1969 Dart Street/Strip (Re)Build

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It looks very good. Taking on a car with rot issues is a big job. I've never seen a triangulated four link in an A body. Are you going to take it to the strip? if you do be sure and let us know how it does. Should be at least low 10s with a serious engine like the one you're building.
 
Doosterfy said:
It looks very good. Taking on a car with rot issues is a big job. I've never seen a triangulated four link in an A body. Are you going to take it to the strip? if you do be sure and let us know how it does. Should be at least low 10s with a serious engine like the one you're building.
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Yeah, rot really really sucks a$$! All I can hope is that it's all worth it in the end. There are several others here running the triangulated 4 link setup on here. Most are the RMS setups. As far as I know, folks are liking them. I don't recall how the track runs worked out with theirs, but I'm sure they are money once the setup is tweaked to run straight and pull hard with the weight distribution to the rear tires. If this car gets into the low 10's, I'd be happier than a fat kid eating cake. I don't really expect if to go that fast, but I am hoping for high 10's.
 
FINALLY got the engine guy to getting around to ordering the pistons. I found a guy here at work who is a dealer for JE so I'm actually ordering them through him. Since these are custom made, I wanted to get the best possible price on them and it sounds like this guy gets the best deal you can on JE stuff. I don't know what the damages are going to be yet but I'm sure I'll cringe a little either way. Hopefully there's not a huge back log on orders. Here's the sheet.

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Another update:

Finished up the rolled bar edge on the dash insert. Just need to finish cutting the larger holes in the insert for the speedo and tach and smooth everything up. My 3rd dremel in 5 years has crapped out AGAIN and therefore I'm at a stand still on getting the last 2 holes cut. Does anyone else have this much trouble with their Dremels? Luckily Dremel keeps warranting them out. Here's some pics with the smaller guages in.

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Motor work has taken another step forward. Motor guy is working the heads over. So far, just by smoothing up the combustion chambers, he gained 11cfm @.300" lift which he said was significant for that little of work. He hasn't touch the bowls or anything else yet. Just smoothed up the chambers and already seeing improvements. The heads supposedly had already flowed over 300 CFM from the previous owner so we'll see. Of course flow benches are going to vary and this is a Superflo set up at 25" vacuum instead of the typical 28". He's only opened up the valves to .500" lift thus far (not sure why) but he said we'll open them up to .700 and eventually see what they do. We're also going to try a set of undercut valves and see how those respond compared to the straight cut valves.

So just throwing this out there, the cam, lifters, springs, (possibly valves too) and pistons (Diamond) will all be for sale if someone is interested. The videos I posted in this thread were right before the motor came apart so you know what the cam sounds like. It's a nice sounding cam. Everything was still in very good shape with not a whole lot of miles on the parts. I ran high zinc oil only in the motor when I had it going. So if someone is interested, shoot me a PM. I still need to pick up the parts so no pictures yet.
 
clinteg said:
Another update:

Finished up the rolled bar edge on the dash insert. Just need to finish cutting the larger holes in the insert for the speedo and tach and smooth everything up. My 3rd dremel in 5 years has crapped out AGAIN and therefore I'm at a stand still on getting the last 2 holes cut. Does anyone else have this much trouble with their Dremels? Luckily Dremel keeps warranting them out. Here's some pics with the smaller guages in.

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Cool dash work. I don't think I've seen that done.
 
The custom ordered JE pistons came in last week through a dealer at my work. These things weren't too cheap! They hurt the wallet a bit, but he said that was the 3rd set he ordered that week and those were the cheapest! So that made me feel a LITTLE better, but not much. So I was looking them over last night, taking pictures and stuff. To get this motor down to 11:1, they had to make a 25.6 cc reverse dome! That's quite a little dish. I was wondering if these were any lighter than the Diamond pistons that were in the motor before. I hopped online and was comparing the specifications when I noticed something didn't look right. The compression height on the diamond was 1.457 and the engine builder measured that as a zero deck piston. Well I look at the box on the JE's and they say 1.475! I'm thinking you have got to be kidding me! Maybe it's a typo? I checked the paper work and everything says 1.475. I thought maybe we ordered it wrong so I checked our order sheet we sent and sure enough it said the correct dimension of 1.457. So JE just fumbled the numbers. I got my calipers out and everything is pointing to a 1.475 compression height which will throw the piston out of the hole .018" and push the CR up at least 3 tenths. I'm taking them to the builder after work to see what he gets on the measurement. Hopefully I'm wrong and the paper work is wrong and the pistons are right. Could I get lucky? Probably not! Murphy's Law is always in effect. Probably going to have to reorder these again. Ugh. I guess now I'll have some expensive paper weights lying around.
 
The dash insert looks a little more complete now with the main gauges installed.

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A few pics of the pistons JE made. Sure enought they did make the compression height 1.475 instead of 1.457. I'm hoping I get to keep these and they'll send me a new set. Most of the time they want the pistons back but what would they do with them except get money for scrap metal?

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Was at the shop yesterday and snapped a few pictures of the scattered parts. At least I got to see some of the things I was wondering about like the 4 bolt mains and the o-ringed block. He showed me what he did to the chambers to help them flow better which also bumped the cc's up from 51 to 53. It's not much but it will change the CR from 11:1 to 10.8:1.

