DustinsDuster
Member
I'm new here, thought i would introduce myself. I'm Dustin, and i have a '72 Duster. Story starts when i was 18 and found this Duster in a schoolmate's backyard. it was an original 340 car, but the engine was gone. His father and my grandfather knew eachother well, and after some talking, i got the car for $900. i was giddy, but i soon realized how deep in it i was. turns out the kid was kindof a dumbass, and shot the driverside window out with a BB gun for no reason. Water had sat in the floors for a couple of years, and this is what i got to deal with when i pulled the carpet:
someone also decided to cut in a sunroof at some point in the car's life. under the vinyl top, this is what it looked like:
at 18 years old i had very little experience with metal work, but the point was to learn, so i dove in. I was very lucky to have my grandparents' shop to work in. they had a circle track car, and lent me a stall in the big shop for the better part of a year:
i scored a complete '77 360 for the 340 exhaust manifolds that were still on the car(along with the Sears "Muzzler" mufflers, HAH!) and we got to work on that. i had the machine work done at a local shop, and my grandfather and i assembled it. i dropped the coin on a pair of Edelbrock heads and Air-Gap intake. we had an old Crane valvetrain in a drawer, but it was for W2 heads. i bought the 8 straight intake rockers and had the rocker stands machined down. grandpa had an engine stand they used to break in their race engines, so we got to break mine in out of the car. pretty cool experience:
save for a few hiccups, i got the car running, and it actually ran pretty good. my two friends each had decently quick cars, a 5.0L Mustang and an S10 with a 350, but they both quickly got put in their place by my rust bucket Duster. with the mild RV cam, 2200 stall, and 3.23 gears, the car ran bottom 13's all day long through the exhaust on 91 octane. got a best pass of 12.95 at 104 on this setup with a 1.94 60'. not bad for Radial TA tires and $9 shocks on warn out leaf springs:
over the next few years, i did more mods. i got a ratchet shifter after my warn out stock shifter banged my car back and forth between 2nd and 3rd a few times at the track. i swapped to 3.91 gears and got some sticky tires. we found out the cam i had was warped and pretty much stuck itself in the block. motor came out and i had a custom Comp solid flat tappet cam ground. i also upgraded to a 3000 stall B&M converter, and a pair of S/S leaf springs. i got a killer deal on an A1000 fuel pump, and went totally overboard on my fuel system. with this setup, the car would run mid 12's in the 100 degree summer heat all day still on 91 octane. in the fall i got it down to 12.47 at 109. in hindsight, i shouldve gone with a 3500 stall, the car just hooked too hard and took a second to really get into its power band. I scored another good deal on a used nitrous set up, and borrowed a carb plate from a friend. i took it to an all night drags event for street cars having no idea what to expect. my friend put the bottle in his girlfriend's car with the heater blowing on it while i sat in the staging lanes. we would sprint the bottle back to my car and hook it up just in time to get up to the line. I got lined up against a cocky guy in a mid 80's Thunderbird SC who told me he could piss on my bottle to keep it warm and laughed. i just smiled and quietly idled up to the line(my car sounded like a work truck at low RPM with cheap Summit mufflers. awesome). his car launched pretty good, but i don't think he was expecting it when i walked right past him and never looked back. he didn't say anything else to me the rest of the night. i ended up running an 11.47 and an 11.44 in a motorcycle helmet, T shirt, stock lap belts and no roll bar to speak of. They never said anything to me about it, and i went home a happy guy:
someone also decided to cut in a sunroof at some point in the car's life. under the vinyl top, this is what it looked like:
at 18 years old i had very little experience with metal work, but the point was to learn, so i dove in. I was very lucky to have my grandparents' shop to work in. they had a circle track car, and lent me a stall in the big shop for the better part of a year:
i scored a complete '77 360 for the 340 exhaust manifolds that were still on the car(along with the Sears "Muzzler" mufflers, HAH!) and we got to work on that. i had the machine work done at a local shop, and my grandfather and i assembled it. i dropped the coin on a pair of Edelbrock heads and Air-Gap intake. we had an old Crane valvetrain in a drawer, but it was for W2 heads. i bought the 8 straight intake rockers and had the rocker stands machined down. grandpa had an engine stand they used to break in their race engines, so we got to break mine in out of the car. pretty cool experience:
save for a few hiccups, i got the car running, and it actually ran pretty good. my two friends each had decently quick cars, a 5.0L Mustang and an S10 with a 350, but they both quickly got put in their place by my rust bucket Duster. with the mild RV cam, 2200 stall, and 3.23 gears, the car ran bottom 13's all day long through the exhaust on 91 octane. got a best pass of 12.95 at 104 on this setup with a 1.94 60'. not bad for Radial TA tires and $9 shocks on warn out leaf springs:
over the next few years, i did more mods. i got a ratchet shifter after my warn out stock shifter banged my car back and forth between 2nd and 3rd a few times at the track. i swapped to 3.91 gears and got some sticky tires. we found out the cam i had was warped and pretty much stuck itself in the block. motor came out and i had a custom Comp solid flat tappet cam ground. i also upgraded to a 3000 stall B&M converter, and a pair of S/S leaf springs. i got a killer deal on an A1000 fuel pump, and went totally overboard on my fuel system. with this setup, the car would run mid 12's in the 100 degree summer heat all day still on 91 octane. in the fall i got it down to 12.47 at 109. in hindsight, i shouldve gone with a 3500 stall, the car just hooked too hard and took a second to really get into its power band. I scored another good deal on a used nitrous set up, and borrowed a carb plate from a friend. i took it to an all night drags event for street cars having no idea what to expect. my friend put the bottle in his girlfriend's car with the heater blowing on it while i sat in the staging lanes. we would sprint the bottle back to my car and hook it up just in time to get up to the line. I got lined up against a cocky guy in a mid 80's Thunderbird SC who told me he could piss on my bottle to keep it warm and laughed. i just smiled and quietly idled up to the line(my car sounded like a work truck at low RPM with cheap Summit mufflers. awesome). his car launched pretty good, but i don't think he was expecting it when i walked right past him and never looked back. he didn't say anything else to me the rest of the night. i ended up running an 11.47 and an 11.44 in a motorcycle helmet, T shirt, stock lap belts and no roll bar to speak of. They never said anything to me about it, and i went home a happy guy:
