The World’s Most Affordable Superbird - Schweaty’s Speed Shop

Cars have always been a part of Shawn’s life in various ways. The story Shawn shares about how he got into cars goes like this. “My dad bought me a go-cart when I was twelve, it was a piece of shit, and didn’t run, so he got it running with me. Then I would break it, because I would drive it all the time. He helped me fix it the second time, but the third time he told me to fix it. He would stand there and watch me go through everything he taught me. My dad would always bring stuff home that we could work on like dirt bikes and cars. Meaning whenever we broke a dirt bike, we had to fix it. Which in the end I learned a lot from. Then when I was about 16, he gave me a car that needed work, so I had to learn how to fix it then I could drive it. I took a couple of auto repair shop classes in high school, which is when I knew loved cars. I then went to work at a car dealership part-time but realized that wasn’t paying well. Which is when I decided that I would go work for my uncle. He owned a steel fabrication shop, that did a lot of big projects such as welding I beams for big warehouses/stores. I cut my teeth learning to weld on some big stuff. After this, I went to a Chevy dealership. I couldn’t get much traction there because I was still young, and no shop wanted to hire a young kid at the time. At this point, I joined the Air force where I served for four years. While in the Air Force, I did Airframe. Airframe is pretty much metal fabrication and paintwork for airplanes. When I got out of the air force, I went to a GM dealership as a technician for a few years. Finally, I ended up in an engineering job for a car manufacturer which is where I still am today.”

It's no surprise that with all this experience Shawn has gained a ton of skill. He has put this skill to work by building many eye-catching projects over the years. Such as 1955 Pontiac Chieftain he takes on the Gambler 500, and other events. It was during one of these events he got the inspiration for his next big project. He met with the guys from TredWear, who built the Scraptona. For those who have managed to never see the Scraptona, it is a heavily customized 1969 Dodge Charger. The car is sitting on essentially a custom chassis with many race car parts added to it. Shawn had always liked the thought of taking the body of a car and putting it on a race car chassis. Over the next few months, the idea consumed Shawn’s thoughts. He then remembered his dad had the roof, fender, doors, and other various parts from a 1970 Roadrunner. His dad had owned the car for many years, and by this point, many people wouldn’t give it a second look. Yet, Shawn knew the potential of the car and had the perfect vision for it. He knew he could bring it back to life, but in a very different form. This new form would be as what Shawn refers to it as the “World's most affordable Plymouth Superbird.” The whole mantra of this build and for Shawn, in general, is “fast and cheap”. After filling his dad in on his idea, he loaded everything onto his trailer, and drove home to get to work.

The original plan for the build was use the parts from the 1970 Roadrunner and build a custom chassis. Once the chassis was complete, a front and rear suspension kit would be added along with other race car parts. This is exactly what Shawn started to do. With much of the chassis already built, is when unfortunately, the pandemic hit hard. This as many car guys know made parts almost impossible to get or sent prices to the moon. Which is exactly what happened to the parts Shawn wanted from Speedway Motors. They had many of the parts he wanted for a total of roughly $3000 but they were unsure as to when they could manufacturer them. This meant if Shawn stuck with his original plan, he truly didn't know when he would be able to finish the chassis.

Shawn knew he had to switch gears and think of a new plan. He began surfing the internet for ideas and one night while on Facebook Marketplace stumbled on an old Nascar chassis for $1600. The chassis was in good shape and almost complete. It was missing smaller parts such as brakes and a fuel system, which Shawn figured he could get. Soon after buying these chassis, Shawn did in fact find the missing brakes and fuel system. He got a set of 4-piston Wilwood brakes and the exact fuel system he needed for under $1000. With this he had a lot of big-ticket items for under $3000; everyday a guy can applaud this frugalness.

