12:05 Garage- ’70 Duster build

[racerjoe]

In an effort to lower the rear of the car, I modified the MP front offset hangers. I had some plates laser cut from sendcutsend with 3 mounting holes. The MP ones had only 2. Neither of these were in line with the install height of the Hotchkis hanger. I made the middle hole match the Hotchkis hanger. In the end, I think the car is approximately 5/8-3/4" lower. It looks much better and I can actually feel the difference sitting in the car.

This modification obviously affects the pinion angle. So, after battling every combination of pinion angle adjustment, I finally figured out my trans needed to be raised. @gmachinedart1 enforced my thoughts by saying none of the TKO500 swap kits put the trans in the right place.
I had previously put 3/8" of spacers on the mount and it helped but I still had a vibration starting around 73 mph. I couldn't raise the trans anymore due to it coming in contact with the floor. I finally decided it was time to remove the carpet and cut the hump. I ended up raising the tail shaft another 3/8" and I seem to have something to work with now. Go figure, the headers don't appear to hang as low, the tie rods have more clearance by the headers, etc. I sure hope the companies making these swap kits did a better job than Keisler did when they designed mine. However, I guess if I had the *** end of the car up in the air, it wouldn't have been a problem. I still get a slight vibration above 80MPH, but I think that may just be a pinion angle tweak. I didn't mess with that, only raised the trans.
I also ordered a Hotchkis rear sway bar and installed that while I was laying on my back all day. My initial thoughts are, the car actually rides better (seems to have smoothed out some harshness), which I didn't expect. I took some exit ramps at a rather high rate of speed and the car seemed very stable. I guess I'll know how much of a difference the bar makes at the next autocross. Hotchkiss had to have made all these parts to work together, so I would hope there would be an improvement.

 

[racerjoe]

Went out to the local autocross this past weekend. It was my first outing with the new Hotchkis rear sway bar. The car always had some understeer, which I attributed to the smaller front tires. The bar has 3 levels of adjustment. I started in the middle. For our autocross events, we get 3 runs in the morning session and 3 after lunch. The car did feel flatter in the morning sessions but still pushed hard. At lunch I tightened the bar up and my first run out was almost a second faster than my morning runs. The adjustment helped big time. It did make the *** end a more squirrely, almost like I can drift on demand if I want now. Go figure, Hotchkis parts are all designed to work together... I think I'm officially done with suspension modifications unless something ends up needing repair. The next step will be getting better tires. While I do have 200TW tires, I've read that these Nittos are some of the worst ones out there. I'm anxious to feel the difference with a good set of tires.

 

[racerjoe]

With Moparty fast approaching I figured it was time to get off my *** and work on the car. I had been putting off the serpentine pulley conversion for a while because I knew it was going to be a pain to get it right. I wasn't wrong, the pulley I bought for the AC compressor won't work, so I will have to replace the compressor. Also, getting the press on alternator and power steering pulley in the proper place has proven to be a trail and error exercise.
Below are the pics of the crank pulley I modified to have the trigger wheel for crank signal. I measured 1000 times to get the orientation as close to the V-belt pulley as possible and it looks pretty good. I'll likely just have to adjust the timing offset in the EFI once I check with a timing light. The big take away is I won't have to make or modify the existing sensor bracket.

This was the first time I ever TIG welded, and welded aluminum. Learned a lot, and I need more practice....

Also got a set of "good" 200TW tires to replace the Nittos. Anxious to see how the car handles with more grip. These are Falken Azenis RT660s. Consistently top 3 autcross tire in every reivew I've read. I wish my front wheels were 9" so I could run 275s all around. Maybe I'll see about getting them widened one day...

 

[Red Stripe]

Nice! Those should add some good grip. I have the RT615K's on another car and love em. So these should be even better.

Are you building a custom serpentine setup or is it a kit(aside from adding the crank trigger)?

 

[racerjoe]

Nice! Those should add some good grip. I have the RT615K's on another car and love em. So these should be even better.

Are you building a custom serpentine setup or is it a kit(aside from adding the crank trigger)?

The pulleys are from March. The custom part is the bracket spacing. My damper is 1/2” thicker than stock, which made pulley alignment a chore when I installed them. I think the aluminum heads also mess spacing up too. New compressor comes in tomorrow, so fingers crossed it isn’t too bad.

 

[racerjoe]

Finalized the serpentine conversion. It went as expected. The new AC compressor is slightly larger but not too bad. I can move it back about 1/4" since it has a 7 (or 8) rib pulley. I just used the spacers I had to get it going. The AC never did work great, but this new compressor has made a big difference in the cooling. I guess it's a win-win. Since no project can ever go super easy, I did fight the crank signal, which is what I thought I'd have the least amount of problems with. I couldn't recall the spacing the sensor needed to the trigger wheel so I looked it up. Instructions show no more than 5mm (~.019). Well that didn't work. After fighting it for a while and getting pissed off, I opened it up to around .025 and it worked. There's proof you don't need instructions!

