Shout Out To A Great Mopar Community!!

[ostmike 39]

First off I want to apologize to all my email tuning customers who were put on "hold" while we devoted almost every available hour making an attempt to Kent Irwin's (alcharger) car to Darlington.

Unfortunately racing at the MSHS event in Darlington wasn't meant to be.

But rather than ramble about all of the grief that we encountered (and there was a lot of it!) I really wanted to say thanks to a bunch of fellow Mopar enthusiasts both local and here on the forums.

Since there were so many to thank I'll just bullet point it:

- Micah (my son), although attending college full time he answered Kent's last minute (literally) request to do his engine swap. Micah decided to make a challenge out of the effort and time himself. He set a new PB for a solo engine and trans removal, taking 2 hours and 40 minutes from the time he opened the bay door until the engine and trans were on the ground with no one else in the shop to help. Impressive in my book for a 20 year old turbo Honda wrench

- Bill Sorochman, Service manager for Monroeville Chrysler Jeep, for supplying parts at a moments notice several days in a row. Not only did he inquire daily about our progress but took my part orders and when I showed up at the dealership he dropped what he was doing and personally walked me back to the parts department and had my parts pulled so there was no waiting (realizing we were pushing the clock). Bill also sent a tech with a WiiTech unit to our shop within an hour of me calling and requesting help. Kudo's to Bill and his awesome service! Bill is one of our customers and drives a 426 powered SRT8 300c

- Brian Zapp - Service Technician at Monroeville Chrysler Jeep. Brian dropped his plans for the evening with his family on a moments notice, to drive an hour to our shop to do his magic with the WiiTech tool and software. He also ended up staying late into the evening to assist in tearing the front of Kent's car apart and investigating the cause of the cam correlation errors. Brian is also a customer that owns a Charger RT

- Joel Applegate (Jerseyboy) - For replying to text messages, calling the shop, recommending the use of the WiiTech to try to isolate problems that we couldn't ID with the shop scanner and for confirming an idea I had for overriding the Cam/Crank correlation error.

- Johan Mangs (Diablotoona) - For responding to a request to create a "special" template to allow me to override a DTC causing limp mode. Even though I dinged him at 7:30am he stopped what he was doing, found the necessary code and even though he had a doctors appointment a 9am, as soon as he returned he emailed the modified template. We initially thought this resolved the problem. Unfortunately it only worked until the car came up to operating temperature. HUGE kudo's to Johan for coming through so quickly in spite of a backlog of work.

- Andy from PWR - For pushing the limits of my local UPS and FedEx drivers with "next day air" deliveries of parts as the need arose, answering the phone and returning all calls (which has to be hard this time of year for him) as well as discussing options in a well thought out manner.

- Guy Dalton - For saving our hides in figuring out why the Centerline wheels that arrived here with the car would not fit the 15" brake conversion. Guy confirmed all the modifications we made were correct (or advised what needed to be done) and confirmed our suspicions that there was no way that the Centerline's could possibly fit the car.

Josh from HHP - Josh took the time to measure the ID of a set of Weld Wheels from a customer car that he had in the shop. This verified that the Centerline's were too small. Josh indicated that it would be 3 weeks or longer before we could have a set of the properly sized Weld wheels for this conversion. I really want to thank Josh for going out on a limb and giving me the the name and number of the customer (Ross) whose car the the wheels were for (that he measured) so I could beg for him to let us have them and order another set.

Ross ? - The guy who agreed to sell us the wheels off of his car so we could complete Kent's 15" conversion and get him to Darlington. Ross was a great guy to talk to and once I explained the situation he was "all in" and agreed to do anything he could including having Josh ship us the wheels that day!

- Stephen Gardner - a former employee and Logistics manager for a local trucking company who gave up his Saturday to come back to work on the issues involved in completing a 15" rear disc brake conversion on the car. .

- Brad Kirkman (B Kirk) - Brad is local customer of mine with a SC/nitrous 2010 Challenger. We called Brad in an attempt to locate and borrow a TCM. Brad's is stock so we were unable to use his TCM but did get some valuable data that he was able to share concerning a shifting issue we were having.

- Rich Monti (RMON on the Jeep forums) - Rich is another customer with and SC Jeep. We called Rich to see if he had a TCM we could borrow. He offered to head home from where he was going, grab his TCM and meet us. Unfortunately by the time he got home we had already discovered (by doing several quarter mile pulls on the dyno) that the converter in Kent's car was not going to handle the additional 110 foot pounds of torque and we aborted the mission.

