Another Mopar Off My Bucket List - Barracuda Fastback

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Wasn`t recommending vega parts, just the idea. 3/4" stuff is readily available. Does ur back bother u after laying on a cement floor like that? Mine does, has me wondering if I can build the wagon I`m looking at buying . keep it up !~-bob

Now and then I still hear of guys that do use the Vega box on race cars that are relatively heavy. The way they made it sound on the Borgeson website, they believe the components on the Vega are built too light for a car over 2400 lbs. I'm not sure they're right because a lot of circle burners are using joints that are even smaller.

My back bothers me pretty often but it's usually caused by what I sleep on. Maybe it's time for a new mattress.

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I worked more on the brake cylinder mounting plate today. We'll probably be tweaking it for a few more days to get it square and level in the car.
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If you look at the plate from Wilwood next to the one we had fabbed you can see the difference between the two. We really needed that extra inch of mounting depth and 1&1/2 inches of clearance above the cylinders.
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With the plate having progressed far enough we had to turn our attention to mounting the remote reservoirs. I bought a 10 inch long chunk of 1/2" by 1" steel barstock that we used to bolt them to. After a little time with the drill press and a 1/4-20 tap we had them butted together. We'll weld the steel bar to the new firewall section we're fabricating.
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Next we worked on the Vintage Air system. Their kit is pretty nice but they could use a better tech writer so that the instructions would be more explicit and easier to follow.

It seems that I need more foresight on our modifications. When I decided to make a custom windshield wiper mount that relocated it inside the car (the decision was made to provide additional clearance for the supercharger) I didn't foresee it would interfere with the heater box.

Even if we'd have had a clear set of instructions we'd have had to throw them out the door. The location they wanted us to use wouldn't work with our wiper motor mod. We ended up modifying our brackets and mounting the box 8" further to the right and an inch lower.
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We're still battling with the mods on the Charger. By grinding down some edges on the new firewall section we were able to get the cylinder mounting plate looking level.

Another problem cropped up. Wilwood uses unusual thread designs and it's hard to find fittings to mate with their equipment. They apparently have designed their parts so that you'll have to purchase any additional parts from them but they don't offer many options.

The bottom of those aluminum reservoirs is tapped for a 9/16"-18 thread that is O-ring sealed. There don't seem to be any options to attach a hard line like I'd want to. The fill point on the cylinders has an 11/16" thread which is even more difficult to find fittings for.

Now, Wilwood does sell adapters for those odd thread sizes to go to a 3AN fitting but it's not a very good choice for us. We're mounting our reservoirs only a few inches away from the cylinder's fill locations and would most likely have to loop three braided hoses to couple them together. What should have been a very clean looking installation will look like spaghetti.

We spent a lot of time online looking for other vendors that might have what we needed but didn't have much luck. EARLS sells a 5/16 barb fitting that has the correct O-ringed 9/16-18 thread but it's really not much help. I guess we'll be banging our heads against the wall for another day or two trying to come up with a workable solution.:BangHead:

As far as the system from Vintage Air goes, we also ran into problems with fittings. It took a little while but someone from their tech support was able to direct us to the parts we needed.
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At least your are making progess happen, John.... I am, but it's really slow... Female sister/ cat poop problems, have torched me 48 hours plus, so I have to work on that...:)
 
A decent machine shop ought to be able to modify the Wilwood fittings to whatever size/configuration you need. I hate Wilwood stuff, nothing but trouble. It's hard to believe that so many racers use their stuff.
 
At least your are making progess happen, John.... I am, but it's really slow... Female sister/ cat poop problems, have torched me 48 hours plus, so I have to work on that...:)

I feel for ya bomber. Life definitely has a way of sending you in directions you can't foresee. Cat poop problems?? We've got a pair of kitties here and have an occasional issue but if it ever became bad my biggest problem would be finding a gunnysack. (just kidding)
 
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A decent machine shop ought to be able to modify the Wilwood fittings to whatever size/configuration you need. I hate Wilwood stuff, nothing but trouble. It's hard to believe that so many racers use their stuff.

