Another Mopar Off My Bucket List - Barracuda Fastback

[sireland67]

Seriously, I would leave the 6-71 on there if it already fits.
So the car will only have 800+, the rear tires will not hold it down regardless of which one you use.

I have a baby 144 blower on my vette, and I was hell bent on keeping my AC so you talk about no room, there is less than an inch from the front cross member, had to add a huge fan spacer to clear the blower belt, and cut the **** out of the fan shroud to get everything to clear.

 

[1967 'cuda]

Seriously, I would leave the 6-71 on there if it already fits.

So the car will only have 800+, the rear tires will not hold it down regardless of which one you use.

I have a baby 144 blower on my vette, and I was hell bent on keeping my AC so you talk about no room, there is less than an inch from the front cross member, had to add a huge fan spacer to clear the blower belt, and cut the **** out of the fan shroud to get everything to clear.

My opinion and yours are the same. My son still calls the shots on the build though.

On the one hand I am really diggin' the idea of doing an insane build with the type of power that would give bragging rights over factory cars such as the Hellcat and Z06. The realistic part of me sees megabucks being spent for power that is unlikely to get utilized. OF course if I was really trying to be practical I'd try to convince my son to be happy with sub-400 horses and some highway gears.

Apparently insanity tends to run in the family. The kid's just nuttier than I am.

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[sireland67]

Insanity runs in mine too, my youngest son is the one I bought the vette for.
Vette is a nice clean car.
He said no thanks I want your duster.
So he got the beat in a previous life duster.

 

[SNKEBIT]

He said no thanks I want your duster.
.

Smart kid!!! You, obviously didn't raise him!!! lol

 

[sireland67]

Smart kid!!! You, obviously didn't raise him!!! lol

LOL, I watched him being hatched, he still lives in the same house his entire life with momma and me.
Good kid, sophomore in high school, right now his interests are guitars and girls.
For some reason he loves that duster, can't blame him, the vette is the 4th chevy I have owned in my entire life, I have also had 2 fords and 1 honda.
The rest of the couple hundred or so are mopars or jeeps.

 

[SNKEBIT]

LOL, I watched him being hatched, he still lives in the same house his entire life with momma and me.
Good kid, sophomore in high school, right now his interests are guitars and girls.
For some reason he loves that duster, can't blame him, the vette is the 4th chevy I have owned in my entire life, I have also had 2 fords and 1 honda.
The rest of the couple hundred or so are mopars or jeeps.

LOL Sounds like what I've owned over the years. Except I only had 1 ferd. lol

 

[1967 'cuda]

Insanity runs in mine too, my youngest son is the one I bought the vette for.

Vette is a nice clean car.
He said no thanks I want your duster.
So he got the beat in a previous life duster.

DANG!! You bought your kid a 'Vette! I may consider myself to be dyed in the wool Mopar but I don't suppose your son would be interested in having a much older brother?

 

[1967 'cuda]

Smart kid!!! You, obviously didn't raise him!!! lol

Take it easy on Sireland. - That's my potential dad you're talking about.

 

[1967 'cuda]

It's time to say goodbye to the one and only new car I ever purchased. I'd parked my PT Cruiser out at the farm several years ago suspecting it had blown a head gasket. There were a number of other issues that needed attention too.

Teresa's sister & brother-in-law got in a financial bind. He drove his Ford Bronco down to Mexico and the transmission went out. He had to leave it behind and got a bus ride back. That left them with little money and no transportation.

I explained the problems the PT had to them and told them that if they wanted to fix it, they could have it. Hopefully they'll get a lot of good use out of it and it won't break the bank getting it fixed.

I was surprised when it fired right up after dropping a fresh battery in it. 3 of the tires were down so I crept it up onto my trailer and hauled it into town. - No compressor at the farm. After airing up the tires it's ready for the trip to their place.


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[sireland67]

DANG!! You bought your kid a 'Vette! I may consider myself to be dyed in the wool Mopar but I don't suppose your son would be interested in having a much older brother?

LOL, yes he did not want it. so.... I stuck a baby blower on in.
A little dirty because I have been driving the crap out of it.

I win in the end because I said, I will finish the duster 20 years from now, it is kinda going to be a show puppy anyways.