With a Nascar chassis and various Roadrunner parts on hand, Shawn started to assemble the car jigsaw puzzle together. The first step was to get the roof in the right position, and then the doors. Everything had to be built around these two components to ensure the body lines matched. He wanted to ensure the doors were functional, so he didn't have to climb in and out of the window repeatedly. Let’s face it, crawling in and out of a window is cool the first couple of times. But, after contorting yourself like a circus act for the hundredth time, you're over it. To make the doors functional, sections of the roll cage had to be removed. Some less intrusive bracing was added to stiffen the car back up. With the tubing out of the way, Shawn had to fabricate some new door hinges. Since there wasn't much factory sheet metal left around the doors, there wasn't an option of using factory door hinges. This meant Shawn had to design and make a custom set of door hinges, which sounds easy, but is truly not that easy. There is a lot of moving pieces that must be right, so the door doesn’t bind or sag. Shawn fabricated an inventive set of door pins, so both doors can be easily removed without tools. The door sits on the pins and just has to be swung open and lifted straight up to be removed. An interesting fact about the doors, is that they came off a 1968 Roadrunner that Shawn’s dad bought in 1975 for $75. If only you could buy a whole car for $75 nowadays. The car had spun the rods and mains in the engine, so his dad threw in a new engine, and a set of rust-free doors off a 69 GTX. The doors of the Roadrunner have sat in storage ever since, until Shawn scooped them up for this build. What a cool piece of family history that most people would never know about, but it adds to this incredibly unique build.

As seen in the pictures, there wasn’t much left of any of the body metal, so Shawn had to make the most of it. Yes, he could have bought reproduction sheet metal, or found a parts car. But that would go against everything the build is about because it would be hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Don't forget he is trying to make the worlds cheapest Superbird. After some more fabrication, Shawn mocked up the front fenders and the rear quarters. This brought the issue of wheelbase length to Shawn’s attention. Shawn discovered that a Nascar and a Roadrunner wheelbase are seven inches different. There were many solutions that came to Shawn's mind such as cutting the car in half, taking a section out, and then welding the two pieces back together. Shawn then learned about these unique axle spacers that shifted the axle back. This allows you to then section the frame and add the seven inches to the frame above the axle. With minor modifications Shawn had the 117” wheelbase he needed. To get the rear quarter panels permanently attached, some more of the chassis had to be trimmed. After further trimming, Shawn got the rear quarter panels and the taillight panel mounted.

After using his ingenuity and the help of some friends to get the body mounted, Shawn turned his attention over to the drivetrain. Sticking to the theme of the build, he wanted a cheap Mopar engine. He looked all over but couldn't find one cheap enough. At this point, he made a decision that by his calculations would piss half of the world off. And that decision was getting the cheapest LS engine he could find. The engine was complete and running 6.0L Vortec out of a Chevy Truck. For only $600 Shawn found himself the engine he needed to keep the build moving along. Shawn did a quick spray paint rebuild on the engine which is exactly what it sounds like. Again, to not burn a hole in his pocket, Shawn got in touch with his friends to see what parts they had for sale. Sure enough, one of his friends had a stockpile of LS race car parts. He even happened to have the engine mounts Shawn needed so his LS wouldn’t twist itself out of its home. The transmission had to match the motto of being cheap and fast, so he found a cheap AR5 transmission out of a Chevy Colorado and an adaptor from FabBot to adapt it to the LS. The transmission had overdrive and wasn’t completely thrashed, so he added that to build. To make his life easy, he wanted to get an easy-to-use EFI. He ended up going with a Holley Terminator X ECU that he says he loves and would recommend others try. His buddy Eric also hooked him up with various other parts such as a set of Accel coils. The exhaust is a boom tube off another old Nascar so as Shawn says, “It’s loud as shit.” An interesting fact about these Nascar parts, is they are built to certain specifications, meaning a lot of parts are interchangeable. The boom tubes are a perfect example of this as they came off a completely different car, but bolt right on. A unique aspect that is adjacent to the drivetrain is the shifter. Shawn's thoughts are every Mopar needs a pistol grip shifter, but they don’t make one for the AR5 transmission, so what do you do? Build your very own pistol grip shifter. To go with his homemade pistol grip shifter, the car also has a footprint gas pedal. Which most people might not like in a car, but when David Spade likes an Instagram post of yours showing off the footprint gas pedal, you kind of have to keep it.

After getting the drivetrain pretty much completed, Shawn discovered some other small problems. With the brakes installed and the tires installed, there was not sufficient clearance. There is an easy solution to this, and it is called a zip wheel. The same was done to the front with roughly 2” cut off, to ensure the wheels never rub.

