WORTH THE WAIT
appreciation for the first golden age of mus-
cle cars, he had Phil Stadden add some old-school, handpainted pinstriping.
After enjoying his visually modified butotherwise stock Charger for a few years,
Ryan’s old hot rodding instinct kicked in,and he decided to investigate ways to
increase its all-around performance enve-lope without sacrificing the comfort and
reliability he had gotten used to. To assist
with that process, he enlisted the helpof Chris Braun at Brauns Motorsports, a
Lomita, California, shop that’s been buildingextremely high-quality hot rods and restoring
classic muscle cars for more than 30 years.After speaking with Ryan and develop-
ing an understanding of what he wanted,Braun formulated a plan of attack. He sug-
gested the installation of an Edelbrocksupercharger, which would add at least 100
hp and 100 lb-ft of torque while simulta-neously delivering a smooth, quiet idle and
instant throttle response. Besides being100-percent smog-legal in California, the
Edelbrock system has the added benefit ofrequiring no internal engine modifications,
making it a cost-effective way to dramati-cally increase power output.
We’ve all heard the old adage aboutunderpromising and overdelivering, and
that’s exactly what Braun did with Ryan’sengine modifications. The hot rod wizard’s
estimate for the increases in the engine’soutput was very conservative, as evidenced
by before-and-after dyno runs. In stock trim,running on 91-octane gas, the engine deliv-
ered 391.3 hp at 5,500 rpm and 433.0lb-ft of torque at 3,800 rpm to the rear
wheels. With the Edelbrock E-Force super-charger system delivering 8 psi of boost,
and the same 91 octane fuel, those num-bers improved to 567.6 hp at 6,150 rpm
and 561.9 lb-ft of torque at 4,450 rpm.In keeping with Ryan’s request to
enhance the Charger’s total performanceenvelope, Braun next addressed the
braking system. To improve stopping power,the techs at Brauns Motorsports installed
a Brembo brake package with six-pistonfront and four-piston rear calipers clamping
down on drilled, two-piece rotors. Up front,the disks are sized at 380x34 mm and at
the rear they measure 380x28 mm.The Charger’s structure, as produced by
FCA’s Brampton, Ontario, assembly plant,is rock solid, but Braun believes there’s
always room for improvement. To cut downon chassis flex, Brauns Motorsports fabri-
cated and installed a six-point rollcage thatfits perfectly and does its job without caus-
ing any inconveniences for the driver orpassengers. To give the bars a polished
look, Ryan had Brauns Motorsports get70 moparmuscle.com