Last season Tony bought a 170,000-mile, 260-hp, five-speed Ford Mustang GT for $3,000 as a great, affordable muscle car. After he and Lucky got through with upgrading just about everything, they realized it was a great car, but seriously lacking in the muscle department.
Tony Angelo and Lucky Costa put together a cheap rear-end package for our 1973 Gen-3 Hemi-swapped Plymouth Duster. Once the cheap rear is built, the guys swap it into the Duster, and then drive it across LA to the 1/8 mile track at Irwindale, where it goes faster than ever!
Tony Angelo and Lucky Costa each get $6,000 dollars to buy and modify a car for a variety of speed, handling and braking contests! Tony Angelo scoops a wrecked Mercedes-Benz E 55, and Lucky grabs a Mitsubishi 3000GT VR4 Twin Turbo! Watch the boys go head to head and coast to coast!
On this episode of Hot Rod Garage we put our C5 through some new, sideways paces! The 2000 Corvette has already been pumped to around 500 hp and ripped down the dragstrip in an earlier episode by host Lucky Costa. This time, Tony Angelo and his buddy Mike Edwards get it all set up to handle the turns.
Tony Angelo scoops a high-mileage 1999 six-speed manual transmission 'Vette for 7,000 bucks, and it was begging for upgrades. Lucky Costa tears out the well-used 5.7 liter LS1 engine and upgrades it with a complete top-end kit before taking it down the dragstrip.
Our C10 short-bed conversion truck has been in need of a serious power-up for years now, and it’s finally time to cram some big power into this killer street truck. Hosts Tony Angelo and Lucky Costa are stuck on opposite coasts, but they aren’t going to let that stop them from getting the job done. Watch Tony grab a 1968 Chevy big-block and do a complete top-end upgrade. Aluminum heads, a big camshaft, and killer accessories all go onto this 454 in Tony’s Pennsylvania shop. Once it’s up and running strong, it gets shipped over to Lucky and current owner Mikey P for install with a killer Gearstar 6L80E transmission. Once it’s in and running, watch Mikey P tear it down the dragstrip with all that new power!
We call this show HOT ROD Garage, and we’ve never built a proper prewar hot rod. When we gave Lucky Costa the chance to decide what we were building, he decided to rectify that once and for all with this mashup of parts! It’s a 1927 Ford truck body on a mostly 1929 Ford Model T frame, powered by a small-block Chevy with a good helping of random speed parts gathered over a few decades. It all adds up to a whole lot of ratty awesome hot rod! Watch Hosts Tony Angelo and Lucky slap this thing together over a very long week and take it out for a maiden cruise!
Tony and Lucky fastest project ever is the 1,000 hp 2006 Chevy Impala SS, with an entire second V8 drivetrain crammed into the back. The front engine needs work, so the guys pull it out and use this chance to upgrade everything, including new headers, intake manifolds and EFI.
When the HRG director picked up a '71 Sedan DeVille for himself, it was his first hot rod. Unaware how fast old parts can fail, it overheated badly, destroying the 5.3 LS engine. Tony and Lucky make it right by raiding the Drift Thislimo for a 6.0, plus other add-ons that should keep the "Cecil B DeVille" rolling.
The T-Type, Grand National and Turbo Regal were '80s monsters with their turbocharged V6 engines. Tony Angelo and Lucky Costa buy the absolute cheapest turbo Buick they can find and piece together a 1984 T-Type, overcoming much rust, corrosion and awful previous repairs.
The AMC V-8 has long been seen as a strong engine that isn't very durable. Tony and Lucky build up a 401ci power plant that will live to take whatever abuse they can throw at it, keep spinning happily, and make killer power along the way.
Tony and Angelo pick up a complete running and driving 2004 Mustang GT on the cheap, with the goal of turning it into a really fun car. They install better suspension and brakes, give it more power, and throw in some interior and exterior upgrades.
Three cars that desperately need redemption get out to the track. Tony and Lucky dig into a Cummins-swapped '70 El Camino, a Hemi-swapped '70 Duster and a ratty '79 Camaro with a turbo LS, get them track ready and then just see what they can actually do.
