Map63Vette
Well-Known Member
So I finally decided several months back that I was going to do a 5.7 hemi swap in my 67 Dart. The more I started working on the car, the more I realized that it was a stretch to call it a 67 Dart, lol. It has a 69 grille and sheet metal, the rear end was originally out of an F body but I swapped in an 8 3/4 that I thought was a B body but ended up being an E body (still fits okay because of the wheels I picked though). The original K frame had the biscuit mounts cut off and spool mounts welded in on top of angle iron and box steel for spacing to mount the 318 that I still don't know what it came from other than a date code of 75 or 76 I believe. The transmission is a non OD 833 that appears to be from a 73 A/F body (A body tailshaft at least). It did have a disc brake conversion on the front end, but as it turns out when I was trying to buy new brake lines for it I found out the calipers were from an E body, still trying to figure out why they did that. I also discovered during the teardown that the radiator, while a nice multicore capable unit, was apparently not A body either. I'm guessing it's a B body, but it fits well enough, so I'm not complaining having extra cooling.
So anyway, on to the swap! I started working on the car last Saturday with my dad (the 16th) and went about pulling the transmission and engine. The removal actually went pretty smoothly. I've had the transmission out a few times, so I knew what to expect and the engine actually came out without too much of a fight. The wiring came out next and the rest of the engine bay was stripped down so I could paint it to match the rest of the body (kind of, lol). I was told by the previous owner what the color of the car was and bought some Duplicolor Perfect Match spray paint to get the job done and after painting it was obvious the colors weren't quite the same, but it looks a lot better than the dingy goldish color it was. Also found out when I pulled the engine that one of the motor mounts only had a single bolt holding it to the engine and it was even loose. The starter bolts were also pretty much only finger tight, so all in all it was probably safer for me to pull the thing than to drive it anyway, lol.
I had bought a new K frame several months back with factory mounted spool mounts so that I knew the engine would sit in the right place and figured I would rebuild the suspension while I had the engine out of the way. The next day I pulled the suspension and old K frame and got the new one installed and the lower control arms re-bushed and back in the car. I was still waiting on upper bushings to come in Tuesday, so that was about all I could do for the day.
There was plenty of rain threatening over the week, but whenever I got a clearing I'd try to get some work down. On Monday I decided to strip down the upper control arms so I'd be ready to put the new bushings in on Tuesday. They actually came apart pretty easy and the ball joints even came out with an air impact, so I was quite surprised. Painted them up and waited for the new ones to come in.
Tuesday comes around and I got the new bushings picked up. Went to put them in and the first one goes in just fine, but I can't get the rest of them to seat all the way into the arms. I didn't have a socket or pipe the right size to push on the flange of the bushings, but finally managed to rig up enough pieces to make it work and got the arms rebuilt and back on the car. I think this was also the night I decided to try to tackle the stock bushing thingy in the back of the 5.7 crank so I could put in a pilot bushing for my 833. After about three hours of hammering, chiseling, and dremeling, my dad and I finally managed to get the damn thing out and the new pilot bushing in.
The following day I test fit the headers with my mini starter (just got a stock replacement for a 2000 Dakota 360) and clearanced the block as needed to fit the starter body. I also decided that I wanted to change the calipers to rear mount to clear my 67 style front sway bar. I ordered up some F body front brake lines since I had heard I needed them for the swap and started fitting things up. Around this point I found out they were E body calipers with horrible port placement and even the local hose and hydraulic shop couldn't make me a fitting that would route the hoses the right way for clearance, so my dreams of rear mounted calipers went away and they went back on the front. My dad took a half day at work and came home early to give me a hand though and we started putting the new 5.7 in that afternoon. Beforehand I tossed all of the wiring back in the car after going through it and taping it all back up and tying off the connectors I wouldn't be needing anymore. The engine actually dropped in place near perfect although on the first drop it looked like it was hitting the passenger side inner fender pretty bad. We pulled it back up and I clearanced the valve cover and set it back down and when it settled I had miles of space, so all my clearancing was for nothing, lol.
