Another Mopar Off My Bucket List - Barracuda Fastback

-
sireland67 said:
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.

Vkz7yc.jpg
Click to expand...

I love that Corvette!!!
 
SNKEBIT said:
Been there, done that! Kind of disturbing how one mod snowballs into a half dozen other "mods".

Is this why they call it "building"???? :D
Click to expand...

It's a part of " hot rodding".. Chevelle big block install with big primaries , isn't pretty in any mode. You want power/inches/modification's, you pay a price laborwise. I have seen hand built Wedge/Rat headers, take more time than a typical install....
Nice work ,John. That detail ****....
 
Most of the time it seems as though we take two steps back for each one we move forward. At the end of each day I hope that the next will go better.

After welding up the left motor mount we re-attached the steering linkage and tightened everything back up. We then used a floor jack to dimple the header tube where it intersects the pitman arm. It may not be much but we've got an 1/8" clearance now.

I'm not totally thrilled with the way we've got it now. The engine has a noticeable lean to the right. We'd considered raising the right side of the engine to compensate but it would undoubtedly bring back our clearance problem with the pitman unless we raised both sides at least 1".

I'm certain we're going to have problems with the stock Roadrunner dual snorkel air cleaner. It already rubbed the bottom side of the hood before we raised/tilted the engine. - Not sure if we're going to try modifying it or if we'll look for something with a lower profile.

Before we called it quits Sunday, - we buttoned up most of what was left to do. There were all those little things to re-install like the alternator, battery tray, thermostat housing, spark plugs, distributor, etc... By the time we finished setting the valve lash it was already pretty dark in our driveway work space.


We'd ordered some new valve cover breathers and grommets but they're not here yet. We won't seal up the heads until they arrive. There's not much more we can accomplish before the new ECU comes from FAST. Tomorrow we'll see about getting the exhaust system connected to our headers.
 
I swear I hate headers, do not have them on any of my cars.
Did your son ever look into the TTI shorty's?
 
Problems, problems, problems...

My son informed me that he'd like us to be done with the car by Wednesday. That's only a total of one week from the time he came. I thought we were supposed to have 2 weeks.

We still don't have the ECU from FAST but it should be here tomorrow.

The new valve cover breathers came today and they're the wrong size. Summit's site had them listed as for an inch and a half hole which would have been what we needed. Instead the largest diameter of the rubber grommet portion is an inch and a half. They won't work. We decided to rob the pair of Mickey Thompson's from the Charger project for now. We'll swap covers some day down the road. On the bright side, the new 383 emblems did arrive. I think they look pretty sweet on the valve covers we'd planned on using.

We called around this morning trying to find header reducers that would adapt our 3&1/2" collectors to 2&1/2" pipe. No go locally. The closest place was Speedway Motors in Lincoln. It's an hour's trip away but it seemed our only option. Before we left to get them we did manage to set up an appointment at an exhaust shop for tomorrow morning.

I'd noticed that the truck plates were expired so we decided to take the 'Cuda.

We must have been on the Highway To Hell. Simple road trips should never go so wrong. We got about 25 miles from home when I started smelling the first problem. We pulled into a gas station in Seward, Nebraska to check things out. It wasn't anything major, but one of the fuel fittings was weeping gasoline. I drove to one of my buddy's shops and tightened up the AN fitting. - Problem solved.

10 miles further down the road I began to smell something different. I thought it smelled like wiring insulation. The smell was faint and I thought I might have been imagining it until I saw the alternator needle jump to the max charging side a couple of times. We pulled over to the side of the road to check it out. We popped the hood and inspected all of the wiring we could and everything seemed OK. As far as I could tell everything was functioning fine too. We hopped back in the car and resumed our trip.

I'm still not fond of those 4.10s in the rear end. I kept the RPM below 3000 and let traffic pass us by. When we hit the interstate I had to be cautious. I was doing about 55 and many of the cars coming up from behind must have been doing 80. I had to speed up a few times to keep from getting a$$holed by some drivers. At least a few were on cell phones and seemed oblivious to our slower pace.

As I pulled into the Speedway Motors parking lot I saw the temperature had climbed on the 'Cuda. We parked and went inside to get our parts. While Spencer waited at the counter I went back outside to see what was going on with the Barracuda. I flipped the fan switch on and got nothing. That explained why the temp had climbed. I checked the relay fuse and saw it had blown. I replaced it and figured that if it blew again we'd be driving down the highway and getting plenty of air through the radiator soon. No sense trying to do further troubleshooting when I didn't have any tools with me.

