Season 1 · Episode 4

Roadkill: Extreme Elco Engine Swap!

David Freiburger, Mike Finnegan and a carsick dog drive a '69 El Camino 500 miles from home (on seven cylinders) to change an engine in the parking lot of Summit Racing. The story goes that Finnegan's wife's grandfather bought this1969 Chevy El Camino brand new, and it's been passed down through the family, finally to her. It's a solid car, and the suspension has been hopped up, but the all-original 350 engine was smoking like a freight train. That didn't stop the guys from limping it from Los Angeles, California to Sparks, Nevada, where Summit Racing has a fully-stocked warehouse. Summit sells every speed part and replacement part on Earth, including the 420hp, 383ci crate engine, so the logic was that the guys would save time on the engine swap because they could walk right into the store instead of driving to a parts store multiple times, as they would have back home. So how long will it take a couple gearheads to change an engine outside in a snow flurry? Will the EPA shut them down before they can finish? And what happens when you let a carsick dog ride shotgun?