Having seen the glory of the leaf blower supercharged Monza in person at the season’s first ECTA event in Wilmington, Ohio, I was super interested to see the rest of the story about how the guys bought, dyno tested, hot rodded, and installed five back pack leaf blowers to act as superchargers for the car’s engine. The work was done at Jeff Lutz’s shop and we’re guessing that Lutz has never worked so hard in such a short period of time on such an…interesting project. As virtually all the Roadkill episodes have been, this is a fun watch and you’ll fell yourself actually wanting to go shopping for a four speed V8 Monza of your own by the time this is over!
So the video is kind of in three chunks. The first is the scene at the shop where the guys bought the car. The second is the thrash at Lutz’s shop to make more power both with and without blowers (and shockingly it does make legit improvements!). The third is there runs at the course in Wilmington to prove or disprove the actual results in the real world of leaf blower supercharging. What’s truly neat is that the guys had to overcome some unique issues to get the setup working right and it is riotous fun to see how they do it. Also of note is Lutz’s fabrication work which makes this whole thing possible and Finnegan’s nearly successful attempt to burn the entire operation to the ground.
As a bit of an epilogue, when driving home from Wilmington myself, I cruised through traffic with the car which headed back to Lutz’s PA lair and will surely be part of some tomfoolery in the future. It didn’t sound half bad at full throttle in third gear as we were pursuing it down the freeway!
PRESS PLAY BELOW TO SEE FINNEGAN AND FREIBURGER HAVE FAR TOO MUCH FUN WITH AN OLD MONZA AND LANDSCAPING EQUIPMENT!
The Monza was at the Hillbilly Arm Drop drags in Prestonburg KY in May. Only 3 of the 5 leaf blowers are functioning now do to the starter chords not workin on the other two. Lutz bought the Monza off HR.
Entertaining, but $1600 to knock only .2 off the time? A think a cheap ebay turbo would have been better.
That…. was kinda the point. They said so at the end of the video. It wasn’t to prove it was worth it at all, it was to prove that it does, in fact, make some sort of noticeable improvement.
Can’t wait to watch it when I get home. Never a dull moment with them 2! That Monza is dabomb!
With the hatch sealed and a divider panel behind the driver, were the blowers getting enough CFM intake for the blowers? Windows were down for the dyno pulls and up for the mile.