Story and photos by Geoff Stunkard
11/1/2007

Plymouth’s notorious winged Superbird and its Dodge Daytona predecessor were never really intended to be street race cars; they were released to call NASCAR’s bluff regarding body legality. Though outrageous in appearance and horsepower, most led fairly mundane existences, occasionally were used for streetlight jousts, and many disappearing as the novelty wore off. However, that has not kept diehard Mopar fans from viewing them as one of muscledom’s ultimate packages. Dale Kuehn sure thinks so.

Kuehn, who works for the city of Caldwell, Texas, has been a well-known Mopar guy for years in the Lone Star State – he’s has owned everything from 50s era Hemi-motivated Power Wagons to Six Pack E-bodies. But he knew that if he wanted to build a wing car for legal speed events like the Big Bend Road Race in southwest Texas, he would not be altering one of the pricy ‘real cars’ for that purpose. Instead, he used a 383 four-speed ‘70 Road Runner and began to amass the parts and pieces to build something that could crank off stable 160 mph speeds, get reasonable mileage above 125, and be capable of taking home the gold at road events across the great American Southwest.

Sticking with a 440 wedge, Dale had Industrial Machine in Bryan machine-prep a 1969 vintage RB engine, into which he intalled a set of .030 over TRW forged pistons on the stock steel crank and prepped factory rods. A mild, good cylinder scavenging Crane cam (.467/.494 lift and 222/234 duration) move fuel through ported 906-type heads. Now equipped with stock-size stainless valves and Proform roller tip rockers from Mancini Racing.

Lowering blocks brought the rear ride height down 2” and Dale installed heavy-duty shocks, swaybars and other upgrades to keep body roll to a minimum.

Why not a Hemi? Well, Dale had one that he had located on a homebuilt ’67 Charger. A friend of his happened to be doing a ’69 Charger R/T restoration and the motor in that car was long gone. When Dale mentioned the engine he owned was built in late 1968, Al Lutz asked if he could check the serial number on the block. Yep, it was the old mill from the 1969 car, so Al got the engine he needed and Dale went looking for another Hemi to eventually end up in the 101 wing.

Induction on the old Superbirds was never perfect. Dale worked around this with a pair of K&N Filtercharger cone filters located on the front support next to the radiator, where they can pick up clean air. Then, using custom tubes, this cool air is directed into  Supercharger Store carb bonnets mounted over the twin 650 cfm Edelbrock carbs. The engine uses the stock hi-po exhaust manifolds, a 1979-vintage Offenhouser 2x4 intake, and M/T valve covers.