1969 Dart Street/Strip (Re)Build

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I took the car to the shop that did the gears and took a guy for a quick ride. They said that it needed a little more shim on the coast side. Nothing necessarily wrong with it other than the noise may be annoying to some. They said if I wanted it redone that they would fix it. I think I'm just going to leave it for now.
 
Finally getting to open her up now. Every time I go out I forget to attach the GoPro so all I have at the moment is cell video. The camera does not like this car because it keeps blowing the mic out and making it sound like the car is cutting out.

Half throttle 20-70 Run 5000 rpm: [ame]http://youtu.be/I8WklDhEC6Y[/ame]

Feathering the throttle
[ame]http://youtu.be/Dj8yaLoxghE[/ame]

Tunnel pass open cutouts. Bad audio: [ame]http://youtu.be/KzbzPFSDUes[/ame]

Hope to get some more video soon. Ran into a ZL1 yesterday and I thought it was gonna be on. Neither one of us motioned and he turned not far after we got side by side. Too bad. It would have been fun.
 
"Ran into a ZL1 yesterday and I thought it was gonna be on. Neither one of us motioned and he turned not far after we got side by side. Too bad. It would have been fun"

thats how it is when you got an old muscle car that sounds like it got a set. the high dollar guys dont wanna race you because they dont wanna face the idea that there big dollar cars might get beat by something a blue collar guy built in his garage. i ran into an audi R8 a couple weeks back. perfect scenario. sitting at a red light two lane freeway onramp dead ahead. straight shot for nearly 1/2 mile. no merging lanes just two lane black top. i start reving the piss outta my car. he wont even look over at me. light turns and i pace him keep tapping the gas and surging forward. pussy wouldn't run me. but every punk in an integra wants a piece of me. i wont even waste the gas on those guys.
 
"Ran into a ZL1 yesterday and I thought it was gonna be on. Neither one of us motioned and he turned not far after we got side by side. Too bad. It would have been fun"

thats how it is when you got an old muscle car that sounds like it got a set. the high dollar guys dont wanna race you because they dont wanna face the idea that there big dollar cars might get beat by something a blue collar guy built in his garage. i ran into an audi R8 a couple weeks back. perfect scenario. sitting at a red light two lane freeway onramp dead ahead. straight shot for nearly 1/2 mile. no merging lanes just two lane black top. i start reving the piss outta my car. he wont even look over at me. light turns and i pace him keep tapping the gas and surging forward. pussy wouldn't run me. but every punk in an integra wants a piece of me. i wont even waste the gas on those guys.

Sounds about right! I suppose that would be a kick in the groin to pay that much for a car only to get spanked by 40+ year old muscle. I'm sure I'm gonna run into a bunch of ricers that want to play, but like you said, don't even want to waste the gas. I might ask them if they mulch or bag with it though! Ha! Your Dart is still one of my favorites on here btw! It's a sweet car dude.
 
Go get em' you 2. Don't take no **** from nobody! That's how I roll as well!!

Tonight will be my first ever cruise-in with the car. People meet up at central and west on Fridays and I never have been, even as a spectator. We'll see what's sorts of trouble I can get into! Wife is coming with too so at least I'll have a cruise buddy.

Apparently the car isn't quite fast enough yet. The wife didn't even get a little scared when I opened it up! She must secretly be a speed freak...
 
Congrats Clint ,glad to see it on the road. Drive it like you stole it and have a blast. Nwdart
 
just spend 3 hours ready, crap i forgot about dinner. cant wait to start my build in a couple months
 
Tonight will be my first ever cruise-in with the car. People meet up at central and west on Fridays and I never have been, even as a spectator. We'll see what's sorts of trouble I can get into! Wife is coming with too so at least I'll have a cruise buddy.

Apparently the car isn't quite fast enough yet. The wife didn't even get a little scared when I opened it up! She must secretly be a speed freak...

Throw a 200 Hit of Juice on it and she will never get in it again! Lol
 
I enjoy the sound clips. I'd like to hear it with the GoPro.
 
Took it out had some fun with it. Lots of looks driving through the cruise and several people stopped and wanted to talk about it. Had a lot of "oh man this was my first car in high school" or "my so and so relative had one of these" or "man you just don't see Darts around much". And of course my favorites are "man that thing don't sound like a normal motor" and "is that a big block car?" I thought that it was hooking really well the first few times I've been nailing it. But that night she seemed to want to really scorch the tires. It still moved out really quick all the while tires still spinning through first and second until I would let out. Even with the tires spinning, the car stays pretty straight and plants you in the seat. I opened the cutouts one time on the highway and in the last part of the video. Unfortunately, I thought the audio would be better but I mounted the GoPro too high on the back window and got a lot of wind noise through the case. I used the waterproof case and that muffled the exhaust almost completely. Next time I'll try the open case with it mounted lower out of the wind stream. The best thing my wife said all night was "I really like it with the open headers. It really sounds mean like that!" Brings a tear to my eye. Love that woman!

[ame]http://youtu.be/k6lf1OeK1do[/ame]
 
Car looks and sounds vicious Clint! great job and congrats!

