The 1963 Dodge Phoenix that is known as “Mr. Dodgey” is back! The boys from Street Machine have been tinkering with the 440-powered B-body Mopar with the right-hook steering and so far have roadtripped the car with mostly successful results and…well, that’s about it. After their trip to Cobar for a charity car show, it’s time to get down to the business of making this big-block actually act like the real deal. Problem is, it currently doesn’t. The 440 in the Dodge is circa 1978…the last year for the 440 and certainly, not one of the best years for power from 7.2 liters of Chrysler engineering. 255 horsepower in 1978 was stout figures, but only if you ignore 1970 altogether, along with the 1969 police package cars as well. Any big block is worth keeping around, but not all were created equal.

So it’s time to put the car onto the dyno to see what’s what and…oh, dear, there’s a problem that we’ve seen before: issued with the kickdown linkage to the TorqueFlite automatic transmission. If our memory serves us correctly, that’s what took McTaggart’s Imperial out of commission back in 2014, when his first-second shift hung for about two seconds during a run at Beech Bend in Kentucky. Combine that problem with 210 horsepower at the wheels…not bad, actually…and you can see why the Street Machine folks are simply asking for a 14-second timeslip out of the Phoenix. Will they get it?