Roadkill

On this episode of Roadkill, the boys are back to kick off Season 4 with their most epic engine swap to date! This time Finnegan and Freiburger drag an old Rogers Bonneville jet boat to a local Southern California lake behind the Muscle Truck, a lowered 1974 Chevrolet C10 pickup that's powered by a Chevrolet Performance LS6 crate engine. Once at the lake, they proceed to remove the engine from the truck and install it into the boat, hoping to do a little drag racing during the Tom Papp Memorial boating event. As usual things don't go as planned but the guys still manage to have fun involving an outhouse, shower curtains, scummy water and a trailer hitch. Oh yeah, did we mention that after going boating Finnegan and Freiburger still had to take the engine back out of the boat and re-install it into the truck to get home?

This episode of Roadkill is stuffed with speed parts donated by sponsors. That ought to make the install easy, right? Not when you decide to embark on a road trip from Phoenix, Arizona to Wichita, Kansas in January in a station wagon that’s missing a few windows and you want to install the parts along the way. Finnegan and Freiburger are at it again taking the hard way out by fixing up a 1969 Buick Wagon during a brutal winter road trip where they spent as much time hanging out in parking lots as they did hotels. Why? Well there was a kid in Kansas who wanted to trade them his Cavalier for their wagon and they didn’t have the heart to bring him the POS without churchin’ it up a bit prior to delivery. We don’t want to spoil the party, but it does look and sound a tad different before they reach Kansas.

Roadkill is now powered by Dodge! To kick off the sponsorship, Finnegan and Freiburger called for some brand new 2015 supercars: the 707-horsepower Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and Charger SRT Hellcat, plus a 645-horsepower Dodge Viper GT. Why? For an epic thrash, of course! This video has more tire smoke than you've ever seen from these cars, plus a big, irresponsible surprise at a motocross track. There are guest spots from Carlos Lago from Motor Trend, Fred Williams from Dirt Every Day, and pro drifter Tony Angelo. None of these guys should have been handed the keys. And by the way, we used the Hellcat red keys the whole time.

Here’s a premise you haven’t seen before from the Roadkill guys: this time, Freiburger bought a car without Finnegan knowing, and Finnegan picked the road trip without Freiburger knowing. Result: the Monster Carlo! It’s a 1980 Chevy Monte Carlo lowrider with full hydraulics—perfect for lifting it up high to fit some Super Swamper off-road tires for a desert excursion to Las Vegas, where the guys meet up with the fans for a party at EBC Brakes. Along the way there’s failure, winning, more failure, three-wheeling, hopping, fire, sparks, dirt, and more psychotic laughter than you’ve ever seen in a single episode. #BecauseRoadkill. Thanks for the support from EBC Brakes and Optima Batteries!

On this episode we present a new Roadkill project car: the Crop Duster! It’s a 1970 Plymouth Duster that Freiburger forgot that he owned—a result of multiple trades with a buddy, and at least 5 years of neglect in the dirt of a grape farm. Once he was reminded of the car, and with a 440 Mopar big-block sitting on the shop floor (salvaged from the General Mayhem ’68 Charger), it was evident what needed to happen. Freiburger and Finnegan headed up to the farm run by Steve Dulcich, editor of Engine Masters magazine, to drag the Duster out of its moss-covered indignity and attempted to get the 440 in the car and running, driving, and doing smoky burnouts within five days. Along the way, the trio did engine upgrades, butchered some headers, built a homemade driveshaft, cobbled together a used exhaust system, did some halfhearted bodywork, and executed other mechanical feats the likes of which you’ve come to expect from Roadkill. Then it was off to the chassis dyno and the drag strip. Hate to break it to you, but the fail in this episode is minimal! Thanks for support from MSD Performance and from Optima, the new Official Battery of Roadkill! Make sure to check out the new Roadkill.com.