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I would think they will have you send them back. They might just cut that .018 off the top. I doubt it would hurt the piston at all.
 
vitamindart said:
I would think they will have you send them back. They might just cut that .018 off the top. I doubt it would hurt the piston at all.
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They are already making a whole new set. I just don't know if they want the old ones back yet or not. If they cut the top down, we'll lose dish which will change the CR. We thought about that option but decided against it. If the block wasn't o-ringed, we could have just ordered a custom head gasket to make it work. But I'd rather they just make the piston the way it's supposed to be.
 
clinteg said:
and by the way, watch those wire bristles on the high speed wire wheels! Them little suckers will fling off and embed themselves into your body pretty good . See this one in my arm. It took some wiggling back and forth to get that jagged thing back out.

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medic!!!!!
 
clinteg said:
If they cut the top down, we'll lose dish which will change the CR.QUOTE]

But that would up the compression just a bit, since you lost some of your 11:1 when the combustion chambers grew from 51cc to 53cc.

Mike in FL
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clinteg said:
They are already making a whole new set. I just don't know if they want the old ones back yet or not. If they cut the top down, we'll lose dish which will change the CR. We thought about that option but decided against it. If the block wasn't o-ringed, we could have just ordered a custom head gasket to make it work. But I'd rather they just make the piston the way it's supposed to be.
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Agreed, better to get it the way you paid for it to be.
very cool build.
 
dodgedartgt said:
clinteg said:
If they cut the top down, we'll lose dish which will change the CR.QUOTE]

But that would up the compression just a bit, since you lost some of your 11:1 when the combustion chambers grew from 51cc to 53cc.

Mike in FL
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Yes you are correct. But he's going to put a good mill on the heads so we may lose some of that. 11:1 CR is max here. This is going to be an iron headed pump gas motor. If it's a little less than 11:1, that will be ok. More than that and I may start saying goodbye to pump gas.
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man I was reading through the whole thread and I think you are going a great job and the build. Way to fix it right plus you will feel safer knowing you did it the correct way. I going to be starting on my project here pretty soon and hopefully do not run into any problems like you have. Keep us updated.
 
Trying to make a push this week to get the dash insert done so I can start getting into the install of the new wiring. I've pretty well figured out how to get it bolted down. There's a mount for the column that goes vertically behind the dash. I welded 2 long threaded rods to the top of the insert on the back side and drilled holes through the steering column mount to match. That will hold the top of it in. Then I'll weld some bolts to the back side of the bottom of the insert to attach to the original metal of the dash. That should keep it nice and tight. I had to replace a small section where the radio and heater cutouts used to be. Some of the insert took up a lot of that space, but not all of it. I'm hoping I got the bend in the right position on the replacement piece. It was hard to tell but it looks close to me. I won't really truly know until I get the dash filled, faired, and painted. Then it will stick out like a sore thumb and drive me nuts if it's off. We'll see. Here's a few pics of the progress. I think that it will turn out pretty nice when it's all done.

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Thanks guys. It's getting there, although at a snail like pace!

The engine is ALMOST mocked up minus the lifters. Once we get lifters, the rotating assembly will be sent in to get balanced. The builder had ordered one set of Comp's lifters for mockup. Boy were these things not what the builder had in mind! Due to the link bar design, the block would need machine work done to clear the interference issue. The other problem is that the rollers aren't even pressure fed. So he can't even mock up the engine unless he cuts the link bar. They are junk as far as we're concerned.

I had told him about Mike's lifters at MRL a long time back to keep that in our arsenal of places to get lifters from. He checked out the website and was sold on the design. The only thing he was leary about was the fact that there wasn't any success or failure stories of the lifters to be found. I talked with Mike on the phone and I think he has a good product. It just probably hasn't been out long enough to really get the success or failure stories out there yet. But I'm not too worried about it. Unfortunately, Mike is sold out of the pro sport lifters and hasn't been able to get the Pro Plus lifters made yet. So I got on the list for a set of the Pro Plus lifters which should hopefully be out in a month or so. We went for the Pro Plus since they had the larger .815" wheel over the .75" on the sport units. And they are a little lighter than the sports, but the wheel diameter was the big selling point. In the meantime, the builder may or may not cut up the comp lifters just to get a mock up done. I'll be eager to to see how the MRL lifters will perform in the dyno testing.
 
clinteg said:
Thanks guys. It's getting there, although at a snail like pace!

The engine is ALMOST mocked up minus the lifters. Once we get lifters, the rotating assembly will be sent in to get balanced. The builder had ordered one set of Comp's lifters for mockup. Boy were these things not what the builder had in mind! Due to the link bar design, the block would need machine work done to clear the interference issue. The other problem is that the rollers aren't even pressure fed. So he can't even mock up the engine unless he cuts the link bar. They are junk as far as we're concerned.

I had told him about Mike's lifters at MRL a long time back to keep that in our arsenal of places to get lifters from. He checked out the website and was sold on the design. The only thing he was leary about was the fact that there wasn't any success or failure stories of the lifters to be found. I talked with Mike on the phone and I think he has a good product. It just probably hasn't been out long enough to really get the success or failure stories out there yet. But I'm not too worried about it. Unfortunately, Mike is sold out of the pro sport lifters and hasn't been able to get the Pro Plus lifters made yet. So I got on the list for a set of the Pro Plus lifters which should hopefully be out in a month or so. We went for the Pro Plus since they had the larger .815" wheel over the .75" on the sport units. And they are a little lighter than the sports, but the wheel diameter was the big selling point. In the meantime, the builder may or may not cut up the comp lifters just to get a mock up done. I'll be eager to to see how the MRL lifters will perform in the dyno testing.
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I pretty much thumbed thru the whole thread, you do know that the swing out bars won`t be nhra legal because of the bends in them don`t u?
yu definitly a go getter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!bo:salute:b
 
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