I always thought their stuff was pretty good. I guess that's because I've frequently seen it used on high end builds. I'd definitely be much happier with the parts we got from them if it wasn't for the odd fitting sizes. They do fill a niche and I guess I'm grateful to find parts that can be used on Mopars but I think they're like so many others that engineer their product line for Chebbies and then retrofit for Chrysler.
 
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The fittings are what kill me. For those pipes or hoses that go from your reservoirs to the cylinders, what is the purpose of the huge 9/16 o-ring fittings? First, why make them so big? Second, unless I'm wrong, there is no pressure in those lines. Could have easily gotten away with standard NPT fittings and/or adapters to standard inverted flare hard lines or hoses. But they like to make it hard! And they almost force you to use AN s/s braided brake hoses, which are fine, but what if you want to use hard lines? Like you said adapters are not easily found. I have a Wilwood master cylinder that leaks at their fittings, which are large fine threaded adapters with aluminum washers torqued to their exact specification. And they drip fluid all the time. The other end of the adapter takes regular inverted flare hard line fittings, which don't leak. All the leaking occurs at the stupid washer between their master cylinder and their fittings. All they had to do is machine the m/c with inverted flares, and therefore not need to deal with the adapters! But again, they like to make things difficult. I also hate their use of metric banjo fittings on their calipers. They too almost always seep fluid around the washers. Again, what's wrong with the old inverted flare fittings which almost never leak?
 
The fittings are what kill me. For those pipes or hoses that go from your reservoirs to the cylinders, what is the purpose of the huge 9/16 o-ring fittings? First, why make them so big? Second, unless I'm wrong, there is no pressure in those lines. Could have easily gotten away with standard NPT fittings and/or adapters to standard inverted flare hard lines or hoses. But they like to make it hard! And they almost force you to use AN s/s braided brake hoses, which are fine, but what if you want to use hard lines? Like you said adapters are not easily found. I have a Wilwood master cylinder that leaks at their fittings, which are large fine threaded adapters with aluminum washers torqued to their exact specification. And they drip fluid all the time. The other end of the adapter takes regular inverted flare hard line fittings, which don't leak. All the leaking occurs at the stupid washer between their master cylinder and their fittings. All they had to do is machine the m/c with inverted flares, and therefore not need to deal with the adapters! But again, they like to make things difficult. I also hate their use of metric banjo fittings on their calipers. They too almost always seep fluid around the washers. Again, what's wrong with the old inverted flare fittings which almost never leak?

I totally agree with your assessment. I haven't looked online for any complaint threads about Wilwood but I imagine there's got to be a lot of people with the same concerns.

I do have to say that as much as I may need to call up a company's tech support for answers to questions I have, it can sometimes be a horrible experience. It was hit and miss with Vintage Air. The first guy that Spencer talked to was rude and unwilling to give out specs. Luckily the second guy gave out the info we needed.
 
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I totally agree with your assessment. I haven't looked online for any complaint threads about Wilwood but I imagine there's got to be a lot of people with the same concerns.

I do have to say that as much as I may need to call up a company's tech support for answers to questions I have, it can sometimes be a horrible experience. It was hit and miss with Vintage Air. The first guy that Spencer talked to was rude and unwilling to give out specs. Luckily the second guy gave out the info we needed.
I have willwoods on the front of my barracuda. When it was time for brake lines, I ran new everything, and had a hyd. hose place in Tulsa make up my braided lines w/ the right fittings on them. I even had braided flex lines made for the master cyl., in case I needed to loosen it to get the valve cover off. I ended up machining some of the fins off the cover to get it off tho. Am running an 87 dodge diplomat alum. master cyl. tho. A good commercial hyd. hose place can make about anything up u would want.
 