Friday rolled around and I decided I was going to take apart my steering column. I had power steering previously, so I converted over to a manual box and bought the Firm Feel adapter piece, but to add to the fun I had a 3 on the tree manual shift steering column, so I knew I needed to pull the shift levers off of the end of it for any hope of the thing fitting with the hemi. Finally got the whole thing apart and back together minus shift levers, but I figured I should check the coupler clearance with the headers while I had it off of the column. Go figure the damn thing hits the headers, so as it turns out I bought the Firm Feel thing for nothing since I can't even use it and need a manual steering shaft. That evening when my dad got home from work we got the transmission back in the car. I chopped around 5/8" off of the input shaft to fit the new engine and with plenty of fighting we finally got the thing installed.
One week in now and I decided I would try to put the Z bar back in. Well, as it turns out I'm not really sure what the thing came out of because it didn't look like any Z bar on Brewer's website. The whole linkage is pretty bad anyway since the bar appears to sit at a pretty bad angle and frame reinforcement bracket was never attached to the frame (car was originally an auto). Test fit the bar as-is and found it was too long on the clutch side. It was running into my new starter and a tight fit next to the headers. Took about an inch out of it and welded it back together and it looks like it will clear, but also had to bend out the pedal side because of the bad angles the thing sits at. Time will tell if I end up just going with a hydraulic setup someday, lol. In cutting the fuel line to plump in my new fuel pump I had the pleasure of dumping about a gallon of gas down my arm, so that was another high point of the build. With all the problems of the day and the bad mood I was in I decided I wanted to hear this thing fire to make me feel better. Got all the ignition wiring in and jerry-rigged some starter wiring setup to see if it would go and got nothing. Cranked and cranked on it and never got anything. Hooked my laptop up to the MSD box and checked to see if something was going on and all I ever got was an occasional cam sensor failure message. So I gave up for the day and got the list of parts I needed to buy ready for the next day.
Sunday rolls around and I pick up the last odds and ends to get the wiring fully done and a new cam sensor while I was out. Got the radiator and everything else in while I was at it and finished up the wiring. Put in the new cam sensor and give it another go at starting. The engine is finally making oil pressure on crank, but it doesn't even sound like it's trying, so I know something is up with the MSD. I clean up from the week's events and put all the old parts and tools away and just walk away for awhile expecting to call MSD on Monday to sort things out. Later in the evening I get to thinking about it and decided to try to troubleshoot it some more. Found out my switch 12v was dropping on cranking and sorted that out with another power source. Then tested the cam sensor wiring to see what was up. It was getting 5v fine, but the ground wire wasn't working. Traced it back to the computer and found out the pin had pulled out of the connector some along with another pin. Put them both back in the connector all the way and IT'S ALIVE! Open headers on a nice Easter afternoon put a smile on my face. Now I just need to get a manual steering shaft so I can drive the thing.
So anyway, on to the swap! I started working on the car last Saturday with my dad (the 16th) and went about pulling the transmission and engine. The removal actually went pretty smoothly. I've had the transmission out a few times, so I knew what to expect and the engine actually came out without too much of a fight. The wiring came out next and the rest of the engine bay was stripped down so I could paint it to match the rest of the body (kind of, lol). I was told by the previous owner what the color of the car was and bought some Duplicolor Perfect Match spray paint to get the job done and after painting it was obvious the colors weren't quite the same, but it looks a lot better than the dingy goldish color it was. Also found out when I pulled the engine that one of the motor mounts only had a single bolt holding it to the engine and it was even loose. The starter bolts were also pretty much only finger tight, so all in all it was probably safer for me to pull the thing than to drive it anyway, lol.
I had bought a new K frame several months back with factory mounted spool mounts so that I knew the engine would sit in the right place and figured I would rebuild the suspension while I had the engine out of the way. The next day I pulled the suspension and old K frame and got the new one installed and the lower control arms re-bushed and back in the car. I was still waiting on upper bushings to come in Tuesday, so that was about all I could do for the day.
There was plenty of rain threatening over the week, but whenever I got a clearing I'd try to get some work down. On Monday I decided to strip down the upper control arms so I'd be ready to put the new bushings in on Tuesday. They actually came apart pretty easy and the ball joints even came out with an air impact, so I was quite surprised. Painted them up and waited for the new ones to come in.
