abodyjoe
Well-Known Member
need some nice seats in it for road trips. or a b-body. the factory bench in an abody kill me on long drives.
A Body Road Trip Car
- Thread starter SpeedThrills
- Start date
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Dartsun
Mopar Dude
For my 69 Dart I plan on making it comfortable for long road trips. I plan on a modern hemi and a 6 spd manual. I want to drive Route 66 with my lady by the time I’m 50. Dustin
AJ/FormS
68 Formua-S fastback clone 367/A833/GVod/3.55s
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Great ideas, if a lil austere.
I used to drive my Barracuda thousands of miles, as a 4-seasons DD, swapping engines twice a year.
But I gotta tell ya, my big-cammed hi-compression 367 summer-engine made way better fuel-economy than the freshened Smog-era 318 ever made.
If I was after economy alone, I would start with the 273, and crank up the pressure to the moon, then install a short period solid lifter cam. I would run the 340 exhaust system, a small-port/small runner single-plain intake , and a tiny spread-bore 4-bbl, with fresh cold air to the airhorn.
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For the trans, I would run the A833od, and with gears, I would set the cruise rpm to in the range of 1800>2000 rpm, but I would run a computerized timing advance system, for the specific purpose of optimizing the cruise-timing. If you don't optimize the timing, then you might as well run a bigger rear gear because it is nearly impossible to adjust the factory type distributor to give the engine the timing that it needs below about 2200 rpm.
The od trans has ratios of
3.09-1.67-1.00-.73od
To run 75=2000 with 27" tires would require a rear gear of 2.94.. If the car comes with 2.76s or so, I would leave them in there for 75=1900
>The splits on that trans are pretty wide
.54-.60-.73, which is why I would run the Cylinder pressure up, otherwise the power will fall of very dramatically between shifts.
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Of course, I would run both power steering and power brakes. Neither of them make trouble, and the P/S pressure can be cranked right down for cruising. P/S allows me to run a tiny steering wheel so I have room for mabelly. and I run a shallow-dish steering wheel to get it away from my chest in the event of an accident. I highly recommend at least a lap/shoulder belt, for the same reason.
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I would start with new hoses and belts, but I would increase the minimum coolant temp while simultaneously reducing the coolant pressure. To pull that off, you need a large fan in a shroud, mounted on a thermostatically controlled clutch, with at least a recovery tank.
>The 4bbl is for passing and climbing;
55 in Third with 2.94s, is 2000rpm and the modest power of the 273 is gonna be a beotch. Going down into Second will result in 55=3360 (again with 2.94s), which ain't too bad, and now the 4bbl is gonna be a big help.
>If there's a7.25 out back, it can stay.
> run 4 same-sized skinny tires that you can pump the pressure up on. If the ride is too harsh, change the shocks and suspension bushings.
> Cruising at 75, I would NOT run any T-bars smaller than the 340 bars; because sudden lane-changes on pumped up skinny tires and soft shocks, can be a lil unnerving, on slanty bars..
> Wind noise at 75 is ridiculous on these old hard-tops, so get a car with sedan doors, install new weatherstrips ....... and bring ear-plugs. Fogetabowd the radio.
> install an auxilliary fuel tank, a spare, a jack etc,
> don't drive where the color of your skin is not welcome. This is the biggest reason I won't go touring anymore; my skin is white, and it's getting harder to find safe places to go to these days. I'm not being racist. This is just reality. I don't care the color of your skin, you can sleep in my freshened-up bed, I'll take the guestroom.
> lessee, what else.....
DionR
Well-Known Member
Did that exact thing. Added CC from an F-Body and wired in a switch on the clutch pedal to kill cruise when I touch it. Used the F-Body cruise switch and wiring, easy swap. Works great.
DionR
Well-Known Member
My plan as well. With the wide ratio T56 Magnum, a 3.55 rear gear and a 25.7" tall tire, RPM's in every gear are almost a perfect match to the 2015 R/T 5.7/6M I sold. And it was a blast to drive and still got 25+ mpg.
Dartsun
Mopar Dude
That sounds about perfect. I’m just collecting parts at this point. I have the T56 and a Gerst front end.
DionR
Well-Known Member
I am just collecting parts as well. I have a 5.7 core, 6.4 cam, 6.4 intake, Holley pan, mounts, headers and a T56 Magnum swap kit from SST. I am sticking with the TB suspension as it is well on the way to being pretty well sorted and I see no reason to change directions.
