I watched the scene unfold every pass during ChallengerFest 6’s race day: the black 2005 Dodge Magnum would do its burnout, stage, make its run and then pull off into the pits. There, vehicle owner John Burleson and his team of supporters, techs, mechanics and friends would gather around to figure out what went right or wrong with the pass while the supercharger got a chance to cool. Data logs would be scoured to figure out if the car didn’t act right, discussions would be had about launch technique, and as soon as they were satisfied with the plan for the next round, the wagon would fire up and head back into the lanes. Considering that barely two months before the Magnum had gone from a shell to a running car within a weekend, and buttoned up by the end of that week, tuned as it was driving 620+ miles to a Florida dragstrip for its first outing, it was amazing to see it rip dangerously close to the ten-second goal.
Burleson is a family man from Charlotte, North Carolina. He’s extremely charismatic and easygoing, conversive and friendly…at least when he isn’t in the staging lanes opposite your car. The story of John and his Dodge starts in 2008 when he picked up the Magnum R/T used and got bit by the gearhead bug. He didn’t know a lot about wrenching or tuning, but he wanted to start somewhere, so he joined LXForums.com and poked around for a local show to attend in the hopes of digging up some help. It was at one of these shows where he met Nick Mendiola, who would teach him what it took to really work on his car. In its first genesis, a set of ported 5.7 Hemi heads and a 6.1 cam were bolted onto the 5.7L’s stock bottom end. This combination put the Magnum into the mid-12s on the track and did double duty as a daily driver.
Unfortunately, shortly after his fastest pass with in this configuration in 2008, the #8 piston and rod decided that enough was enough and went out in grand style, locking the motor up and putting that big wrench into Burleson’s plans. A new 5.7 lower end was acquired and went in. Reading through his posts actually brings me back to working on the SuperBeater Mirada’s dash lights…you get the joys and triumphs, but when things weren’t going his way, his frustration came out in the form of barely restrained comedy coupled with loathing of the part in question. Just before the first drive with the new motor, he found that the oil pan on the new 5.7 was cracked and needed to be replaced. His seething hatred for replacing the pan with the motor in the car showcases every gearhead’s frustration with that one piece to the puzzle that makes you want to find the engineer that created the design, grab them by the collar and violently shake them while screaming, “WHY?”
Oh, yeah, we’ve all been there.
As time went on the engine builds got wilder and wilder…first came a 5.7 short block with a 6.1 top end setup that put the Magnum into the 11.8 range in 2010, and then a Arrington forged 6.1 that ran 11.67. Unimpressed with the performance gain over his hybrid third-gen build, Burleson started to scheme up the next build with Heidi from Billet Technology on board as a partner in the build. Originally wanting a nasty naturally aspirated 426ci build, some karma fell into place that allowed him to go even deeper into the rabbit hole. After loaning out a set of axles at ChallengerFest 5 to a couple people that had broken theirs, Burleson found himself on the good side of The Driveshaft Shop and Arrington, who not only replaced the Getrag axles that he had loaned out with upgraded pieces, but The Driveshaft Shop asked to use the wagon as a testbed for their new Gen 2 9″ rear axle setup, which they let Burleson keep afterwards.
After a trip out to cover the Texas Mile for Billet Technology, Burleson traveled with several friends who all knew their way around a power-added Hemi: Sam Uthman, Karl Schello and Jay “Speedy” Orrand. Seeing what their cars were capable of led to where the car sits today: the engine is a Arrington 6.1-based 392 running 9.5:1 compression with Thitek heads sporting custom chambers and dual valve springs and 2.165/1.650 valves, an Arrington 607 cam, Arrington custom length pushrods, 148 Mammoth throttle body, Billet Technology fuel rails, ID1000 injectors, Fore dual hat return fuel system with dual Wallborro 405 fuel pumps, Picklefork hard lines, ATI 18% overdrive balancer and more. The 3.6L Kenne Bell supercharger breathes in through a Legmaker Intakes Kenne Bell cold air induction kit and spins using a GT500 tensioner with an LX adapter. Blower heat is taken care of with a 2.5 gallon water box and intercooler and an Afco GT500 heat exchanger with dual cooling fans. The Hemi breathes out through Kooks long tube headers with Kooks high flow cats, Kooks mid pipes and Billy Boat 3″ pipes out the back. On the dyno the blower motor pushed out 705 horsepower and 685 ft/lbs of torque at 18 psi, and those numbers are potentially low due to two factors: the engine did not want to rev past 6,000 RPM in 4th gear, which may or may not be related to a plugged exhaust system. There could potentially be plenty more in the mill.
The Magnum throws its power through a Paramount Performance-built Dominator NAG-1 five speed automatic rated for 1,000 horsepower. A Paramount Performance 2800 stall Dominator torque converter and flexplate handle the forward end, while the 9″ IRS setup from The Driveshaft Shop out back supports their 1440 HP axles and is turned by their 3.8″ single piece carbon fiber driveshaft. An Arrington transmission brace and Mopar six-speed motor mounts keeps everything in place. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. With all of the parts acquired and the Magnum stripped down to a shell, with only the rear axle assembly left in the car, the third phase of the Badwagon’s build started. Erik from BFNY Performance flew in to assist with the rebuild, and starting early on a Saturday morning, got to work. Ron Skor and Patrick Zabst arrived later in the day to assist, and with all four of them thrashing together, by Sunday afternoon the engine was in and the car was fired off. Burleson spent the rest of the week buttoning the car up in the middle of a winter storm with only a pop-up as shelter, wrenching into the unholy hours of the morning. With dyno time thrown out of the window, the car was tuned on-the-fly as Burleson logged data and emailed it to Brent Hughes for review as he drove down to Bradenton, Florida for shakedown runs. It’s first run was a win against a Hellcat that blew the tires off at the tree. That’s how you do it!
John isn’t the least bit shy about admitting that the car wouldn’t be anywhere near where it is now without the help of a ton of friends he has made along the way. As he told me, “Lots of people are very proud of what they’ve done…but to me, my car is a symbol of the friendships that I made and that it’s almost like an icon or ambassador of all the friendships and people who help me out.” The list of friends who have helped support John and the Magnum is huge, but he is so grateful to everyone that he had a custom fusebox cover made specifically to thank everyone:
The part that really appeals to us is the fact that the Magnum isn’t just “his baby”…the success belongs to everybody involved and he will give everyone else credit before he takes any for himself. He wouldn’t hesitate in the least to toss the keys to anyone who is involved with the car so they can get the opportunity to go have a blast with it. And he isn’t delicate with it, either – John firmly believes in the “build, thrash, break, repeat” formula. After his first pass at Beech Bend, the Magnum’s times consistently started to drop and even with all of the tuning they did, by the end of the day you could see the frustration forming. A coolant hose had blown off at the track, and upon later inspection, the catback was found blown off of the mid-pipes, robbing them of power. In addition, there were concerns with something getting loose in the suspension that wasn’t helping the situation out at all.
After ChallengerFest6, the Magnum was sent to Erik and BFNY Performance in Cleveland, Ohio, where the engine will receive a full leak down test and the car will get a full review from front to back, including suspension tuning. Once they figure out where the weak point is, they will fix, upgrade and rebuild any and every aspect of the car that has an issue, with the next goal for the Magnum being a mid-10 second timeslip in street trim. And there’s no doubt that they will get there.