The electric fan cooled the motor back down within a few minutes but I could tell when that fuse popped again. The temperature rose - but not to a spooky level now that we were driving road speed.

When I approached Seward on the way back home I decided to pull into Walmart to pick up some spare fuses. When I got out after parking, I heard the sound of air leaking from the left front tire. It was nearly flat. I didn't have a jack or a spare with me. I guess I was asking for trouble. We went inside to buy the fuses and a can of Fix-a-Flat.

The tire partially re-inflated with the can of crap I'd put in. I decided to limp to the nearest place for repair. It was almost 5:30 and everyone would be closing shop soon. By the time I got to the Wally World exit the tire was almost down all the way. We were screwed. I'm running tubes in all of my tires and I needed to find a place that sold them and then another to install.

I drove on the shoulder a half mile to a NAPA store. They did not sell tubes but told me another store a mile away did. We were able to air up the tire and get to the next place before it ran flat again.

They had no tubes close to the size I needed. I tried calling a few garages in town but they were already closed. Next I called Doug (another buddy I knew in Seward). He's the guy I had helped find a '69 Coronet. He told me that he'd loan me a tire/wheel if I could make it to his place. We aired up the tire again and drove a couple more miles to his place. The Fix-a-Flat may not have worked, but it must have slowed the leak.

I kept my fingers crossed after changing the wheel, - half way expecting a meteor storm before we got home.
 
Holy crap!!!! Yup, I would shitcan those gears, if it's not a drag car then they are more pita than worth. You have some drag cars, don't need the driver to be one.
Sometimes we get too into "all the bolt on crap" that looks neat. For a driver, simple factory type is best.
Sorry about your bad trip.:pale:
 
I worked on the Roadrunner until almost 3 a.m. The exhaust shop was expecting us to be there around 8 in the morning.

We got the plugs in and routed our plug wires, installed the spark plugs, synced our distributor with the crank, connected the fuel lines, attached the M/T valve covers, put in the battery, loaded the car onto the trailer and tied it down. There was a breeze last night so it kept the mosquitoes down for awhile. When the wind calmed down, the fog rolled in.

I'd run an extension cord out to the street where I could work on the car after it was loaded. It's illegal here to park on the street after 1 a.m., but I figured they wouldn't bother me as long as I kept working.

By 3 a.m. the fog had coated everything with heavy dew. Before calling it quits I knew I'd better move the trailer off the street. I started the truck and turned on the wipers to clear the windshield. They didn't come on. Jeez! It just hadn't been a good day. I was too tired to check out the cause so I wiped the glass with a rag and drove the truck/trailer back onto our property.

This morning we took the car to Brainard, Nebraska for the exhaust work. They said it would take a few hours so we dropped it off and went back home. A little more sleep should feel good. The ECU is supposed to be here around noon.
 
SNKEBIT said:
Holy crap!!!! Yup, I would shitcan those gears, if it's not a drag car then they are more pita than worth. You have some drag cars, don't need the driver to be one.
Click to expand...
SNKEBIT said:
Sometimes we get too into "all the bolt on crap" that looks neat. For a driver, simple factory type is best.
Sorry about your bad trip.:pale:
Click to expand...


I'd like to get a set of 3.55s for the Dana. I'm having serious thoughts about going back to a belt driven fan too.
 
Last edited:
I would do both.
Nothing wrong with a mechanical fan on a street car.
 
sireland67 said:
I would do both.
Click to expand...
sireland67 said:
Nothing wrong with a mechanical fan on a street car.
Click to expand...


The reason I chose to go electric was that my factory fan & shroud were damaged when the car was wrecked and a factory shroud does not mate to the Champion radiator I went with. I suppose I'll start hunting for a mechanical fan at the swap meet that's coming up next weekend.
 
Last edited:
Look for one with seven blades.
My duster cools fine using a champion radiator with no shroud.
 