Tuesday comes around and I got the new bushings picked up. Went to put them in and the first one goes in just fine, but I can't get the rest of them to seat all the way into the arms. I didn't have a socket or pipe the right size to push on the flange of the bushings, but finally managed to rig up enough pieces to make it work and got the arms rebuilt and back on the car. I think this was also the night I decided to try to tackle the stock bushing thingy in the back of the 5.7 crank so I could put in a pilot bushing for my 833. After about three hours of hammering, chiseling, and dremeling, my dad and I finally managed to get the damn thing out and the new pilot bushing in.
The following day I test fit the headers with my mini starter (just got a stock replacement for a 2000 Dakota 360) and clearanced the block as needed to fit the starter body. I also decided that I wanted to change the calipers to rear mount to clear my 67 style front sway bar. I ordered up some F body front brake lines since I had heard I needed them for the swap and started fitting things up. Around this point I found out they were E body calipers with horrible port placement and even the local hose and hydraulic shop couldn't make me a fitting that would route the hoses the right way for clearance, so my dreams of rear mounted calipers went away and they went back on the front. My dad took a half day at work and came home early to give me a hand though and we started putting the new 5.7 in that afternoon. Beforehand I tossed all of the wiring back in the car after going through it and taping it all back up and tying off the connectors I wouldn't be needing anymore. The engine actually dropped in place near perfect although on the first drop it looked like it was hitting the passenger side inner fender pretty bad. We pulled it back up and I clearanced the valve cover and set it back down and when it settled I had miles of space, so all my clearancing was for nothing, lol.
Friday rolled around and I decided I was going to take apart my steering column. I had power steering previously, so I converted over to a manual box and bought the Firm Feel adapter piece, but to add to the fun I had a 3 on the tree manual shift steering column, so I knew I needed to pull the shift levers off of the end of it for any hope of the thing fitting with the hemi. Finally got the whole thing apart and back together minus shift levers, but I figured I should check the coupler clearance with the headers while I had it off of the column. Go figure the damn thing hits the headers, so as it turns out I bought the Firm Feel thing for nothing since I can't even use it and need a manual steering shaft. That evening when my dad got home from work we got the transmission back in the car. I chopped around 5/8" off of the input shaft to fit the new engine and with plenty of fighting we finally got the thing installed.
One week in now and I decided I would try to put the Z bar back in. Well, as it turns out I'm not really sure what the thing came out of because it didn't look like any Z bar on Brewer's website. The whole linkage is pretty bad anyway since the bar appears to sit at a pretty bad angle and frame reinforcement bracket was never attached to the frame (car was originally an auto). Test fit the bar as-is and found it was too long on the clutch side. It was running into my new starter and a tight fit next to the headers. Took about an inch out of it and welded it back together and it looks like it will clear, but also had to bend out the pedal side because of the bad angles the thing sits at. Time will tell if I end up just going with a hydraulic setup someday, lol. In cutting the fuel line to plump in my new fuel pump I had the pleasure of dumping about a gallon of gas down my arm, so that was another high point of the build. With all the problems of the day and the bad mood I was in I decided I wanted to hear this thing fire to make me feel better. Got all the ignition wiring in and jerry-rigged some starter wiring setup to see if it would go and got nothing. Cranked and cranked on it and never got anything. Hooked my laptop up to the MSD box and checked to see if something was going on and all I ever got was an occasional cam sensor failure message. So I gave up for the day and got the list of parts I needed to buy ready for the next day.
Sunday rolls around and I pick up the last odds and ends to get the wiring fully done and a new cam sensor while I was out. Got the radiator and everything else in while I was at it and finished up the wiring. Put in the new cam sensor and give it another go at starting. The engine is finally making oil pressure on crank, but it doesn't even sound like it's trying, so I know something is up with the MSD. I clean up from the week's events and put all the old parts and tools away and just walk away for awhile expecting to call MSD on Monday to sort things out. Later in the evening I get to thinking about it and decided to try to troubleshoot it some more. Found out my switch 12v was dropping on cranking and sorted that out with another power source. Then tested the cam sensor wiring to see what was up. It was getting 5v fine, but the ground wire wasn't working. Traced it back to the computer and found out the pin had pulled out of the connector some along with another pin. Put them both back in the connector all the way and IT'S ALIVE! Open headers on a nice Easter afternoon put a smile on my face. Now I just need to get a manual steering shaft so I can drive the thing.