I have willwoods on the front of my barracuda. When it was time for brake lines, I ran new everything, and had a hyd. hose place in Tulsa make up my braided lines w/ the right fittings on them. I even had braided flex lines made for the master cyl., in case I needed to loosen it to get the valve cover off. I ended up machining some of the fins off the cover to get it off tho. Am running an 87 dodge diplomat alum. master cyl. tho. A good commercial hyd. hose place can make about anything up u would want.

Hi Bob. I'm not knocking the quality of the Wilwood parts. If we kept things fairly standard and went with everything from their catalog we probably wouldn't have any complaints.

The problems arose when we tried to stuff that Hemi into the engine bay. That's when we saw we were going to have to get creative to avoid clearance problems.

Their cylinder mounting plate was great but didn't provide us with sufficient clearance with our valve covers. We'd gladly use their fittings if they allowed us to mount the reservoirs where we want them. I understand that no company can offer a solution to every application but their use of odd sized fittings makes it really difficult to improvise.
 
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OK. After the struggle with fitting selection it was time to actually make some progress. The steel bar that we'd made for the reservoirs to bolt to needed to be welded to the firewall section. - Easy-Peazy. I clamped the parts to my little welding table and let loose with the Miller. The plan was to have it done in just a few minutes.
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I've always took pride in having welds with good penetration. - Never an issue with weld failures. Maybe I need to re-examine my welding skills. When it came time to unclamp from the table I found that too much penetration can be a very bad thing.

It took me two hours to slice and dice my table in order to release my parts. I have to refit the pieces to see if they still fit the car now. They used to lay perfectly flat but after all the cutting, grinding, and prying... - Well you get the picture. I sure hope I don't have to start over on the fab work.

 
Some of the steering parts arrived from Borgeson yesterday. We were able to fit our new knuckles and shaft. It's all hooked up now and looks good except for the knuckle next to the rack. We're within 1/16" and I don't want this thing rattling going down the road. I'll have to pull the left header and do some creative persuasion with a heavy mallet.

I still need to fabricate a support bracket for the intermediary shaft. It wouldn't be too bad but I'll probably have to remove the left side suspension and header to have access. Nothing's ever easy. We did buy a bearing stand-off from Borgeson for the 3'4" shaft. All I really need to do is cut it off at the desired length, weld a two hole plate to it (that I'll fabricate) and make it into a bolt on assembly. After scoping it out we think header installation would be a nightmare if this bracket was permanently mounted.
 
I hadn't added many pictures to the last few posts so I thought I'd do it now.

The shaft we ordered for the steering needed to be cut down to the correct length and then we had to grind the end down for a double 'D' end on our knuckle.

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After the first trial fit we could see that our header clearance was too tight. We went ahead and marked the #3 tube where it was going to need 'persuasion'. According to our research, dimpling the tube will have a negligible effect on performance.
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Without a bearing/bracket to gold the intermediary shaft in place we'd have one heck of a wobble. You can see how much it's out of place without holding it where we need it to be. We also cut the end off the factory steering shaft and ground a double 'D' on it.
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This is the shaft support we got from Borgeson. I made a paper template of it to position over the shaft so that I'd know where to cut it off.
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The car is slowly shaping up. It looks like the problems I created by welding the new firewall section to my welding table weren't fatal.

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I added a hole for the Painless wiring harness to pass through. It'll be nice not to have the original bulkhead connections anymore.
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On a totally off subject update, we're still trying to make cakes over here. So far they're a long way from looking professional but it gives Teresa and I something to work on together. She's not exactly the garage mechanic type.
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just wondering.......why the double U-joint (versus a single) coming off the factory shaft?...or am I seeing things?
 
just wondering.......why the double U-joint (versus a single) coming off the factory shaft?...or am I seeing things?

Hi Denny. According to Borgeson's website single U-joints are only good up to a 35' angle. When we measured with an angle finder it looked as though our angle was going to be closer to 40'. Even though one half of the double will be fairly straight, it should give us the extra degrees we need.