Shawn also ran into a couple of other unique issues regarding his sway arms, control arms, and steering arm. The lower sway bar mounts were a pain in the ass. His body Eric gave him an overflowing box of sway arms. Shawn then numbered each one and began the painstaking process of trying them until he found the right one. Every time he tried one, he would ask his buddy Eric who is a ARCA race car driver if it was right. After a while of going back and forth, he finally found the correct one. Next, he ran into a problem with his control arms. The driver-side tire was leaning out at the top like an inch which means it's perfect for left turns but not much else. Again, he ended up talking to Eric who suggested just trying to find a control arm the right length which was 8”. Going back to the place he has found most of his parts, eBay. Shawn was able to find a set of three control arms which included the 8” one he needed for $68. These old race car parts are out there, and they are dirt cheap. Finally, there was a unique problem with the steering arm. A lot of these old Nascar parts are interchangeable, but they are also specialized. The steering pitman arm has a ball bearing then a threaded piece on the center link it attached to. But the bearing on the inside was too small for the bolt to pass through to thread into the center link. This is when he knew these parts must be mismatched. He could have gone and spent another couple hundred bucks finding the exact right part. Then Eric gave him some Yodaesque advice “pretend you were at a racetrack, if you were at a racetrack how would you fix this.” Shawn knew exactly what he would do, “I would grind out the bearing a little bit since it was only a thousandth of an inch." Sometimes the simplest way to do it, is also the best way to do it.

With the minor downsides to a Nascar setup, such as this, there are also many plus sides. This would include the incredibly simple but useful suspension setup. The whole suspension is adjustable with screw jacks. If you want to slam your car as low as possible, you can do that. If you want to jack it way up because your town has way too many speed bumps, you can do that too. It's no surprise there is a mountain of wiring in a car. Shawn is a bit of a wiring nut and wanted something easy to use and safe. He figured his best option was a Ron Francis Express Race Fuse Box which he picked up for around $380. Shawn can be a bit of a wiring nut and loves the ease of use with this fuse box. Shawn made a few pieces and then used some more old Nascar pieces to put the dash together. He wanted access to everything behind the dash, so it has many easily removable panels for ease of access.

One of the first times Shawn started the car, it was misfiring badly which clearly isn’t a good thing. Not letting it get him down, Shawn says, "it was cool watching it shoot flames out of the boom tube." The misfiring was caused by a screw on the passenger cylinder head that was three threads too long. Meaning it was physically tight but had just enough room for the eyelet to wobble. Luckily this wasn’t anything major, and with a shorter screw the misfiring was fixed. Besides the initial misfiring, the initial shakedown of the car went well, which meant Shawn could continue plowing ahead. Like all birds this thing likes its air. In order to keep it cool, Shawn got a 5” thick radiator out of his buddy Eric’s race car as well as a massive air scoop from a Toyota Cup car. Shawn put his own twist on another race car hack. The radiator has little hooks on the top, so Shawn made a C bracket that he can slide over to capture the hook. He then just slides a bolt-in or out of the bracket to secure it. Making it take literal seconds to remove the whole radiator if needed. To make the car feel pretty, Shawn and his family took the time to clean and prep the interior for a fresh coat of white paint. Up until this point, the car didn’t have a rear window, let alone a rear window frame. Shawn doing his thing fabricated a whole new rear window section and window.

Shawn ordered the front nose and the rear wing, to make it into a Superbird from Winged Warrior Body Parts for around $1400. Adding the front nose of a Superbird created a unique problem, as they are not designed to fit on a 1970 Roadrunner. The roadrunner parts are slightly different lengths and have slightly different contours. There is the option of buying an entire front clip from a 1970 Coronet, which typically will run about $3000. As the motto for the build was cheap and fast, there was no way Shawn was going spend that much money when he could make it work himself. Shawn cut a couple of inches out of the hood and flattened it out. Since it originally had a little crown that does not match the Superbird nose. He then cut a couple of inches out of the front of the Roadrunner fenders and plated the front of them so the nose would sit properly. He then added some bracing, so they wouldn’t flap like a bird’s wings in the wind. With all these body modifications done, the nose and wing fit nicely. An interesting fact that angers Mopar purists, is if you park a real Superbird next to Shawn’s, his is about six inches shorter.