Thank you much. It's been a lot of blood, sweat, and beer (and let's not forget money!) to get to this point. I haven't even cared about putting the interior in it right now. I just wanna take it out and beat the crap out of it regardless of what it looks like. Man it's been fun to play with this kind of power finally. The combination just really works and even though it sucks fuel like crazy, at least I'm not limited to race fuel anymore. It's nice to be able to cruise around about 2200 rpm and then be able to mash the pedal and she's hitting 6K almost instantly! It's such a rush. :burnout:

This week I'm going to get the driveshaft loop in and button up some wiring under the fender that is still exposed. At the moment I have 3 leaks that need addressed. The first leak is coming from the front seal of the 3rd member that the shop put it. Not happy about that or the whining gear setup they did. I think I'm pretty well done with having them do any further work for me. Everything they do has to be redone. The second one is coming from the Y block on the rear brake lines. I have yet to pinpoint the exact leak though. The third leak is my fuel pump. It appears that I have flaws in the threads of the billet block. I can see 2 cracks on the output side and 1 on the input side. I've gooped the hell out of teh threads twice and it still ends up leaking. I called Aeromotive and they said that they have never seen the block crack before and there shouldn't be any flaws in the threads either. So at some point I'm going to have to send this pump in to get fixed. This is the second Aeromotive pump that I've had leak issues with! Test N Tune is too close for me to send it off and possibly miss the event so I'm probably going to have to just diaper all the leaks to be able to get some runs in. It's either that or get another pump and use as a backup which I'm not thrilled about doing. It never ends.
 
Well it seems that I can't catch a break no matter what I do. Came home from work yesterday and started the car up to take it to a show. I let it warm up as I was putting the GoPro on the window. When I got in something sounded different like almost a grinding type noise. It wasn't "normal" to what I have been hearing. So I got back out and I hear knocking coming from the motor. It was hard to tell where it was coming from. It almost sounded like it was coming from the passenger side so I popped the valve cover off and didn't find anything. So put the cover back on, started it, didn't hear it anymore. Thinking maybe it was a fluke I pulled it out of the garage and it came back. I could really hear it now. Sounds like it's coming from the bottom of the engine. Oil pressure was good. So I parked it and opened the oil filter today. The oil had quite a bit of sparkle to it which is to be expected since it's fairly new but unfortunately the paper was torn open in one spot and I found a few metal shavings in the paper as well. I think the motor may be done already. This is quite upsetting. I think it my be time to find a new hobby.
 
Sorry to hear such bad news. Coworker of mine built a 406 chevy and scorched it in six miles. Bought the block at a swap meet and they had removed a plug that evidently never gets taken out. Oil bypassed the filter. Hopefully you have a spare mill laying around to swap out while you figure out what's wrong with your engine.

Keep us posted
 
Been watching your every move. Ups and downs. Don't know if I could stay with it. I'm about another year away from my 69 Dart big block project. If that happened to me I'd prolly quit. Sorry for the misfortune.
 
Is your converter anti ballooning? Could it have took the thrust bearing? Just a thought.

You will get it handled! Don't let it discourage you. All the hard work is over with.
 
You've got an awesome car. The engine is one part, and one part of the engine may have an issue. After you repair it you'll enjoy the car even more.
 
Be proud brother! You earned it! You have endured the hardest thing I think any man can face. Especially with a wife to please. Enjoy the car every chance you get because you deserve the joy it brings. I have lived the same dream/nightmare and the end result as you know is worth it! Your car is the definition of "not to be fu@ked with! " hats off to you bro and your efforts.
 
Be proud brother! You earned it! You have endured the hardest thing I think any man can face. Especially with a wife to please. Enjoy the car every chance you get because you deserve the joy it brings. I have lived the same dream/nightmare and the end result as you know is worth it! Your car is the definition of "not to be fu@ked with! " hats off to you bro and your efforts.

sucks! but u gotta fix it! or trade it to me.--bob
 
I talked to the builder this morning and felt confident that the bottom end isn't coming apart. He didn't think that the thrust bearing got taken out either since if either of those events happened that the pleats in the filter would have a significant amount of shavings in all of them. I literally have only seen 2 or 3 shavings but I haven't cut it completely and lay it out. He's gonna come over next week and either listen to it or take the car then. The head gaskets are leaking and the rear main is leaking so he's gotta fix that anyway. He wants to get it on the lift and fix those issues and figure out what could be the knocking/rattling noise. Maybe it isn't as bad as what it seems.
 
Tonight will be my first ever cruise-in with the car. People meet up at central and west on Fridays and I never have been, even as a spectator. We'll see what's sorts of trouble I can get into! Wife is coming with too so at least I'll have a cruise buddy.

Apparently the car isn't quite fast enough yet. The wife didn't even get a little scared when I opened it up! She must secretly be a speed freak...

You've got a good woman!
 
this exact thing happened to me. my flex plate bolts had backed out and were rubbin the dust sheild. i always lock tite them now.

I had thought about that. The one bolt that I could see wasn't backed out when I looked but in all honesty, the noise did seem to come from that area. I'm not running a dust shield so if there is a bolt that's hitting on something, I'm not sure what. I may get underneath and have the wife crank it and check all four. I put all the bolts in with locktite and torqued to the specs that I read on here. When I torqued them I thought that it didn't feel like that was a high enough torque but went with it anyway.
 
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