Decade Dart - father son '70 Dart 340 4 speed project
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IndianaDodge
Well-Known Member
Waiting and reading this thread is better then a good movie!
SettinTrendz
Well-Known Member
Well Swinger.... Love the story. Love the build. Love the color. Thats love cubed right there!! Great job.
zhandfull
Well-Known Member
Looking good :burnout:
Thanks, guys! I'm glad there's people out there enjoying this, so let's get to the next installment.
Our vision for this project from the start was to do basically a bone stock restoration, with a few planned exceptions. 1) This Dart would roll on radial tires. Dad and I previously put a set of reproduction bias-ply redlines on our Road Runner; they look great, but man they are downright scary to drive on! Not making that mistake again. 2) Electrical power would be provided by a sealed, maintenance free battery. No more sulfuric acid topping off, inferior reliability, etc. Ditto the Road Runner learning experience. 3) The interior, originally blue, would be changed to black, because a) we prefer the look, and b) our parts car had a very nice and complete black interior.
With this vision and only a 340 short block to begin with, we spent months hunting down the correct intake, carb, and a pair of X-heads for the build. The motor was built with just a few small performance tricks on the inside, but a basic factory stock appearance on the outside.
Our vision for this project from the start was to do basically a bone stock restoration, with a few planned exceptions. 1) This Dart would roll on radial tires. Dad and I previously put a set of reproduction bias-ply redlines on our Road Runner; they look great, but man they are downright scary to drive on! Not making that mistake again. 2) Electrical power would be provided by a sealed, maintenance free battery. No more sulfuric acid topping off, inferior reliability, etc. Ditto the Road Runner learning experience. 3) The interior, originally blue, would be changed to black, because a) we prefer the look, and b) our parts car had a very nice and complete black interior.
With this vision and only a 340 short block to begin with, we spent months hunting down the correct intake, carb, and a pair of X-heads for the build. The motor was built with just a few small performance tricks on the inside, but a basic factory stock appearance on the outside.
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The fresh 340 was brought back to life on a test stand, if only for a short time. Water vapor in the exhaust led to a partial tear down, and the discovery that some overly aggressive bowl porting had resulted in a crack between the exhaust port and water jacket. This is the exact point where strict originality of our build plan started to diverge
. Weighing all our options, we decided not to try to locate replacement X-head(s), but instead purchased a pair of Edelbrock aluminum heads. And since the top end was torn down and the heads upgraded, why not upgrade the rest of the top end too? Painting all those shiny new aluminum pieces hemi orange still keeps it kind-of original, right?? In its new dress the 340 was tested out on the dyno, where it produced a respectable 371 hp at 5800 rpm and 395 ft-lb at 4300 rpm.
These unplanned upgrades also halted our search for an original pair of hi-po exhaust manifolds, and opened the door for us to add a set of TTI headers to the build. With the rebuilt factory 4-speed behind it, the power plant was carefully dropped into the engine bay.
These unplanned upgrades also halted our search for an original pair of hi-po exhaust manifolds, and opened the door for us to add a set of TTI headers to the build. With the rebuilt factory 4-speed behind it, the power plant was carefully dropped into the engine bay.
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1973_Scamp
Well-Known Member
Gotta love that orange hemi. I think I saw that engine somewhere before.
IndianaDodge
Well-Known Member
My friends thought I was crazy when I considered painting my new air gap intake... I still might. I like that all original painted look.
txstang84
Well-Known Member
Very nice-great choices man. Looks great in the bay and ought to motivate that little sucker around smartly!
340john
Well-Known Member
I think it looks great. I agree about the bias plys, I had them on my Hemi Coronet R/T and it was scarey to drive.
Yep, 1973_Scamp gets the photo credit for that dyno picture, as he was there with me that day.
Friends are great, but unless they're funding your project for you then the decisions are yours. I say if you wanna paint it orange then have at it!
340john
Well-Known Member
Any progress lately?
I need to do some photo mining before I can continue to tell the story, and I haven't had time to do so. I can give a small teaser though.... Our donor car had a remarkably nice black interior. The door panels, back seat, and seat belts all cleaned up great, and the dash pad with only one very small crack was deemed usable as well. Too bad the headliner could not be swapped over because it was perfect. The drivers seat bottom was badly torn, so a new upholstry kit brought that piece back to new.
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Unfortunately, I don't think I captured any in-process photos of the instrument cluster or steering wheel and column sub-assembly restorations. The gauges were all disassembled cleaned and painted as needed. The steering wheel had some minor cracks which were epoxy filled before sanding, priming and painting. The column was blown apart for cleaning and refinishing. Then, in went the front seat.
Great story and beautiful work!
SpeedracerX
Still on this side of the dirt member
Damn.. this car is gonna be SEXY!!
rlevs
Well-Known Member
nice very nice
do you have any finished pics of the car? great work,
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