- Mike from Advanced Auto - A 2nd generation Mopar nut and Commercial sales manager at Advance. We literally drove him crazy with last minute, late night and early morning part orders and deliveries.

I sincerely apologize to anyone who I may have forgotten.

The point I wanted to make is that it is really awesome when the community comes together to help another racer and/or shop and we are truly grateful!

And to the guys that thrashed and made the event - my hat is off to you! Great job!

[srt5939 160]

Nice write up Mike

[FlyByU 142]

Yup, its always a team effort, good stuff.

[Andy@PWR 58]

very nice write-up, you guys busted ass last week.

[lakersfan7272 59]

Awesome

[HemiSam 194]

Nice touch, Mike.

HS

[70Barracuda 27]

Sounds like you have a lot of great people to work with and help you out. Kudos to all those that worked so hard.

[BayouTigress 80]

Thanks for sharing the good stuff!

[StevoHemi 116]

Hats of to you and everyone that stepped up to the plate to help you guys out.

Rock on.

Stevo

[ostmike 39]

Absolutely stoked to see the car run at CF4 too! After we got a tune on the car Kent loaded it up and got ready to haul it back to Birmingham.

To add salt to his already open wound - he only made it as far as half way out our lane before getting stuck in the snow. Two wheel drive trucks do not cut it here in Pa. for winter hauling of cars

Good thing we keep a pallet of salt on hand for just such occasions! Grabbed a couple of 50# bags and a shovel and we had him down the road in about 30 minutes.

I love my Jeep with Blizzaks all around!

[Adanac Charger 30]

Great community... Great story!!

Looking forward to seeing Kent's silver Charger with a PWR 426 running 10's down the track!

Oh ya, and I'm looking forward to seeing Alcharger doing it too.

[ALcharger 0]

Add to the list

Michelle Doban, your saintly wife, who put me up, feed us, sympathetically listened to our tails of woe, and had to drive around my truck and trailer for 3 weeks to mention a few things.

Mike Doban, who lives his company’s slogan, Relentless Pursuit of Power! Mike wanted us to make MSHS Darlington as much as I, maybe more.

Relentless: Mike put just about everything in his life on hold to get this built in time. He took vacation time, worked late, lost sleep. His entire family was involved at some point of this build!

Pursuit: I was amazed how Mike got people drop everything and help out. He had list after list of parts for me to ship or tasks to perform. He never gave up even when the trans and TC took a dump on the dyno. He found away to work around every obstacle.

Power: Yes, once again, Mike brought it all together from near and far to make incredible power. From an NA, N2O, SC to Turbo he KNOWS how to make power.

[Boatman 97]

Great Story.

[ALcharger 0]

Absolutely stoked to see the car run at CF4 too! After we got a tune on the car Kent loaded it up and got ready to haul it back to Birmingham.

To add salt to his already open wound - he only made it as far as half way out our lane before getting stuck in the snow. Two wheel drive trucks do not cut it here in Pa. for winter hauling of cars

Good thing we keep a pallet of salt on hand for just such occasions! Grabbed a couple of 50# bags and a shovel and we had him down the road

in about 30 minutes.

I love my Jeep with Blizzaks all around!

[ostmike 39]

Add to the list

Michelle Doban, your saintly wife, who put me up, feed us, sympathetically listened to our tails of woe, and had to drive around my truck and trailer for 3 weeks to mention a few things.

How dare I forget my awesome wife...

Thanks for pointing that out Kent! I couldn't do it without her. She is incredibly understanding and patient.

And yes, she is happy to see you truck and trailer gone - although she never once complained.

[1FST4DR 85]

Nice write up. Its good to see tuners come together in the time of need. Some of the best Mopar tuners in the country are mentioned right here in this thread IMO.

[ostmike 39]

Great community... Great story!!

Looking forward to seeing Kent's silver Charger with a PWR 426 running 10's down the track!

Oh ya, and I'm looking forward to seeing Alcharger doing it too.

Yes, it is a great community!

As far as 10's, that's old hat for him now..... I'd rather see him spray it well into the 9's

Nice write up. Its good to see tuners come together in the time of need. Some of the best Mopar tuners in the country are mentioned right here in this thread IMO.

Yes, it was a good thing for the tuners involved (and ultimately their customers) to be working together as well as sharing information and experiences.