OldmanRick said

Jerry, that car belonged to my next door neighbor, friend, and first Mopar mentor. I met him at 11yrs old. I'd takin a shine to muscle cars several years earlier, mainly thru magazine subscriptions. My favorites were the 69' Mach I and the 69' Charger. I had convinced myself that the Mopar 440 was the baddest engine on the planet. Then at 11, (1970) I moved next to a real living breathing muscle car that I could see, touch, feel and hear. I was in absolute heaven. I wormed my way into his confidence by polishing the rims on his American's. He convinced me that I did them much better then he did. I think all he really did was find a sucker...lol.

As far as the car. He bought in new, and when I met him the heads were out for some work. It already had the fenderwell headers, Eddy Tarantula int, 750DP & a very large hyd cam along with 273 rockers. That was in front of a 3500/4000ish converter (observed) and 5.13's that had just replaced a broken 4.57 chunk, and soft compound M&H belted tires. Oh yea, it went 107/108 in the qtr.

He only drove it a handful of times a year and raced it about the same. But it was always like a event whenever he decided to go out. That car had amazing hook. Haze 4 or 5 feet and gone. Very few big blocks at the time could run with it on the few late night street encounters. One reason he stopped taking it out much was because everyone always wanted a piece of him, including the cops....lol. I was only in that car 5 or 6 times over the years and always got a kick out of it. That car made me a "340" fan forever.

Sorry to hijack & sorry to be so long. I have to go rest my typing finger now. :mrgreen:

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goldduster318 said

Well guys, I thought I would explain my rationale behind why I wanted the engine this way:

This car is a street car with a 4-speed, 3.23's, and as of now has relatively narrow 225 tires (doubt they will be able to hook, but whatever), so I didn't really need all the extra torque I could get from a stroker, and I knew a small displacement engine when not too radical gets better fuel mileage when you're not stomping it, as I like to drive the car.

I knew that with a properly designed and executed build, that I could make this thing run like an LS1 with modifications. That's what this does. I didn't use too much exotic stuff...it has some old Edelbrock heads from the late 90's, hydraulic roller cam, crane rockers, air gap, and a Quick Fuel 750 Annular DP carb. The engine has K1 H-beams as well...Mike said they were serious overkill, but they are still somewhat lighter than the stock rods while being strong. It also has Comp Beehive Valvesprings. You'll notice that this includes a lot of things you'd find on a modern hemi or LS motor.

Now, I had planned to assemble the engine myself, but I had issues finding someone who could do machining the way I wanted, and I got squeezed for time (and a somewhat sick 360 sped it up a bit), so I took it to Mike. I had planned a cam that was *somewhat* similar to what Mike had made (I won't share any further specs), and thought with some nice light pistons I could make 425-450hp which would have been plenty.

The most important thing to notice here is that Mike is extremely picky with the machining, and I can tell he loves this stuff. I dropped it off on a Sunday afternoon and he had measured the heads before midnight the same night.

He had to fix a lot of things, the head decks, valve job, crank tunnel, etc...but the attention to detail speaks for itself.

I still have some work to do to get it in the car (waiting on my offset dowel pins for the scattershield at the moment), but I'm super excited about dropping it in.


There it is, home in the back of my little brand-x truck.

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