Now, the angle finder tool we used was sort of crude and it wasn't the easiest spot to take a reading so our measurements might have been off.
 
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John, might stop by if I have time this Sunday. At Hastings again this weekend.

It'd be great to see you again! If you do happen to stop by you might have a bit more trouble getting to the house than last time. The geniuses in our city council have decided that the 4 lane street going through would flow traffic better if it was cut down to 3 lanes instead. They're going to have the highway through town torn up for most of the rest of the year. I think they must have found out that a few of us people living here still had grocery money left over after paying our property taxes and decided they needed a new excuse to pry it from our hands.

Maybe I'm being too critical and should accept the concept of less lanes equaling better traffic flow. MAYBE I should try to conform to their way of thinking and suggest they go down to a single lane through town. Or, what the heck, maybe they should eliminate the street altogether. Obviously I'm the product of an old school parochial system and need to get on-board with their new-gen math skills.

Sorry for the rant. - But you might find it a bit of an obstacle getting here Mitch.
 
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John, all depends on how long we run and what the weather holds for us. If it's raining Saturday, might stop earlier!
 
It'd be great to see you again! If you do happen to stop by you might have a bit more trouble getting to the house than last time. The geniuses in our city council have decided that the 4 lane street going through would flow traffic better if it was cut down to 3 lanes instead. They're going to have the highway through town torn up for most of the rest of the year. I think they must have found out that a few of us people living here still had grocery money left over after paying our property taxes and decided they needed a new excuse to pry it from our hands.

Maybe I'm being too critical and should accept the concept of less lanes equaling better traffic flow. MAYBE I should try to conform to their way of thinking and suggest they go down to a single lane through town. Or, what the heck, maybe they should eliminate the street altogether. Obviously I'm the product of an old school parochial system and need to get on-board with their new-gen math skills.

Sorry for the rant. - But you might find it a bit of an obstacle getting here Mitch.
sounds like okla. thinking ,on the streets. They 6 laned the hiway coming to the nearest town to get better flow at rush hr., it worked well till u get back to the 4 lane where it chokes down right at the end of a bridge. (I must be a woose, I couldn`t sleep on that bed !) LOL
 
sounds like okla. thinking ,on the streets. They 6 laned the hiway coming to the nearest town to get better flow at rush hr., it worked well till u get back to the 4 lane where it chokes down right at the end of a bridge. (I must be a woose, I couldn`t sleep on that bed !) LOL

I'm beginning to think there ought to be required drug testing for people running for city council. I know (around here) if a prerequisite for membership was to be a jerk, they'd have surpassed the minimum requirement.
 
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John, all depends on how long we run and what the weather holds for us. If it's raining Saturday, might stop earlier!

Well Mitch, I didn't catch sight of you last weekend. I hope you guys did well at the track. We've been swamped with work on the house most of the year so far and I've ignored almost all of the car activities in this area. - Looks like any racing for me will have to wait for quite awhile.
 
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After all my griping about fittings for the Wilwood cylinders/reservoirs, Spencer was able to find sources for the parts we needed. There actually are adapters out there to make connections to AN ends and I put together one line so far. I'll have to wait until Spence orders more 90' fittings before I can do the rest.

It's not the slickest looking setup but it's a lot cleaner than what I originally thought we were going to have to run. The cylinders and reservoirs are too close to one another to form a single 90' bent tube for each. With the engine cylinder head so close I wasn't able to come straight forward with the lines either. I guess this will have to do for now.
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Some days it doesn't pay to get up. Storms passed through our area and we were without power last night. I knew there were high winds but didn't realize I'd have a mess this morning.

I looked outside before the sun came up and was shocked to see trees had buried my vehicles. The limbs are too heavy to lift off yet. I'll have to start trimming branches before I can move anything.

The funnycar and red Ford truck took the brunt of the damage. I won't know how much until I get things cut up. I can tell already that the top of the funnycar is smashed. I'll try to get more pictures after it gets lighter outside. - still raining...
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