Truthfully, I'm not building it exclusively for a road trip. I live 30 miles from the "big" city on a 2 lane 60 mph highway and it just makes no sense to me to build anything else. Currently the 360/A833OD/3.21 combo works fine and I am sure it would do the job if I need to make a road trip with it.
I do need to do the Ram AC box swap like in the link above though. Later on in the summer AC would be really nice and almost a necessity for a road trip if I wanted to bring my wife.
Jim Lusk
Well-Known Member
While I would consider it, as a long trip car (cross country) it'll never happen. We have put 600 miles in a weekend on my son's '67 Dart GT convertible (440/18-spline/3.23SG) that was getting around 15 mpg. My Barracuda will have all that I need to be comfortable for a trip (AC, cruise, probably heated seats), BUT my wife needs something more comfortable going cross country so we're diesel pusher shopping. Then we will get a 20' enclosed car trailer for the Barracuda. No motels, the car stays secure, and my wife can sit on the couch or in a comfortable captain's chair while traveling.
Dale Davies
Well-Known Member
Performer Airgap and AVS2 carb. AVS2 has annular boosters for better atomization. Benefit over the TQ is parts are readily available. Like a Rochester, once you get them set up they are not finicky, just drive.
I built this combo in 1977 when I was in graduate school in SoCal. Energy crisis made me want better MPG than the '68 340 provided, so I rebuilt the engine with a 318 cam, ran a SP2P intake with the stock AVS and re-jetted for best economy. Ran a 4 core desert cooler radiator and electric fan. No AC in a Black Cuda! But survived. Ran 2.94 Sure Grip from a truck and 29" tires. Got 24 MPG and drove all over the place. Once drove from SF to Irvine on one take of gas. On fumes, but made it. Drove the car from Long Beach to Vancouver, BC, picked up my brother and drove back on 395 the whole way. Go over 22 with what one might call spirited driving. I was teaching my 16 YO brother how to drive properly! Car was packed with camping gear so fully loaded. FB Cuda's are great road cars.
Just curious, how did you calibrate the speedometer for the 29” tires?
abodyjoe
Well-Known Member
its easy just need the proper speedo gear for your tire size and diff ratio.
Speedometer Gear Charts - Clarification/Differences
Jim Lusk
Well-Known Member
Never heard that story, but it doesn't surprise me that you did that. And, just for kicks, your Barracuda in 1983.
Thanks Jim. I should go through my slides of car shows in the Bay Area to see if there are any good ones of you. I do have this photo of you and my '67 383 FB on Cummins Skyway. I think I shared that before, but it is a good shot of you.
That is a great road that few know about just above Hercules in the North Bay Area.
That is a great road that few know about just above Hercules in the North Bay Area.
@RLF Cuda I'm mostly wondering if you compensated for the tall 29" tires. Pretty tall for passenger tires. What size were they, do you recall?
I was running H70x14's in the back. They were retread tires that had a sticky compound. The original owner of the Cuda back in '68 put them on as they had more traction than the E70x14's that were original. That wasn't hard to have more traction that those either!. But the retreads lased about 20,000 miles of hard driving and never failed me. They were probably one of the reasons I could turn good times with the 340. [email protected] at OCIR. The tires literally filled the wheelwell and touched the inner well if I hit a bump too hard. But I could shift from 2nd to 3rd at just about 100 MPH and got the car up to 145 MPH with them (6500 rpm in 3rd). Maybe not so smart, but I was 19 at the time. This was done on the 91 freeway when it was being built and they opened a section the week before. There was a 2+ mile run with no onramps and I did this at 7:00 in the morning on a Sunday. absolutely no one around back then at that time.
@RLF Cuda Yeah, the "Exuberance of Youth". We're lucky more of us aren't dead. lol My BIL had a stock 67 273 Formula S that had tall tires on it. (Unknown long gears.) It was a dog out of the hole, and it couldn't pull the long gears up top. I told him he needed shorter tires, but what did I know? This was in the 70's, and I was a teenage punk. He was about 25, so he "knew more".
Anyhow, I should have been more precise. I'm wondering how you knew the speedometer was accurate with those tall tires. (In order to check mpg.) Of course, no internet to look up a formula. I used to run several miles on a road with mile markers to check mine.
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I had the speedo calibrated when I got a speeding ticket and changed the gear in the tailshaft to correct it. Back then, they drove the car over a measured mile and checked the Odo. Not real accurate, but close enough.
Jim Lusk
Well-Known Member
That was back when I had hair...those days are long gone...
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