I will say the motor seems to rev better with the new pulleys. The crank pulley is smaller than the old stock one. Maybe they do make a difference.

Just a few more small items to go and I'll be ready for Moparty 2022!

 

[DNasty777]

Wow, I was scratching my head for days on how I wanted to get a 36-1 trigger wheel on my crank. Great idea on welding the flange and bolting the wheel to that.

 

[racerjoe]

Part of my Moparty prep was to nut and bolt check all suspension and brake components and also visually inspect things to make sure nothing stupid is happening. I found the bushings on my UCAs were cracked, which made the arm move forward slightly. These are the bushings that came with the CAP AUTO UCAs. They don't feel like poly- they almost feel plastic. Knowing these arms have a bad reputation, and I wanted to upgrade, I needed to find out if I could get the SPCs quickly. I reached out to Peter at Bergmann (on a holiday weekend). He's got the SPC arms in stock and ready to ship. Always great customer service from Peter! I don't know any other company that will reply to your emails over a holiday weekend.

 

[turbodart68]

Wow, I was scratching my head for days on how I wanted to get a 36-1 trigger wheel on my crank. Great idea on welding the flange and bolting the wheel to that.

Be careful with the 36-1 wheel. I had high RPM problems with mine and I went to the MSD flying magnet one. Its a well known problem with EFI cars.

 

[racerjoe]

@BergmanAutoCraft got the new SPC upper arms out to me quickly as he stated. Got them installed with no drama. With all the adjustments pulled in, I measured 6 degrees of negative camber with my digital angle finder. I adjusted them in to around 1.8 so I had some drivability on the way to the alignment shop. After the guy gets everything setup, he comes inside to grab me. The alignment was damn near dead nuts where I wanted it without him touching anything. The guy literally made a 1/2 turn to get my caster dialed in. So final alignment specs are -1.8 camber, 6.5 caster, 1/32 toe. This is the most camber and caster I've ever run and I can tell the difference just street driving. Can't wait to get it on the autocross!
Sorry, I didn't take any pictures of them installed. Everyone knows what they look like... Now time to shine the turd up and load up for MOPARTY!

 

[72bluNblu]

Nice!

I've been running about +6.5° of caster for awhile, I've been as high as +8° in the past and as low as +3.5°, at least with the way my car is set up +6.5° seems to be the sweet spot. I could probably run more but with 16:1 manual steering and 275's it starts to get quite a bit harder to steer as you start going past +6.5°. The jacking effect gets a lot higher past that point too, it really cambers the wheels a ton with turning.

I keep my camber down around -1°, my last alignment I was at -1.1°. But really all I do is street driving and a decent amount of it, if I drove less or did more autoX I'd probably go higher.

Did you get the 1st Gen SPC's or the new 2nd Gen ones?

 

[racerjoe]

Nice!

I've been running about +6.5° of caster for awhile, I've been as high as +8° in the past and as low as +3.5°, at least with the way my car is set up +6.5° seems to be the sweet spot. I could probably run more but with 16:1 manual steering and 275's it starts to get quite a bit harder to steer as you start going past +6.5°. The jacking effect gets a lot higher past that point too, it really cambers the wheels a ton with turning.

I keep my camber down around -1°, my last alignment I was at -1.1°. But really all I do is street driving and a decent amount of it, if I drove less or did more autoX I'd probably go higher.

Did you get the 1st Gen SPC's or the new 2nd Gen ones?

Honestly, I've got you to thank for much of how my car is set up. I've learned a lot from your replies on various threads. So, Thank you!

When I started, I had a normal alignment (don't remember the specs) and that wore tires our very quickly on the autocross. I stepped to -1 camber, maybe, and it still seems to wear the outer edge of the tire, but was a little better. I'm hoping these settings get the tire flatter in the turns.

Funny you mention the camber with the wheel turned. When I got home, I turned the wheel to check it out. I snapped a pic to send to a buddy.

I got the first gen. I couldn't justify the additional cost. I'm not a good enough driver to even realize the difference.

Damn I need to get some 275s on the front! I may end up getting the wheels I have widened. Rocket Racing sold out to Holley and they immediately discontinued my wheel. I was hoping they would have expanded the size offerings. SMH.

 

[72bluNblu]

Yeah I've found that too much past -1° camber and I start to get camber wear, but that totally depends on your driving. I spend too much time commuting, for primarily autoX use I can totally see how you'd get wear from not enough camber too, just depends on your going straight vs turning time. And of course the more aggressive driving of autoX will wear them faster, so that kind of wear would show up a lot faster.

