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<\/p>\nJune 11th, 2024. That’s the day that the 360 in the ’76 Charger failed. You could’ve boiled an egg on my head, I was so pissed off. I had been thrashing on the car for half a year to get ready for the 2024 Hot Rod Power Tour. I had gone through the fun of swapping in a five-speed manual transmission into the car with the help of American Powertrain. I had frozen in the shop for months, laying under the car, doing things that medically I probably should not be doing to make this dream happen…and on the end of the second day of Power Tour, I manage to wound my first small-block Mopar. It’s not dead. But it is alive enough to know that it might as well be dead.<\/p>\n
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We don’t have a complete picture of what is wrong and I won’t have that until I open up the engine…which isn’t happening, as the car runs enough to yard-drive in and out of the garage. While I have not torn down the entire engine, Cylinder 5 told me enough. We knew the car was eating oil somewhere. Between this and the exhaust’s new\u00a0tap-tap-tap<\/em> popping sound, I suspect that a cam lobe is a lot flatter than it should be. I’ll be sure to showcase what I find when I do tear the 360 down. But don’t bank on that engine returning to the Charger anytime soon.<\/p>\n Fate Smiles Upon Thee<\/strong><\/p>\n One of the people who has been following my adventures for years (think pre-BangShift) is a friend of mine named Brian Good. We “met” each other through Farley’s Page, a Dodge Diplomat-centric forum, back in the early 2000s and we’ve kept in touch since. Like me, we both realized that FMJ Mopars are pain. Unlike me, he scored a sweet barn-find 1969 Olds 442 to wrench on. And when he learned about my Charger’s misfortune, he decided to help me with the biggest mulligan I’ve ever been handed. His neighbor had an old police car that he felt might have the answer to my woes and for $500, I could purchase it. So I did.<\/p>\n What you are looking at is a 2009 Charger Police Package. It’s got something like 155,ooo miles on the clock (give or take, since the display packed up shortly after I bought the car) and it’s got Ohio levels of rot in the quarters. His neighbor’s price was legitimate and the car was better than I was led to believe by miles. Frankly, if it wasn’t for the rot, I’d have considered doing one of those Smyth ute conversions instead. It drove fine, did well as a daily driver, hell, even the A\/C blew cold. But ultimately, there’s one reason I laid down the money: Gen III Hemi.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/bangshift.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/mct_charger_aug24_3-685x514.jpg\")
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