On this episode of Roadkill, hosts Mike Finnegan and David Freiburger revive Roadkill’s finest, boosted European and Japanese road machines: the “Draguar” 1973 Jag XJ12 with a supercharged 383ci Chevy small-block, and the “Rotsun” 1971 Datsun 240Z loaded with a Chevy 4.3L V6 and a turbo from a Ford Powerstroke diesel. With this kind of sophisticated equipment in play, there was only one logical story line: a shootout with Motor Trend’s top test driver, Randy Pobst–past winner of the 24 Hours of Daytona, plus dozens of other class wins and sports-car championships. With that kind of talent on board, it’s obvious that the guys will have to work hard to reduce Pobst to Roadkill’s level. But fear not, Roadkill fans, F&F have a plan to come out on top, and it’s as solid as Montezuma’s Revenge.

Roadkill powered by Dodge is the show all about ridiculous beater cars. 24 Hours of LeMons is the racing series all about ridiculous beater cars. Match made in heaven! Roadkill is now the sponsor of LeMons, so you’d think the guys would be really good at the LeMons endurance racing series for cars built for $500. Instead, well…watch the episode. Finnegan and Freiburger tag a couple of friends to join them in racing at LeMons with the Rotsun, a 1971 Datsun 240Z powered by a Chevy 4.3L V6 boosted with a Ford Power Stroke diesel turbo. The Rotsun has never once completed an episode of Roadkill thanks to mechanical breakdowns, so it seemed like the perfect car for an endurance race.

See the very first running, driving vintage muscle car powered by a 707-horsepower, supercharged, 6.2L Hemi engine from a 2015 Dodge SRT Charger Hellcat! The car is the General Mayhem, Roadkill’s 1968 Dodge Charger. In this episode, the Hellcat-powered General Mayhem is built and drag-race tested in preparation for a cutthroat drag race with a reality TV show at the first-ever Roadkill Nights event, where a makeshift drag strip was created in the parking lot of the abandoned Silverdome football stadium in Pontiac, Michigan. More than 10,000 people showed up to watch! And there’s a surprise, as the Mayhem’s younger brother is revealed!

It’s a project-car mishmash this time on Roadkill, powered by Dodge. It starts out Roadkill enough, with Finnegan surprising Freiburger with a ’50 Ford 2-ton truck that the guys thrash to shorten up into a bobber rat rod. Somewhere along the way the truck gets named Stubby, then Bob, and then it really doesn’t matter because the junk doesn’t get done in time to race from Atlanta to Wisconsin for the Car Craft Summer Nationals show. But the guys have to be there anyway. Watch as they thrash to fix the Hemi-powered Blasphemi ’55 Chevy Gasser, then cannonball to Wisconsin in Roadkill’s ’69 El Camino only to show up late. But there’s Roadkill fun anyway, with action on the autocross and the drag strip. It’s kind of a big mess, but a lot of fun as usual. Because Roadkill.

This time around, Freiburger and Finnegan travel to Santa Rosa, California, to drive a crazy '74 Mazda REPU mini-truck all the way back to SoCal, where they'll compete in Optima's Search for the Ultimate Street Car Challenge. The Mazda is an oddity, originally powered by a rotary engine but later converted to Olds Toronado front-wheel drive drivetrain sometime in the late-1980s. With a 455ci big-block and '69 Toronado transaxle slid between the rear frame rails, the seller claimed wheelies and 10-second ETs. However, Finnegan and Freiburger quickly discover their $5,000 mini-truck has more style than substance. Can they hang with the big dogs at the races?

The Roadkill guys finally did what they've been planning for three-plus years! Long ago they bought a late-model circle track race car and planned to drive it to the Deep South, but the car could not be insured because it had no VIN. Solution? Install a body that has a VIN! That's exactly what you'll see in this episode, as a 1970 Chevy Monte Carlo is transformed into the beast now known as the Nascarlo! It even drives on the street! And races on the dirt track! But suffice it to say it does not all end well. Roadkill is powered by Dodge and supported by Eastwood Company, Dickies, and Optima Batteries.

In this episode you’ll see a huge road trip that includes Freiburger-versus-Finnegan showdowns with crazy burnouts in the General Mayhem and General Maintenance; drag racing with the Blasphemi, General Mayhem, Draguar, and Vette Kart; and road-racing in the Vette Kart and General Maintenance. It’s all part of Roadkill Takes America, presented by Dodge, an event that was held in August of 2015.