra torque and power but we will still use the stock tranny. As shared earlier we also removed the prowler pro gears and went back to stock based on shift points.

The final count down is on!!!

posted 05-03-2012 08:02 PM                  

Just read where you are thinking about the color to paint the shaker. The original shakers on the 70 Cudas werre painted body color ( I think it was only the red cars) but the reflection off it made it hard to drive in the daytime. That is why they changed to argent.

Since you plan on driving & doing auto cross your visability will be reduced already with the height of the shaker, you might want to do a semi gloss Black or try and match the argent of the 70's Cuda's

My buddies 71 Challenger has a semigloss black shaker on a Hemi Orange car

Good to see it coimg together. I have been watching from the beginning on the progress. Hope it is all you expect and more. It looks like they have done an excellent job and worth the effort and expense.

posted 05-04-2012 01:32 PM                  

quote:

---

Originally posted by treyb:
Wildkat thanks for following the build and all of your feedback. The color is a hard call for me until I actually see it complete and on the car.
Maybe we can do a prowler poll next week. It's still black for now and will look to make a final call once I see the picts next week. I will be sure to post and look forward to everyones feedback
If all goes well maybe there will be a first start up video on here also.

---

Trey,

I would guess it is satin black now, That is something that can be done later. My personal opinion would be leave it that way, drive it and see what it is like for a while and the way the sun hits it. Then think of how the sun shining on a high gloss shaker would reflect in your eyes (even gloss black). It can be done in NJ, just as easy as NC.

I had the top of my console rechromed and left it all shiney. Looks great, but hard to drive with top down and sun up, the reflection off the console is blinding, but looks so damn good it gets covered with a towel when it gets too bad. If I had painted it back argent silver on top that wouldn't happen.

Trying to cover your shaker with towel would not work too well. Good Luck with your decision

posted 05-15-2012 10:26 PM                  

Reading this your probably saying why would this guy cut up nice prowler hood and spend so much time on putting that big shaker on the car

Purpose: As you can see things are tight and get hot in the prowler engine bay. A 6.1 hemi engine does not fit under a stock prowler hood based on a higher throttle body. Vs just cutting a hole in the hood and just making a nice looking scoop we decided to custom build the  first fully functional shaker hood on a prowler. This included hand building up the entire hood to make it all work.

Complete with fenders on, hard top and shaker

Learned a few things. So when we got the wiring this time some things changed for the build.

A stock prowler uses a analog pedal, in simple terms it is mechanical.
The 6.1 hemi requires and electronic pedal that sends a signal to the computer to control fuel injection. Since the last build that part number changed so a new pedal was ordered.

Also o2 sensors that pick up signals to control the engine also changed.
Also needed some new header spacers and custom radiator parts.

Everything is in. So the shop will be looking to get her started soon.
Then will come into all the electronics pieces and testing then finally tranny build out. All is coming along well.

Also been spending alot of time on challenger sites and the local Nj mopar club. Learned about srt and hemi Guys using catch cans for the motors so got one and it's going in

Question:  What does the Billet Tech Catch Can do besides look good?

Answer:  The Billet Tech Catch Can slows down and filters oil that may end up in the intake and combustion chambers.  Oil in the combustion chamber could lower octane ratings that may cause your automobiles computer to sense knock/KR.  This may cause a decrease in performance. The Billet Technology Catch Can helps decrease the symptoms of the scenarios described.  So as you can see, the Billet Tech Catch Can not only looks good as stated, but performs flawlessly. 

More to come in the next week.

Thanks for the support. If your like me all I want right now it to hear this car start up and roar. Getting close!!

In order to get the car featured as a special invitational guest for this year Chrysler nationals in Carlisle PA 7/4-7/6. We need to get the money shot pictures in for final review. This is a huge event with over 2000 cars and people from all over the mopar community! We want to make this to show case the car to the world.

Event link http://www.prowleronline.com/ubb/Forum5/HTML/001624.html#0

posted 05-15-2012 10:48 PM                  

I am partial to the Satin Black, non glossy finish for the scoop over painting it the body color.

posted 05-21-2012 04:32 PM                  

This picture was created by our own Wildbill.
I cannot tell you how great of guy he is. This looks fantastic!!
Thanks everyone for your support of the project.