I like the SPC Gen I's I have on my Duster, they do everything I need. When my Challenger goes back together I'm gonna lose the Hotchkis UCA's because of their heim joints and I was considering going to the Gen II SPC's, but honestly I don't like the fact that they don't run a standard upper ball joint so you have to get it from SPC and apparently only SPC. Seems like a good way to end up with really expensive UCA's you can't get a ball joint for.

Definitely get some 275's! I love mine. They're not as dramatically harder to steer as you might think, and man do they grip! Eventually I'd like to have them on 18x9.5's or 18x10's so they're not the little bit squeezed that they are on my current 18x9's. Plus I may entertain going to 285's at some point, I think I have the clearance. And I have some more clearance I think I can make if not.

 

[DionR]

It funny how proportions work to me. When I have one of my 245 width tires off, it looks plenty big enough. Bolt it on the car and it looks barely bigger than the stock tires did.

Not that I am going to throw them away, just funny to me how different they look when on the car.

 

[racerjoe]

It funny how proportions work to me. When I have one of my 245 width tires off, it looks plenty big enough. Bolt it on the car and it looks barely bigger than the stock tires did.

Not that I am going to throw them away, just funny to me how different they look when on the car.

I made the mistake of sticking the 275 in the front wheel well before I had it mounted. I feel like I’m running skinnies up front again.

 

[racerjoe]

Moparty 2022 auto cross recap.
The autocross course was pretty much the same layout as last year but I think some of the cone spacing may have been different. It took a few runs to determine how much I could push the car. I ended the morning session with a 41.4x as my fastest time. That was good enough for 5th overall in autocross. I didn't improve on the afternoon session and fell to 10th overall after more people showed up and others improved. I was really hoping to get into the 40s the following day. After the morning session the second day, no one below me improved nor did I. I remained in 10th overall out of 50 cars. Late in the afternoon session I finally got a 40.8 on 3rd to last run. I was super pumped! The next run I slowed down, then the last run I backed up my best time with another 40.8. This put me in 9th overall out of 50 cars in autocross! I'll take that! I was unsure of how many of those cars in front of me were in the vintage class until the results were posted online. Turns out I was 4th in the vintage class on autocross! Two of the guys in front of me were 1st and 2nd place grand champion finishers for the last 3 years. I would need to knock off .6 seconds to beat the second place guy, but 4 seconds to catch first! That likely won't happen. (3rd place was a dodge omni and I was only .2 seconds behind him)
I'd like to point out there were 2 very high dollar E-bodies out there. One has the full speed tech suspension which I'm sure is north of $20K and the other had a full Shwartz performance chassis. I was over 2 seconds faster than both of them. I understand a lot of it has to do with the driver, but it makes me feel good that my garage built pile of bolts performed so well.
I'll cover more and add some pictures soon.

 

[HemiDenny]

You were tuff to miss on the track....you hauled *** everywhere....straightaway and corners. Thanks for taking time to chat with us.

 

[racerjoe]

You were tuff to miss on the track....you hauled *** everywhere....straightaway and corners. Thanks for taking time to chat with us.

Thanks for your kind words Denny. It was my privilege to meet you and your wife.
It's so much fun making my car work the way I intended it to work when I put it together. I think I've found some limitations of the car's capability, but I also think there's other places I can push harder. Last weekend makes a year since my first ever autocross lap. I've got a lot to learn still.
I spoke with a guy that went for a ride in the Viper (fastest autocross lap by a mile) and he said it was downright scary. I need to get to the point where I scare people! Lol

 

[racerjoe]

Ya'll like pictures? Here are some I stole from Holley's site.

I like the one below. You can tell I'm accelerating based on the body position compared to the static position on the next photo.

It helped greatly having my "crew chief" in the car with me. He was providing feedback on whether or not it was a good run simply based on seat of the pants feel. (He never even saw an autocross in person prior. On my fastest pass he kept saying this is a good one, hold on to it, hold on. He was right.

 

[DionR]

Love it!!

 

[72bluNblu]

Moparty 2022 auto cross recap.
The autocross course was pretty much the same layout as last year but I think some of the cone spacing may have been different. It took a few runs to determine how much I could push the car. I ended the morning session with a 41.4x as my fastest time. That was good enough for 5th overall in autocross. I didn't improve on the afternoon session and fell to 10th overall after more people showed up and others improved. I was really hoping to get into the 40s the following day. After the morning session the second day, no one below me improved nor did I. I remained in 10th overall out of 50 cars. Late in the afternoon session I finally got a 40.8 on 3rd to last run. I was super pumped! The next run I slowed down, then the last run I backed up my best time with another 40.8. This put me in 9th overall out of 50 cars in autocross! I'll take that! I was unsure of how many of those cars in front of me were in the vintage class until the results were posted online. Turns out I was 4th in the vintage class on autocross! Two of the guys in front of me were 1st and 2nd place grand champion finishers for the last 3 years. I would need to knock off .6 seconds to beat the second place guy, but 4 seconds to catch first! That likely won't happen. (3rd place was a dodge omni and I was only .2 seconds behind him)
I'd like to point out there were 2 very high dollar E-bodies out there. One has the full speed tech suspension which I'm sure is north of $20K and the other had a full Shwartz performance chassis. I was over 2 seconds faster than both of them. I understand a lot of it has to do with the driver, but it makes me feel good that my garage built pile of bolts performed so well.
I'll cover more and add some pictures soon.