According to Shawn, one of the hardest parts of the build was the iconic pop-up headlights. He found a couple of people who made the bracket, to make them pop up and down, but the bracket alone costs about $2000. So, he said forget that, and for the next two months, he went on a mission to make his own. The pivot angle must be absolutely perfect, so they don’t bind when going up or down. Through trial and error and a lot of fabrication he got them to work. With Shawn saying, “It was just extremely hard but when you are being cheap, you just have to do what you have to do.”

Getting to the small final details, Shawn wanted the car to have A/C since he knew it would be going to many long events, such as the Hot Rod Power Tour. Yet again, they don’t make parts to attach an A/C unit to an LS engine stuffed inside an old Nascar chassis. So yet again, Shawn got to work making his own parts and made a custom set of A/C brackets. To further the cooling system of the car, Shawn added a set of incredibly ingenious air ducts to the quarter windows. The main purpose of these ducts was to make sure the rear brakes won’t turn into the surface of the sun. Even with all this in place, Shawn said the floor of the car can get crazy hot, all because Nascar didn’t really consider adding a bunch of heavy insulation to absorb some of the heat the boom tube is throwing.

One of the other final details was finding a pair of cheap seats. Shawn ended up finding a cheap pair of NRG racing seats that he played with a bit to get them mounted right. Seat position was more important than you think, so he didn’t smack his head off the roll caging when getting in and out. Anyone with a roll cage can respect this move because they know the pain of smacking their head or back off the roll cage. A car really has no go to it if it doesn’t get the sustenance it needs, which is gas. Already having a fuel system for the car, Shawn just needed to add a way to get the gas into it. Sticking with the NASCAR/ARCA theme, Shawn added a quick fill gas filler.

He then worked on the thing everyone would notice first, the paint job, which on this car you probably can’t even call it a paint job. He wanted to keep as much as he could untouched. The one thing he wanted to paint for sure was the nose and wing, since it was basically just black fiberglass. He played with the idea of painting the doors as he didn’t know if he wanted to cover that original white but ended up deciding to paint them. Shawn’s friend Chris painted the nose and doors to make them look as old and crummy as possible. He went with a faded neon green for the nose and made the doors look like they were off of Richard Petty’s Superbird. Shawn’s wife Sara proceeded to do an awesome job of adding all the hand-painted lettering and numbering all over the car. Then to the pièce of resistance, the decals. Since this wasn’t just any Superbird, Shawn didn’t want the original Superbird graphic. He happened to find a modified version with the roadrunner flipping the bird. Which he figured suited the car a lot better then the original.

With the car completed, it was time to take it on its true maiden voyage, the Hot Rod Power Tour. This tour was a five-day, five stop, multi thousand-mile event. Overall, Shawn called it a very successful 2000-mile shakedown. The only hiccup on the trip was getting a flat tire and some axle shaft problems. He also learned that if you take off fast enough when the car is full of gas, it will shoot some out of the filler vent in the rear, which in the eyes of Shawn, was a win. All in all, Shawn built this car in two years while working a 9-5pm job. He said that he typically likes to get cars done as fast as possible, which is usually around a year. With Covid, appalling part availability, and no real reason to get the car, he took his time and completed it in two years. Most guys are probably kicking themselves now thinking about how long they have been working on their project. Meanwhile, a guy with basic tools, a job, the roof, and some parts of a 1970 Roadrunner made this incredibly badass Superbird. It may not be the real deal, and it may not be a $200,000 custom car, but it is arguably cooler than both of those. By the way, Shawn figures not including his time, he has a grand total of $8500 into the Superbird. It is safe to say, Shawn created the world’s most affordable Superbird by a long shot.

Big thanks to Shawn for giving me the opportunity to write about this awesome garage built Superbird. Also, huge thanks to Shawn for taking time to call me to get the full story of the build. Shawn is a super down to earth guy who even took the time to teach me a few things!