Hello everyone!
I'm getting ready to start up a build thread for my Dart that is in the process of getting a Gen 3 Hemi, so I figured it was time to finally post something and start participating in the forums. I've been lurking around here for years soaking up information. I used to post pretty regularly on Moparts way back in like 2001 - 2003.
A little about myself. Born in Minnesota, raised in North Dakota, spent nearly 6 years (2002 - 2008) in North Carolina at Ft Bragg as active duty Air Force. I of course had the privilege of vacationing in the middle east a few times during my time in the military. That was fun. A couple of years after getting out of the military, I moved to Arizona to go to college. I guess I didn't get enough of the heat during my time in Iraq. :realcrazy: Anyways....it ended up working out great! I met my lovely wife down here and we're now happily married with 2 daughters.
I've had my 1970 Dart for nearly 26 years. When I got it it was a super clean, all original 318/904/7-1/4" old lady car. I am its second owner. It was my first car. I learned to drive in this car when I was 14 years old. Here she is the first day I had her (along with a 14 year old version of myself):
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I grew up loving Mopars primarily because of a hemi orange 1971 340 Demon that my uncle owned in the late 70s. Well, that and Leo Burkhardsmeier had a big block Mopar in his Wissota mod that kicked the crap out of everyone at the local dirt track in the early 90s when I first started going to races with my father.
My senior year of high school I took an auto body class and (much to my parent's horror) decided that I needed to have my own a hemi orange Mopar, so I painted my Dart as my class project:
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Here is the "finished" product at Interstate Raceway (Glyndon, MN) in the spring of 2004:
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Here she is today. Basically nothing has changed since 2003 haha. Still wearing the high school auto body paint job.
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I was out of the hobby for several years while other parts of my life intervened. A couple years ago I picked it back up and now I'm in the middle of doing some much needed updates to the Dart. She's all shiny on the outside and overall still a really clean car, however a lot of the key parts of the car (suspension, brakes, wiring, short block, fuel system, steering) are all ~54 years old at this point. Back in the day right after it was painted I had planned on doing a 408/416 stroker build. That didn't end up happening, so now I have a 54 year old ~8.5:1 compression stock 318 short block with a small solid flat tappet cam (Comp Magnum 224/224) and the top end I bought to use for the 408/416" stroker I mentioned. :wtf: It's been 13.90 @ 99 on street tires despite the poorly balanced combo, so it does okay for what it is I guess.
I recently signed up for Sick 66 however, so I have my work cut out for me to get everything done by October. The rest of my life takes a lot of my attention, so I am insanely slow at getting anything done. But I'm going to do my best. I do as much of the work on the car as I feasibly can in my little 22' x 20' garage:
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My father and my father-in-law are going to be my co-pilots on Sick 66. I've wanted to do a drag and drive event for a long time and I've also always wanted to drive my Dart down Route 66, so I'm really stoked for this. If we have to we'll do it with the 318 still in the car. If that happens, I guess that'll have to be its final voyage lol. I can't believe that thing has survived as long as it has. :eek:
Anyways, I'm happy to be here and excited to learn from all of the knowledgable members around this place. Hopefully I can contribute a bit too.