Strong work!!!

Sounds like you put down some great times and had fun doing it, which is the most important part.

My experience with doing some autoX like that before is that the fastest cars weren’t necessarily the best handling, they were the ones whose drivers had a ton of experience, especially experience in that particular car. Seat time in the car your autoX’ing makes a huge difference, and so does having your car set up/tuned well.

That’s where I usually see the big dollar cars lose out. It’s not that their $20k dollar suspension can’t handle, it’s more like their owners just bolted it in and expected it to be lighting fast out of the box because they spent a ton of money. But just because you dropped $20k doesn’t mean you can skip the set up and tuning part. And then seat time too. Even if you have the fastest car out there you won’t be able to drive it the fastest if you’re not spending the seat time in the car to know all the particulars of what it does best and how to do that.

 

[racerjoe]

Moparty 2022 Grand champion drag race recap
I didn't do anything special to prep for drag racing besides dropping rear tire pressure and raising front tire pressure. Since I had problems throwing V-belts last year I knew this would be the test to see if the serpentine setup was worth the time and expense. Turns out it was good. I didn't touch the belt adjustment all weekend.
I'll start by saying I don't understand why they don't prep the starting line for us like they would the drag cars. Almost everyone in the grand champion class is running a soft tire. Granted, they aren't as soft as a drag tire, but at least give us a chance. To my surprise, there was still some prep on the starting line for my first pass on Friday. The car hooked pretty good with minimal tire spin. Around the time I got into 4th gear, something didn't feel right. I got on the brakes hard and took the first exit. The engine was barely running and I immediately smelled fuel. I got out to see a huge puddle of gas under the car. I shut it down and pushed the car away from it. Some young guys that work for Holley came to see what was going on and they saw a huge spray of fuel from the fuel rail near an injector when I cycled the key. I immediately thought it was an o-ring failure so I went on the hunt to all the vendors on site. None of them had anything so I loaded up and went to the local autoparts for some o-rings. Once I start taking it apart, I see the 1/4 screws that hold the fuel rail hold downs to the intake manifold had backed out enough to lift the rail off the injectors! This could have ended very badly for me and the car. First item on the list is lock tight on those bolts!
I was hyper focused on checking the rails the following day. I kept smelling fuel and was looking all over while in the autocross grid. I later find out the truck next to me was spewing fuel out of his vent every time he took a turn. I was smelling fuel all over his truck. That was a relief and it settled me down a bit.

Saturday drag racing was pretty good. First run out, the car ran a 12.698 at 110. They still had some prep left so the car hooked well with a 1.8 60'. The next run I was in the same lane (left) and the prep was pretty much gone. It spun and slowed to a 13 something. For the final run they put me in the right lane. The prep was gone in the groove so I decided to move out into the prep. It hooked! Keep in mind I'm not clutch dumping, just a little rev, roll out, and hammer down. It ran a 12.680 at 110 with a 1.8 60'. Who says manual trans cars can't be consistent?

They had the scales on at the end of the track so I asked if I could weigh the car. I've never weighed it, ever. It was 3535lbs with me in it and about 1/2 tank of gas. I'm about 200lbs. I guess that's about where I thought it would be but wasn't sure. I've heard of some dusters being under 3000, but I knew I wasn't that light.

 

[Red Stripe]

Car looks amazing!!!

It's awesome that you beat on all weekend without any major issues. And that it performs well on the autocross course and runs 12's while looking good is something to be proud of. You built one cool car!

 

[HemiDenny]

Car looks amazing!!!

It's awesome that you beat on all weekend without any major issues. And that it performs well on the autocross course and runs 12's while looking good is something to be proud of. You built one cool car!

The whole package really has the WOW factor. When you simply pass-by the car or it passes by you it stands out. And when he hits the road course, the WOT immediately draws your attention. My first thought was....this guy is out of control fast but then you realize it's..... "racerjoe" and he is just layin' it down.

 

[racerjoe]

Car looks amazing!!!

It's awesome that you beat on all weekend without any major issues. And that it performs well on the autocross course and runs 12's while looking good is something to be proud of. You built one cool car!

Thanks!

21 autocross runs, 4 drag strip passes, and 10 speed stop runs over the course of 2.5 days and it started up and drove off the trailer into the garage when I got home. Can't complain about that.