(If you haven’t read Part 1 of The Ballad of Bobbo, I suggest you catch up with the craziness! You can read it here.)

At some point in 2005, Bobby had gotten his hands on a 440ci big block in a deal with a guy he’d met at a cruise. Over the next couple of months, the motor was built up, piece by piece, until it was finished in July. From July until April 2006, the motor waited as Bobby was waiting for the right time to do the engine swap. He timed the swap to take place when his dad was on vacation in Hawaii and a garage and crane hoist would be free. The second everything was a “go”, he called in reinforcements: myself and a couple of friends. The motor was nearly out by the time I made it up to the garage, so I helped get the last little bits undone, then we hoisted the 318 and a recently killed 727 out. While I was busy with a pressure washer and the engine bay, the other three were prepping for the next day’s work.

I used to be thin and muscular…once..

I figured that hosing out the engine bay was much safer than being near Bobby and a grinder…

The next morning he was back at it, notching the K-frame to clear items, then proceeded to do everything but jump up and down on the motor to make it fit. He yanked the brake booster, did a little grinding on the rag joint and exhaust manifold for clearance, and modified two Pontiac Catalina radiator hoses to work. Exhaust was parts-store pipe pieces, flex pipe and a tube bolted to the rocker panels for homemade side pipes. The trans was rigged up to function (barely) so he could get the Diplomat out of the house before his dad saw what happened…that would’ve created a nuclear explosion that would’ve been seen from Canada.

It’s tight, but a big-block Chrysler will fit into a Diplomat.

The trans would be the Achilles’ heel of this build for quite some time. The original 727 that he had bolted behind the 440 didn’t like life dealing with a torque monster, and soon developed a nasty habit of not wanting to move until the converter hit stall speed. This ended up biting Bobby in the ass hard one day. He had called me for some reason while I was at work, and while on the phone I heard the car rev up, bark tires and take off every time he had to start out. At one point, the car seemed to rev harder than normal, and I hear Bobby mutter something, then the only thing I hear for at least ten seconds is wound-up Chrysler and screaming tires. He continues the conversation once the car returns to regular driving, then within a minute: “Oh, shit, cop.” What did he do? Pulled into his driveway, left the phone on speaker, and I got to hear one of Washington State’s finest rip Bobby a new one for a burnout that, according to the cops, was nearly 300ft long. It’s not me to normally laugh at someone else’s misfortune. But the officer asked him, “What the hell was that back there?!” and Bobby replied, “Traction test, officer. Looks like it needs some work,” I lost it.

He fought to make it work for a while, but it finally died. Bobby located a shorty tailshaft from a motorhome, took the remains of the dead 727, and while working in the back of a Ranger that is doing 80mph up Interstate 5, proceeded to rebuild the whole damn transmission. Kids, do NOT try that stunt at home.

Shortly after the transmission was fixed, I got a chance to drive the car. It torqued the body like a big-block should. It sounded evil. It had sketchy steering. It was a riot.

The transmission worked well for the next three years, and more modifications came, like a homemade ducktail spoiler, hoodscoop, and taillights modified with 1959 Cadillac lenses, but as time went on Bobby’s finances went down the hole like everyone else’s and in late ’09, he found himself in a funk. By this time the 440 had popped a freeze plug after getting cold,he couldn’t afford to fix the car, and had nowhere to store it. He offered to sell me the car for $500, but I was preparing to move to Arizona and had no place that I could stash another half-dead Mopar.

The end is never pretty.

In the end, the Diplomat was parted out. The motor and transmission live on in a Dart and not much else survived. He lived with some beaters for a while, but recently he’s got another project, a late ‘70s Ford truck that he painted green and blue when the Seahawks won the Super Bowl in 2013.

And without blinking an eye, in short order, even that truck got flamethrowers.

So what is the point behind this story? Easy: Bobby proves without a doubt that it doesn’t take a huge budget or even the “right” car to have a blast hot-rodding something. With a budget that was nearly zero, he created one of the most legendary, if not infamous, cars that existed. That ought to be the lesson to anyone who keeps looking at their project and sighing. Go have fun with the damn thing!