MuuMuu101's 68 Dart, A Learning Process...
So, I know I've been pretty quiet on FABO for the past year. 2020 has been quite a bit crazy. Luckily, both my wife and I have been employed and haven't experienced any financial hardship due to COVID. If anything, our work has been more busy. Since July, I have been putting in quite a bit of OT at work as my project is wrapping up toward the end of next year. This hasn't left me much time or energy to work on the Dart as it's been sitting at my mom's house 20 miles away. And as my wife and I predominantly work from home still, we're starting to realize that we are outgrowing our small townhouse pretty quickly so we've been working towards saving for the next house.
With all that being said, there has been a lot of positive things have been going on in our life. Back in August of 2020, my wife and I decided to adopt a rescue puppy, Hershey! He's currently about 8-9 months old. We don't know what breed he is, but we took a doggie DNA test and will know the results within a couple of weeks. If you know me from Moparts, the running joke was that I always wanted a dog.
Shortly after adopting Hershey, I decided to take the Dart from my mom's house and have a shop to start working on it. When I started getting into the wiring for the dash, it was just a complete rats nest. I had the shop rewire the entire car and install a Holley Sniper EFI kit I already had most of the parts for. The shop did a fantastic job and I finally have the car running again. The owner is super awesome and is constantly checking in on me and giving me pointers through text as I go through the rest of the car. Now, that the Dart is running, my wife and I finally made room for it in our garage. I can actually work on the car in the comfort of my own home!
Lastly, my wife also found out we're pregnant and expecting a boy this coming May! This will be our first born. So, we're pretty excited.
And so the plan for 2020 is to get the Dart sorted and to get as much seat time as possible. I'm currently working in the interior to get it looking more presentable and hide the exposed areas. I basically stripped the dash frame and everything underneath the dash and now I'm going back in to 3D print plates and brackets. My coworkers have all been getting into autocross and have been inviting me, so you'll most likely see the Dart in action this year.
I removed my removable door bars from the car. When pinned it was almost impossible to crawl out of the car so we mostly left them unpinned which always made me feel unsafe because if I were to get into a crash they would swing into the occupants of the vehicle. Plus, they were so annoying to open and close. I think I'm going to leave the cage a 4-point cage when I drive on the street and autocross and install them when I go on a road course. Not that it matters, but they weighed 16 lbs each.
The wheels and tires for this car are just not right. The rear tires sidewalls were rubbing so bad under hard cornering that it shaved off the lettering and specs from the sidewall. The front tires got cut up back when I had 1.06" torsion bars. Since then I have installed 0.5" offset shackles, 1.18" torsion bars, and I "pulled"/"rolled" the front fenders a little bit. I swapped the wheels front to back and now everywhere rubs a little bit instead of the front being ok and the rear being really rubby. I really need new tires and at the very least get both wheels machined to a +35mm offset. We'll see what solution I come up with.
So, I know I've been pretty quiet on FABO for the past year. 2020 has been quite a bit crazy. Luckily, both my wife and I have been employed and haven't experienced any financial hardship due to COVID. If anything, our work has been more busy. Since July, I have been putting in quite a bit of OT at work as my project is wrapping up toward the end of next year. This hasn't left me much time or energy to work on the Dart as it's been sitting at my mom's house 20 miles away. And as my wife and I predominantly work from home still, we're starting to realize that we are outgrowing our small townhouse pretty quickly so we've been working towards saving for the next house.
With all that being said, there has been a lot of positive things have been going on in our life. Back in August of 2020, my wife and I decided to adopt a rescue puppy, Hershey! He's currently about 8-9 months old. We don't know what breed he is, but we took a doggie DNA test and will know the results within a couple of weeks. If you know me from Moparts, the running joke was that I always wanted a dog.
Shortly after adopting Hershey, I decided to take the Dart from my mom's house and have a shop to start working on it. When I started getting into the wiring for the dash, it was just a complete rats nest. I had the shop rewire the entire car and install a Holley Sniper EFI kit I already had most of the parts for. The shop did a fantastic job and I finally have the car running again. The owner is super awesome and is constantly checking in on me and giving me pointers through text as I go through the rest of the car. Now, that the Dart is running, my wife and I finally made room for it in our garage. I can actually work on the car in the comfort of my own home!
Lastly, my wife also found out we're pregnant and expecting a boy this coming May! This will be our first born. So, we're pretty excited.
And so the plan for 2020 is to get the Dart sorted and to get as much seat time as possible. I'm currently working in the interior to get it looking more presentable and hide the exposed areas. I basically stripped the dash frame and everything underneath the dash and now I'm going back in to 3D print plates and brackets. My coworkers have all been getting into autocross and have been inviting me, so you'll most likely see the Dart in action this year.
I removed my removable door bars from the car. When pinned it was almost impossible to crawl out of the car so we mostly left them unpinned which always made me feel unsafe because if I were to get into a crash they would swing into the occupants of the vehicle. Plus, they were so annoying to open and close. I think I'm going to leave the cage a 4-point cage when I drive on the street and autocross and install them when I go on a road course. Not that it matters, but they weighed 16 lbs each.
The wheels and tires for this car are just not right. The rear tires sidewalls were rubbing so bad under hard cornering that it shaved off the lettering and specs from the sidewall. The front tires got cut up back when I had 1.06" torsion bars. Since then I have installed 0.5" offset shackles, 1.18" torsion bars, and I "pulled"/"rolled" the front fenders a little bit. I swapped the wheels front to back and now everywhere rubs a little bit instead of the front being ok and the rear being really rubby. I really need new tires and at the very least get both wheels machined to a +35mm offset. We'll see what solution I come up with.