 

[1967 'cuda]

LOL, yes he did not want it. so.... I stuck a baby blower on in.

A little dirty because I have been driving the crap out of it.

I win in the end because I said, I will finish the duster 20 years from now, it is kinda going to be a show puppy anyways.

So... - about that whole adoption thing...

 

[1967 'cuda]

dad...?

 

[SNKEBIT]

:

dad...?

Only if I get the RR, not before! :thumbup: :bootysha:

 

[Cuda68Scott]

Uncle John, you are still going to leave me the MRL engine out of the Cuda when you die, correct?

 

[sireland67]

John while you are giving stuff away, I take the blown charger.

 

[1967 'cuda]

:

Only if I get the RR, not before! :thumbup: :bootysha:

Uncle John, you are still going to leave me the MRL engine out of the Cuda when you die, correct?

John while you are giving stuff away, I take the blown charger.

Hey, wait a minute. How did this all get changed around from me trying to glom onto a free ride to me givin' stuff away?

 

[1967 'cuda]

I guess the house is on hold for awhile. Before my son showed up I already had the new k-member and disc brakes assembled on the Charger so we immediately tore into the Roadrunner when he arrived.

First things first. We decided to make the change over to the Evans waterless coolant so we drained the engine and flushed the system with water. Then we spent an hour blowing all the passages, radiator, and heater core out until they were near dry. Despite the limited mileage on the motor there was already some rust and sludge in the water passages. The system has always had a 50/50 mix of high quality antifreeze. I'm glad we're going with the Evans.

The new ECU from FAST won't be here for a few more days so we're hoping to have the rest of the car done before it arrives. The first step was to disconnect the wiring and fuel lines. Then we pulled the intake and heads.

Because the engine only has a few thousand miles on it we didn't have concerns about cylinder wear. The bores are clean and still show a nice cross hatch pattern. We continued to blow out the water passages after the heads were removed.

I had cleaned up the combustion chambers and ports the best I could when the heads were slated for the Charger. It was about 10 hours of work with a Dremel tool and emery cloth.

There were a number of other components we'd picked up for the Charger that cannot be used for it now that we've made changes to our head selection. The COMP Ultra Pro Magnum roller rockers and matching pushrods needed a new home. If we'd sold them we'd probably had to take a loss on them so we chose to use them here instead. We'd also purchased a set of ARP head studs. Apparently they won't work with the Max Wedge heads so we decided to use them now too.



The tti headers have 2" primaries. Although we could have held them back for the Charger, the Roadrunner's stock exhaust needed to be upgraded. The header flanges would not clear the head studs without notching. - And even still, we had to use a few bolts to clear some of the primary tubes. We test fit each of the components for compatibility before installation.

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[65dartcharger]

Looking good!

 

[1967 'cuda]

Looking good!

Thanks dartcharger. We got the heads and intake installed yesterday but we still have to put the headers on. With the garage packed full of parts we don't have any room to get the Roadrunner inside. We're performing all the work out in the driveway. Today's forecast is for rain so we may have to postpone progress a day.

I hate header installation. A few of the header bolts are going to be a real b!tch to get in. Even when we mocked up the attachment of the headers onto the heads off the car it seemed near impossible. I'm dreading the fight to get them bolted up. I'd 'borrowed' the Charger's MSD mini starter for my Barracuda and haven't gotten my son a replacement yet so we're going to keep the full sized one that's already in the car. I'm betting I'll be kicking myself before we're done.

The best thing about doing all these parts swap on the Roadrunner is that everything on the car is relatively fresh. - No rusted fasteners and not a lot of crud and grease to contend with. I've still got to chop off the exhaust pipes to give us room for the headers. I'll take some measurements before I do and hope we'll be able to tie back in when we're done. I sure wish we had a lift.

 

[SNKEBIT]

After I got my lift, I kicked myself in the *** for not buying one years sooner. :glasses7:

 

[1967 'cuda]

After I got my lift, I kicked myself in the *** for not buying one years sooner. :glasses7:

You should have called me up. I'd have made sure you didn't have to do the kicking yourself.

