Up To Speed On the Bitchin’ Banana Budget Build

Since I’m a regular guy, and not a paid (or sponsored) big time YouTuber or TV star, I have to do my build the good old fashioned way; with lots of time and my own money from a full time day job. With that being said, it’s going to take a while, but if you’ve been following along, you’ve seen that I’ve made some progress in the past couple months.

Let’s go over everything that’s been done, and what’s in the works for the future, shall we?

So going into this whole thing, I wanted things to be “budget-minded”, which I have talked about a little bit in a couple of the videos I’ve uploaded to our Youtube channel. You may know my plan to be budget-minded is very difficult if you’ve bought any performance parts for your mopar….or any modern muscle car for that matter.

I bought my car; a 2010 Challenger R/T Classic with automatic transmission, about a year ago. I bought it because I like the styling on Challengers more than Camaros, Mustangs, G8s, etc., but I also knew that the power to weight ratio would leave me wanting a little more power. Thankfully, after a lot of research, I found a way to squeeze out some extra power on the cheap. Well, at least cheap in modern muscle car standards.

So without further ado, here’s the basic outline.

“Baseline”: At the very beginning, I got a couple Mustang Dyno pulls and my power came up to 311 rwhp. That doesn’t sound like a whole lot, but it’s pretty on point considering it was a Mustang dyno, which very typically read lower than other dyno brands. Not due to inaccuracy, but due to the way Mustang dynos operate. They put into effect variables such as drag, where other dynos do not. These dyno results put my Challenger right around 365-370 hp at the crank.

“Stage 1” mods: Used R2C CAI ($140), used JBA shorty headers ($160), used DiabloSport Predator ($75). You may have noticed that everything I bought is used. “Aren’t you worried that one or all of those things won’t work right?”, you might ask. Of course it’s a possibility, but it’s a calculated risk.

Consider these things when buying any used item:

-If it’s broken or damaged, will it be apparent and relatively simple to discover before purchasing?
-Does the cost justify taking a chance on it, assuming you don’t know the condition?
-Would buying the part(s) new be a smarter choice?

Applying these points to my purchases, the CAI is physically pretty difficult to break. The air filter element can be broken or dirty, but is easily replaceable. Even cracked tubing can be easily and affordably fixed. To me, buying used is not a big risk and worth the price savings. New is typically over $300 and can cost as much as $500.

The headers are also pretty hard to break, but a quick look over them will help you determine whether they have cracks anywhere, or warping on the flanges that bolt to your heads–even if some minor warping is evident, some brands of manifold gaskets are designed to compress and prevent exhaust leaks. I’ve used them and they work. This purchase is also not a big risk for me and cost me $160 instead of $600.

The biggest chance I took was the DiabloSport tuner. Tuners need to be “unmarried” if you want them to work on your vehicle. When a tuner is used on a car, is becomes “married” to that car and blocks further tuning to any vehicle not matching the VIN. The tuner must be unmarried by the owner before selling it to a new owner to allow further tuning. However, if the owner is a d****bag, he can tell you it’s unmarried while keeping his tune on his car, and selling you a worthless tuner. So, buying a tuner used can be a gamble, but considering the price I was offered, and what I wanted the tuner for, I figured it was worth it. Luckily, I was right in taking a chance, and everything worked out.

So far, I still haven’t gotten a dyno to verify what kind of HP gains I got from the Stage 1 improvements, but that should be coming soon.

Total cost of Stage 1 improvements: $375.