My 1969 Dart GTS 340 thread!
The saga continued...
In mid-August I was finally able to get back to figuring out what the car was, where it had been and what it needed.
I also got a small folder with some paperwork from the previous owner and a few of the original sale document notes from 1968.
The car was ordered new by a housewife in Baton Rouge LA sometime in late August of 1968 and built on October 9th (that explains the lack of headrests on the seats). It has 3.91 rear gears and was originally a V88 stripe-delete option too. From there it was sold to someone in Mississippi in 1979 and then later bought by the person in Missouri who owned it before me around 1995. I am the 4th owner.
The car was partially restored in 1999 and a Mopar Performance 360 Magnum 380 hp motor was dropped in around 2003. The AC was retrofit for modern R-134A refrigerant and the second gear band in the tranny was replaced with Kevlar. The intake was the Mopar M1 single plane, Edelbrock Performer 600 cfm carb, Mopar Performance electronic ignition and Heddman short tube headers. The motor install was done by some local garage that did a bit of a hack job on a bunch of details. The motor had 12k miles on it since the install.
With that basic information and a whole lot of diagnostic detective work (along with some help from my friends at Tillman's Speed Shop), I was able to get her running right between then and now. Since I want this car to be a street cruiser rather than a track buggy, I also tamed down the engine too.
Here is what was immediately wrong with it...
Distributor was shot
Champion plugs were toast
Plug wires were cracked and frayed
Carb was undersized and needed rebuilding
Vacuum hoses leaked
Here's what I replaced and added...
Comp Cams 264HR short snout hydraulic roller camshaft
264°/274°duration (210°/220° @ 0.050) and .512 in. /.512 in. lift
Double roller timing chain and gears
Carter rotary vane electric fuel pump P4070 72 gph. 4-8 psi
Edelbrock RPM Air Gap Magnum aluminum dual-plane intake
Edelbrock 650 cfm AVS Thunder 4bbl carburetor 1806
JEGS 40500 Forged Mopar Vacuum Advance Electronic Distributor
MSD Super Conductor 8.5mm silicone suppression spark plug wires
Autolite Copper 3924 spark plugs
K&N High performance Air Filter
11externally balanced 2500 rpm stall torque converter
Today the car runs nice and smooth with just a nice little cam rumble. She still has plenty of power and can smoke the tires at will...but is equally tame and cruises comfortably around town and in stop-and-go traffic. I also cleaned up the engine bay to make it more presentable.
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