 

[1967 'cuda]

Nothing is ever easy. It's like Mohamed Ali vs. Joe Frazier. The header installation has been a real fight.

The rain didn't last all day Friday so we started the install late in the afternoon. Without a lift we were limited on how high we could raise the car. We measured back from the 383 to give us an estimate of where to cut off the exhaust. We should be able to salvage most of it.

I've never been a big fan of power steering but I tend to really hate it when I'm trying to squeeze headers into an engine bay. We disconnected the steering linkage to allow for more room and then saw that the z-bar had to go too.

Despite the fact we'd read that a full sized starter would work with these 2" headers from tti, I can tell you that the set we have won't allow it. We dropped the starter and luckily it WAS a smaller one. We tilted the motor after removing the left mount bolt. When we did we saw that the rubber biscuit was torn loose from the steel. Crap! - Another thing to fix.

After an hour of cussing we had the left header in place and 2 bolts holding it up before we went inside and ate a bite. The mosquitoes were having plenty while we were working. Satisfied that the worst was over we called it a night.

Saturday should have been a piece of cake. After sliding a gasket into place we finished bolting on the driver's side header. The starter had to go back in simultaneously with the header. It fit, - but barely. No way there was room for a full sized starter.

We replaced the bolt in the broken motor mount on the left and removed the one on right. Because we were certain we were going to have to repeat the engine tilting process for the passenger side, we held off on re-installing the z-bar and steering linkage. The right side was much easier to get in place. Things were looking up.

We connected the steering and clutch linkage after tightening the rest of the header bolts. It looked as though we were ready to drop the distributor back in and start adjusting the valves when we noticed that we couldn't turn the wheel to the right without the pitman arm hitting the header. It wasn't close to clearing it. We were going to need over an inch of extra clearance.


We hit the internet for answers. I think I spend more time looking for solutions to problems than I do actually working on things. We found out that fast ratio pitman arms aren't compatible with the tti headers. I wasn't sure which one we had on the car but assumed that the nice new one beneath the car must have been the quicker ratio and it was updated when the previous owner had rebuilt the front end.

I still had my old power steering assembly that I'd taken off when I switched it to manual. We measured the arm and saw it was a stock version. The pitman arm didn't want to separate from the box until we applied heat with a torch, but it finally gave. We were smiling from our good fortune until I compared the two arms with one another. They were the same. Dang!! I guess we wasted a few hours. Time to hit the internet again looking for a different solution to our clearance problem.

For the most part everybody seems to praise tti headers but we did find others that were having problems similar to our own. Some guys were dimpling their header where the pitman arm needed additional clearance. - Some were shimming their motor mounts. - Some said that you had to have motor mounts that were in perfect shape.

We decided to try another pair of motor mounts. I'd bought a used pair for the Charger before my son decided to make his stock k-frame obsolete. They may not be new but they seem to be in real nice shape. If it doesn't take care of the problem we'll try adding spacers and dimple the header.








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[SNKEBIT]

This is how it always goes. Not just you, John. 90% of the time, stuff doesn't fit quite right and needs some kind of alteration. Story of my life here building hotrods every day. :burnout:

 

[1967 'cuda]

A NIGHTMARE ON L STREET

Ya it sounds a lot like the title of another lame horror movie. But I'm referring to the header installation again. I thoroughly did NOT enjoy the motor mount swap. It took the better part of the morning. The worst part about it was that it made absolutely no difference on our clearance problem.

We decided to try shimming next. After a few trial and error fits, it looked like we needed a half inch shim to make us barely clear the pitman. Our next step was to take the new replacement motor mount back out that we'd just put in. - Fun times!

After a bit of discussion we decided to weld up the old broken motor mount rather than screw with the good one. By removing the rubber and replacing it with square tubing that's a half inch fatter than the thickness of the rubber.

We'd considered epoxying a half inch metal plate in place but were worried about adhesion. If it ever came out it could cause an accident if a person lost the ability to turn. The old mount had probably tore because we'd been slamming gears. If we weld this one up to be solid we should be able to get by without the need for a torque strap/chain.

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[SNKEBIT]

Been there, done that! Kind of disturbing how one mod snowballs into a half dozen other "mods".

Is this why they call it "building"????