My '69 Dart Build - Finally
Sorry for the long post - but this is a long story.
About 13 years ago, wanting something like my old '69 340 Swinger that I stupidly sold back in the late 1980s, I bought a '69 Dart 270 on eBay. It was an unfinished project that the previous owner had tired of. It was advertised as having fresh paint, a 380-horse 360 crate motor, refreshed 727 and 8.75 rearend. If I remember correctly I paid about $4500 for the entire car and arranged shipment from Oregon to SoCal.
When I received the car I found the paint was, in fact, a fresh Maaco orange-color paint job (the closest Maaco had to GoMango), the 360 had never been fired. The PO had put a Holley 770 Street Avenger carb on the M1 single plane intake, a set of unknown headers and a new Mopar electronic ignition. The 727 looked clean but I couldn't verify what was inside and the 8.75 is a B-body rearend with a 489 pig with Sure Grip and 3.23 gears. Inside the car was a complete 3" exhaust sitting in the backseat. On the front floor was a NIB B&M Megashifter and a complete set of new Autometer guages (for a planned Rocky Mountain Dash that he never purchased). I thought I did pretty good with the buy.
Not being a fan of orange and remembering my old R4 Charger Red 340 Swinger with a white butt stripe, I made plans to strip the car down to a rolling shell and have the paint blasted. With the paint removed I found the PO hadn't been exactly truthful about the car "never been in an accident" and ended up having the rear passenger side fender replaced with a new skin by "paint shop #3" (I said this is a long story).
I sold the M1 intake and have a new Eddy RPM Air-Gap dual plane and 750DP Quick Fuel with annular boosters to go on top.
I also sold the front bench seat - it's now in New Zealand.
Wanting the best of both worlds, a quick street fighter and reliable freeway flyer, I sold the 727 and had a 200-4R with reverse-pattern manual shift and a lockup 2800-rpm stall converter built. I also purchased 4.30:1 gears for the street and occasional strip part of this build. The .67 OD of the 200-4R will give me the equivalent of 2.88 final drive on the freeway.
OK, that's enough for the first chapter. More later.