It wasn't until the sale of Larry's Pro Street '70 Challenger in 2004 that the Satellite finally got a designated parking spot in the family garage. Initially, Larry and his wife Yolanda had planned to sell both Mopars and start over with something fresh. But more "milkshaked" contaminated oil made Larry consider pulling the 440 once again. Fueled by donuts, coffee, and cold beverages, a gang of fellow Mopar Knights swarmed over the crippled Satellite one Saturday morning. Amid the whirlwind of tools, Larry struggled to keep pace with the frenzied dismantling process, bagging, labeling, and boxing up the many parts that were extracted from the Plymouth. All it took was a single afternoon to reduce the B-Body to a rolling chassis. The bothersome engine and automatic transmission were pulled the next morning, leaving the Mopar a mere shell of its former self. Before any inklings of paint work could be initiated, Larry conducted some necessary metal work. The firewall, wiper motor relief, wiper blade ports, and trim holes were all patched, filled, and welded. The battery was relocated to the trunk, allowing more room in the engine compartment, as well as offering a little bit of necessary weight transfer. Sub-frame connectors, tying the unibody together a little bit tighter, were fabricated and installed by two club members.
Larry had decided upon a two-tone paint scheme for the '66-blue and silver-after seeing a blue '96 Viper and a silver '04 Viper at a car show. The Satellite was trailered to Ron's Paint & Body Shop in Garden Grove for the multiple coats.
While the body was in the paint booth, Larry sought to have as much prepared for the reassembly as possible. Parts were sent all over Southern California, either for powdercoating, zinc plating, chroming, or refurbishment. The gauges were sent off for restoration, and the 727 TorqueFlite went to Cottrell & Sons Motorsports in Whittier, California. A new windshield was ordered, and pieces were purchased to replace the stock parts that couldn't be salvaged.
By October, the Satellite returned. Unfortunately, it needed to go back to the paint shop. The doors, fenders, hood, and decklid had been painted off the car and allowed to cure at different times, which caused a distinctive difference in the final coloring of the finished product. The Plymouth was repainted and returned, miraculously, within two short weeks.
Yet again, the courageous weekend warriors attacked the car, installing the painted dash, new front and rear glass, stainless trim, cat whiskers, roof rail, door seal weatherstripping, instrument cluster, wire looming, and in-dash radio.
New Legendary dark blue carpet was laid, a Grant GT steering wheel was fitted to the column, and a pair of three-way Pioneer 6x9 speakers were mounted in the package tray to match the Pioneer Premier AM/FM CD player in the stock A/C control bezel.
Evidence of its drivability,...
Evidence of its drivability, the restored power steering offers superior handling combined with the heavier duty torsion bars and stiffer suspension bushings.
Larry opted to leave out the dash-mounted windshield wiper controls and the factory dashpad. The new locking gas cap was ruined when it got jammed on the filler neck, so another gas cap without the meddlesome locking mechanism was acquired.
Patterning their engine build after Car Craft's March '05 "Millennium Wedge" article, Larry decided to build a stroked, clearanced, and overbored 383 into a 443ci engine. The factory block was decked .040 inches, bored .060 over, line-bored, honed, and clearanced for the 440 crank. The B-Block was filled with Keith Black 10.3:1 compression pistons connected to 6.135-inch Chevrolet truck rods. A Lunati flat-tappet 536/547-lift camshaft slid into place to control the undulations. The pair of Edelbrock aluminum Performer heads with Harland Sharp roller rockers is fed by an Edelbrock Performer RPM aluminum intake and a Holley 950 double-pumper carburetor. Car Craft claimed well over 500 hp for this combination, which sounded just fine to Larry. Hooker headers flow the fumes out through Magnaflow mufflers and 3-inch stainless tubes out the rear. Mated up to the newly rebuilt automatic with a 10-inch 2,800 rpm stall converter, the differential still sports the open geared 2.76 rear, which is more for street cruising than quarter-mile launches.
After a year of break-in and fine tuning, the Satellite was in tip-top running order, and Larry took Yolanda to help pick out the material and colors for the interior. Wahl's Auto Upholstery in Los Alamitos, California, wrapped the factory buckets and rear bench in Ultra-Leather Smoke-colored hides. They also covered all four panels in Smoke and Diplomat Blue leather, and custom embroidered the Chrysler insignia into the package tray.