Bolt On Bruiser

by: Randy Holden

Photos by: Rob Wolf

Matt Delaney’s established himself as one of the premier innovators in the realm of custom Mopars. While guys like Chip Fosse and Boyd Coddington have carved out their niche with Street Rods and radically sculpted older machines, Matt’s done pretty much the same thing among Mopar faithful. One of the main ingredients to Matt’s success in the custom field is that he’s never lost sight of what a muscle car Mopar is supposed to look like. Let’s face it, during the muscle car ear, Chrysler got the styling of their cars right, so Matt’s never sought to change the outward appearance of his creations, only to update them with killer technology and power gains, while leaving the presence and soul of the original car intact. That’s not the case with a lot of custom car builders, who, once they’ve finished with a project, you’re hard pressed to tell what the car started life as. One look at Delaney’s latest triumph and there’s not even a moment’s hesitation that you’re dealing with a ’71 Hemicuda, but aside from the kinda’ expected appearance of this little Plymouth, there’s nothing about it that we would’ve called, “expected”

Shortly after completing their Challenger convert cruiser with the new-age injected 395 Mopar Performance Hemi in it, Matt and his partner Marcus Wren turned their sights on doing a ’71 Hemicuda hardtop. This one had to be a higher horsepower machine, be capable of being driven daily and on long road trips and , it had to handle like a new SRT and ride like a new Hemi 300 Sedan. As and additional challenge, they wanted the car to consist of relatively simple bolt-on parts to showcase what the average enthusiast could do with existing parts. In other words, they wanted to take off-the-self parts available to all us and see how far they could go, keeping in mind that all the mods could be done by someone at their own home. Those were the basics, the rest they would work out along the way. In the latter part of 2005, the right car for the project rolled in Matt and Marcus’s shop, and after some long stares and few calculations, pieces started coming off. The starting point was a very rough ’71 340 four speed’ Cuda body. Before all you purists out there start screaming foul, this was a completed dog a ‘Cuda by anyone’s standards with no drive train and holes everywhere. There was no fender tag left, no broadcast sheet, so ding a “correct” would not only have been impossible to begin with, it certainly wouldn’t have been economically feasible. This was a situation where you either parted the car out or built a hot rod – Matt and Marcus chose the latter course. After disassembly, what was left of the car was treated to numerous patch panels. A significant amount of sheet metal replacement was required; little of the original body survived the rebuild. As with all of Matt’s cars, the frame rails were pulled out from under the car and beefed up with 1/8” plate steel, the replaced. Matt’s a firm believer in a firm car, so while this adds a little weight, it makes a phenomenal difference in the rigidity of an old Mopar. Frame rail connectors from U.S. Auto Tool gave the ‘Cuda a GM Style full frame to rest a top of. Best of all, the U.S.Auto Tool connectors are legitimately tailor made for the average guy, so these can be installed by just about anyone in a matter of hours.

A Shaker hood was ordered from Harms Auto with the Shaker and other components coming from Ben Snobar at Northwest Performance. After about three months of bodywork, trail fitting components, blocking and sanding, the ‘Cuda was ready for the paint booth. Mike Harris with Delaney Auto Design applied the striking PPG Ferrari Red and used gloss black for the painted look three feet deep. After the paint was dry, Matt and Marcus set to work on the mechanical aspects of the ‘Cuda. A 472” Hemi crate motor was finished by Direct Connection (doesn’t it feel nice to say that again?) and spiced up with a Comp Cams hydraulic roller retro fit cam, which was recently released with short enough lifters to actually fit Hemi. This marks the first time ever that an over-the-counter roller hydraulic cam assemble has been produced for the Hemi, so watch for a lot more of these cool assembles coming soon to a neighborhood near you. Next, a Mass Flo EFI system can be installed right out of the box with not tuning or modifications at all. If you’re looking for EFI efficiency and performance on an old-school Hemi, here’s a hassle free installation that really works.

Supporting the heavy Hemi, you’ll find and AlterKtion front suspension, which was supplied by Reiley Motorsports. Flaming River contributed the rack and pinion, the steering column, the cool steering wheel, and one of their state-of-the-art cruise control systems, all which makes for a great handling E-body with creature comforts Plymouth never dared dreams of Air Ride Technologies supplied the front and rear shocks, as well as the triangulated four-link system for the stock 8 ¾” rear end. This gives a way comfortable ride as well as the ability for the tires to hook up like a drag car. A Direct Connection Aluminum and a DC Sure Grip unit, Shaffi Keisle sent over on of his TKO 600 five speed five speed transmission for the perfect gearing. This gives the Hemi both hole shot and high speed cruising ability with decent gas mileage. And again, the Keisler TKO tranny is a bolt-in unit you can install in your own garage.

The Fikse “Pro-Fil 13” wheels help to create a high-end luxury sports car look and, combined with the Air Ride suspension, give the ‘Cuda a unique modern stance. For a car that’s capable of cruising at 150 mph, you gotta’ have stopping power. This was obtained with six piston Wilwood disc brakes, combined with a Hydratech Hydroboost system tied together with pre-bent lines from Fine Lines (yes, you read that right, Fine Lines makes pre-bent lines to connect HydroTech’s Hydroboost system to your car). The massive brakes, combined with the sticky rubber of the Nitto Extreme 555 radials (front 225/50/18 and rear 295/45/18) makes for awesome stopping power. To let the dust cover competition know they’re stopping, Matt and Marcus used the fantastic new LED tail inserts from Hi Tech LED products.

All the weatherstripping came from Soff Seal, while the rest of the restoration parts were sent by the ever-reliable crew at Year One. TTI made the exhaust system real easy to install by sending a 3” exhaust system, pre bent kit form, from the ceramic coasted headers to the exhaust tips. The entire system, headers to tips bolted on with no welding or bending!

In the engine bay, a Billet Specialties, serpentine pulley a system including a/c compressor, power steering pump, and alternator, adds just the right touch to the Hemi. This is simplicity itself and greatly cleans up the north end of a Hemi. With one wide belt snaking nearly around the front, this eliminates a tremendous amount of clutter and make for an ultra sanitary engine. An aluminum radiator and fans from Flex-a-lite keeps everything cool.

Creature comforts on the “Cuda include a very cool (literally) Classic Auto Air a/c system and a Kicker stereo system that can bust concrete apart but is still clear as a bell while doing so. If the screaming of the Hemi isn’t enough to make your ears bleed, the CDs in the deck and the amps located aft can destroy your equilibrium in short order, should you be foolish enough to seal yourself up in this thing and peg out the volume. As you can see, this is hardly a stock repro interior. No matter what you do, the stock style of the E-body bucket seats just don’t do a good job of holding you in place or providing much comfort on a long trip no matter what you do to them. Knowing there would be long hours behind the wheel, Matt and Marcus chose custom Corbeau leather front seats. These wider and more body-fitting seats hold you in place on the corners as well as make for a comfortable ride.

Another very different and interesting part on the ‘Cuda is the billet and stainless custom fuel tank make by Rick’s Hot Rod Shop. The large fuel cell-type gas tank contains an internal electric fuel pump and, interestingly, the tank is so well insulated that you can barely hear the pump buzzing away inside. The high volume pump pushes an enormous amount of high-octane unleaded up front, but you’d never know it were it not for the frequent gas stops and the wonderful sound of the throttle body gulping tremendous quantities of air to mix with that fuel whenever the long pedal on the right is pressed to the floor.

Ready for the big shocker in this whole story? As has become the custom with Matt Delaney’s customs, the car’s construction wound up taking grand total of four months. Start to finish, everything you see was completed in the span of four months. The ‘Cuda made its big debut at the Power Tour, blasting along the route at speeds well into the triple digits. In fact, it lost a piece of windshield moulding some where around 250 mph, but thankfully, the shiny stainless didn’t do any damage and was easily reattached!

As with all of Matt’s cars, this one’s built for moving as well as showing, so it will serve over the coming years as a rolling showcase of what the boys from Shreveport can do. Watch for this on to a major Mopar even near you soon. And as we say at the completion of article we’ve ever done on one of Matt Delaney’s cars, we can’t wait to see what he’s going to do next. Knowing him as we do, we guarantee he’s already planning the next one.