Empty can of sealant from yesterday's fiasco.

img_6213-jpg.jpg


My temporary spare that Doug loaned me to get me home.

img_6214-jpg.jpg


Our new 383 emblems for the valve covers.

img_6215-jpg.jpg


They look pretty good in place.

img_6216-jpg.jpg


The parts from FAST arrived.

img_6218-jpg.jpg


I love tidy plug wires. I don't care what anybody else says, - those cheapo Spectre wire holders adapt to any engine. With the 10mm wires I had to drill out the clamps.

img_6219-jpg.jpg


img_6220-jpg.jpg


The cheezy air cleaner will have to do until we find a better solution that fits.

img_6221-jpg.jpg




View attachment IMG_6213.jpg

View attachment IMG_6214.jpg

View attachment IMG_6215.jpg

View attachment IMG_6216.jpg

View attachment IMG_6218.jpg

View attachment IMG_6219.jpg

View attachment IMG_6220.jpg

View attachment IMG_6221.jpg
 
Last edited:
I also have those wire holders on several of my cars, they work great as long as you put a dab of loctite on them.
 
sireland67 said:
I also have those wire holders on several of my cars, they work great as long as you put a dab of loctite on them.
Click to expand...

I've always had to do a little tweaking to get the brackets to fit. There's enough pieces included with them though so that I haven't had to buy anything extra to make them fit. I love having the wires running parallel to one another and I usually have them set up so it's impossible to mix up the firing order once they're installed.
 
Last edited:
We're just about ready to fire up the Roadrunner. I did take a nap after dropping the car off at the exhaust shop. When I woke up it was time to pick it back up.

I must have done a pretty good job cutting off the pipes from the manifolds. All the exhaust shop did was weld the reducers to them and bolt them up. - They did replace the H-pipe with a 2" longer one to get the pipes to align. It still cost $200 to get it done.

Spencer checked with FAST to make sure we wouldn't have any problems with the wiring. They were supposed to send us a thumb drive with the new instructions on it but someone screwed up. Our existing wires were pretty much still where we needed them but we'd been swapping things around depending on which distributor we were running and when we'd changed the timing controls back to the MSD system.

I went ahead and phased the rotor. The only thing left now is to replace the old pigtail harness that went to the old touchscreen display with the new one.

It was dark outside again when we stopped for the night. Instead of upsetting the neighbors with a lot of noise tuning the car we felt it best to quit. There's rain in the forecast again. Hopefully we can still finish this all up tomorrow.


 
Abodybomber said:
Best of luck...
Click to expand...

Thanks bomber, it's been a slow go so far. Spence has been spending time on my laptop downloading drivers to make it communicate with the FAST ECU. So far we'd tried to crank the car but it didn't fire. - Not sure if the controller is allowing a signal to come through.

img_6224-jpg.jpg


We're having FAST's tech support walk us through things now. Their ability to produce easy to follow printed instructions sucks. They really need to hire a new tech writer.

View attachment IMG_6224.jpg
 
Last edited:
When we cranked the motor over it sounded as though our timing was way off. I flipped the distributor shaft 180' and things began looking up. Although the engine seemed to want to start, it just wouldn't. I know this is not a carburetor but I opened the throttle body about 20% while cranking and it took off.

The motor sounded healthy but we had a header leak on the left side. Despite the need to have everything tight, it's hard to keep yourself overly cautious when threading into aluminum.

The predicted rain has been here off & on. It's kept us from working uninterrupted.

The Optima battery must not be up to snuff anymore. Despite the fact I'd fully charged it before we started - the car had a hard time cranking after a half dozen restarts. I pulled the battery from the truck but we got error codes when we tried it. The com port was losing signal. The terminals were clean but apparently one of the side terminals has an issue. FAST insists on a direct power connection to the battery with nothing else terminating on those locations so we're using the side posts to supply it's power and the top posts for the rest of the electrical system. Right now we're charging the Optima battery again. While it is we're continuing to research the tuning capability with the laptop. Most of what we've read about FAST has been praise but I'm still critical of their documentation. Maybe it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out but it's not written for someone unfamiliar with adjusting computer controlled tuning parameters.
 
Well at least you are getting your car fix from the house.
 
I wish it would rain here, that would give me an excuse not to finish hand digging a sewer line up in one of my rentals.
 
We've been extra careful not to damage any of the electronics. I disconnected the FAST power supply wires from the battery before attaching the battery charger.

We would have already taken the car out on a test drive when we had it running earlier but when we tried to put it in gear we found that the clutch linkage needed readjusting. I suppose the engine tilt had changed our distance from the firewall.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Back
Top