Another Mopar Off My Bucket List - Barracuda Fastback
With the decision made to eliminate the intercooler from the build, we turned our thoughts to the rest of the car. There had been aspects of the blower/intercooler that were going to affect the engine bay.
For starters, when we had the 512 mocked up in the car we didn't have sufficient clearance for our 2-speed wiper motor. The 3-speed wiper would give us a few more inches of room to work with so we decided on making the swap a few years ago.
As our discussion on mods went on we thought it would be nice to clean up the firewall more. We'd already gutted the air conditioning components from the heater box figuring that air conditioning was a luxury we could do without. Now I began to reconsider my son's original wish to eliminate the heater too. I struggle with letting him make all the choices even though it's his car. It's sometimes hard to know where to draw the line between giving advice and making decisions.
I hadn't thought about the heating system since before the decision to order the Hemi. For some inexplicable reason it seemed less of a necessity now. Maybe it's that the project had reached a new plateau of insanity. At any rate, we decided to get rid of the fan motor that protrudes through the firewall and the heater box inside the car. It would mean not having to plumb the hoses to the firewall too. The dash wiring would be simplified and working beneath it would be less of a chore.
After removing the heater assembly we went ahead and started filling the holes. I think we'll try to retain the dash's vents and defroster ducts. I'll try to use the cable controls to open and close them even if we don't have a fan. It may be enough to stop the windshield from fogging when we need to.
Spencer didn't care about the windshield wipers but I really felt they should be considered a necessity for a street driven vehicle. Our next step is going to be trying to move the wiper motor behind the firewall so we can fill the hole for it. It should work if I measured correctly and it'll really reduce engine bay clutter.
While I was welding the openings shut I realized that the inner fenderwells were covered with all sorts of holes we were unlikely to use. I started filling them too. We'll probably be putting new holes in here & there as we mount other accessories.
With the decision made to eliminate the intercooler from the build, we turned our thoughts to the rest of the car. There had been aspects of the blower/intercooler that were going to affect the engine bay.
For starters, when we had the 512 mocked up in the car we didn't have sufficient clearance for our 2-speed wiper motor. The 3-speed wiper would give us a few more inches of room to work with so we decided on making the swap a few years ago.
As our discussion on mods went on we thought it would be nice to clean up the firewall more. We'd already gutted the air conditioning components from the heater box figuring that air conditioning was a luxury we could do without. Now I began to reconsider my son's original wish to eliminate the heater too. I struggle with letting him make all the choices even though it's his car. It's sometimes hard to know where to draw the line between giving advice and making decisions.
I hadn't thought about the heating system since before the decision to order the Hemi. For some inexplicable reason it seemed less of a necessity now. Maybe it's that the project had reached a new plateau of insanity. At any rate, we decided to get rid of the fan motor that protrudes through the firewall and the heater box inside the car. It would mean not having to plumb the hoses to the firewall too. The dash wiring would be simplified and working beneath it would be less of a chore.
After removing the heater assembly we went ahead and started filling the holes. I think we'll try to retain the dash's vents and defroster ducts. I'll try to use the cable controls to open and close them even if we don't have a fan. It may be enough to stop the windshield from fogging when we need to.
Spencer didn't care about the windshield wipers but I really felt they should be considered a necessity for a street driven vehicle. Our next step is going to be trying to move the wiper motor behind the firewall so we can fill the hole for it. It should work if I measured correctly and it'll really reduce engine bay clutter.
While I was welding the openings shut I realized that the inner fenderwells were covered with all sorts of holes we were unlikely to use. I started filling them too. We'll probably be putting new holes in here & there as we mount other accessories.