I have a 73 Duster, came with a 76-79 318 V8 so I might be lucky to have 120'ish hp and that is a maybe to the wheels with the 904 tranny.
I looked into swapping the motor, considering MRL Performance because they seem to do excellent motor building and is a active respected member on this board. I also considered motors from Carolina Machine Engines because they are close and pricing seems good for what you would be getting. Either motor builder I would replace the transmission with a Silver Sport Transmission (formally known as keisler Engineering) for their 4-speed or even their 6-speed manual transmissions.
Even reached out to RustyRatRod with considering to just reman the existing engine/tranny to which I appreciate his time and knowledge.
So with any of these considerations I wanted a reliable driver that would be more fuel efficient than what I am getting now and not too much with being worried about making lots of HP.
Well while looking into the Silver Sport Transmissions I found a local shop that is a authorized vendor called Bulldawg Musclecars. Checking their Facebook and website I came across their 70 Barracuda build where the owner was going to put a 5.7 Hemi with 5 speed auto transmission and they did the EFI conversation. But then the owner changed his mind and decided to use a V10 Viper motor with 6 speed transmission.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bulldawg-Musclecars/249344929411
Please check out their Facebook page for updates on my swap.
This got me interested since I was considering with which ever motor swap I would do EFI at some point so it was going to happen anyway.
I didn't at first want to do a Gen III Hemi swap, considering finding a motor/trans combined is around 3-6 grand'ish on what you can find. So I started looking into late model 5.9 Magnum motors/trans out of the trucks since I would get a good boost in power/trq but also they are super cheap with being around $500 or so for a motor/trans.
Contacted Bulldawg, but couldn't wait to hear back if they would be interested in doing the Magnum swap and I decided to keep the 318 since it is a solid running motor.
I made a trip to Summit. Got a new Edelbrock carb 600, new Edelbrock intake manifold, hotter Edelbrock cam/valves/lifters/springs, and Edelbrock timing chain in hopes to make some gains to help pep up the 318.
Ended up taking the Duster with this stuff up to Bulldawg the same day, talked with the owner about the original Magnum swap and all in all decided to return all that stuff to pursue the EFI late model swap.
After a lot of searching I decided on a 6.1 Hemi and 5 speed auto from a 2006 Chrysler 300 SRT 8 because it wasn't that much more than the 5.7 Hemi's I was finding online that is supposed to ship this Monday.
So not what I was initially planning but I am looking forward to it
I looked into swapping the motor, considering MRL Performance because they seem to do excellent motor building and is a active respected member on this board. I also considered motors from Carolina Machine Engines because they are close and pricing seems good for what you would be getting. Either motor builder I would replace the transmission with a Silver Sport Transmission (formally known as keisler Engineering) for their 4-speed or even their 6-speed manual transmissions.
Even reached out to RustyRatRod with considering to just reman the existing engine/tranny to which I appreciate his time and knowledge.
So with any of these considerations I wanted a reliable driver that would be more fuel efficient than what I am getting now and not too much with being worried about making lots of HP.
Well while looking into the Silver Sport Transmissions I found a local shop that is a authorized vendor called Bulldawg Musclecars. Checking their Facebook and website I came across their 70 Barracuda build where the owner was going to put a 5.7 Hemi with 5 speed auto transmission and they did the EFI conversation. But then the owner changed his mind and decided to use a V10 Viper motor with 6 speed transmission.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bulldawg-Musclecars/249344929411
Please check out their Facebook page for updates on my swap.
This got me interested since I was considering with which ever motor swap I would do EFI at some point so it was going to happen anyway.
I didn't at first want to do a Gen III Hemi swap, considering finding a motor/trans combined is around 3-6 grand'ish on what you can find. So I started looking into late model 5.9 Magnum motors/trans out of the trucks since I would get a good boost in power/trq but also they are super cheap with being around $500 or so for a motor/trans.
Contacted Bulldawg, but couldn't wait to hear back if they would be interested in doing the Magnum swap and I decided to keep the 318 since it is a solid running motor.
I made a trip to Summit. Got a new Edelbrock carb 600, new Edelbrock intake manifold, hotter Edelbrock cam/valves/lifters/springs, and Edelbrock timing chain in hopes to make some gains to help pep up the 318.
Ended up taking the Duster with this stuff up to Bulldawg the same day, talked with the owner about the original Magnum swap and all in all decided to return all that stuff to pursue the EFI late model swap.
After a lot of searching I decided on a 6.1 Hemi and 5 speed auto from a 2006 Chrysler 300 SRT 8 because it wasn't that much more than the 5.7 Hemi's I was finding online that is supposed to ship this Monday.
So not what I was initially planning but I am looking forward to it
