Getting the dart ready for its first road trip?

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doogievlg

doogievlg

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The plan is to drive my dart down to the Holley hot rod reunion in a few weeks. The farthest I have driven the car lately is about 20 miles though and I am a bit nervous about the journey. I have two main concerns. The first is the trans which is shifting through the gears before I get over 30 miles an hour. I have a thread going on that.

My second issue is I am getting absolutely horrible mileage out of my .30 over 360. I'm running an edlebrock 650 avs and have 3:55 gears behind a 727. During my 20 mile trip I was getting about 10 miles per gallon while cruising at 65 mph at 3200 rpm. The mileage seems very poor to me.

Other than that I'm prepared. I have a spare ignition and wires and coil with a good tool set tool set in the trunk.
 
Are you running vacuum advance? Have you checked the plugs to see if you're obnoxiously rich?
 
Do you have access to a wideband you could use? It takes a very rich mixture to color plugs on modern gas. Other than that, are the brakes adjusted too tight or anything weird like that? If you're having transmission issues, that might hurt your mileage. (Slippage, etc.)
 
That 3,200 at 65 is part of what's killing ya, but you probably know that already.:D

There is an easy solution to that (stock normal) getting into third by 30 if you have a TP rod instead of a cable.
It can still be done with a cable, just differently.

What you want for immediate satisfaction is for it to not shift so dog gone early without making any major internal changes at this point right?
You need to trick the trans into thinking the car is going faster than it is (has more throttle opening than it does)

This can be done by using a spring to make the TP rod stay back a little more than the throttle is.
Some do this by putting a small bolt and nut in the slide part of the TP rod, but doing it this way limits the throttle travel and the carb will no longer move to the WOT position.
What you want is something that makes the TP rod lead the throttle until it gets to wide open, but then allows the throttle to continue to wide open.
I did a web page about how to do this really easy, and I call it the 10 cent 10 min shift kit.
It works really well and is easily undone if you want to do an actual shift kit or governor change later.

www.letsgocomputers.com/shifts.htm

First road trips can be a little stressful but what I did was to basically do what I could to be ready for any possibility and throw the rest to the wind, knowing I could eventually fix anything that could possibly happen.
Once I let go of all the anticipation of possible problems it was a flippin blast.
My first long trip in my car followed a lot of Route 66 through AZ and CA and I even stopped for a little bit at the James Dean memorial where he was killed when he got into a car accident.
 
Last edited:
TrailBeast said:
That 3,200 at 65 is part of what's killing ya, but you probably know that already.:D

There is an easy solution to that (stock normal) getting into third by 30 if you have a TP rod instead of a cable.
It can still be done with a cable, just differently.

What you want for immediate satisfaction is for it to not shift so dog gone early without making any major internal changes at this point right?
You need to trick the trans into thinking the car is going faster than it is (has more throttle opening than it does)

This can be done by using a spring to make the TP rod stay back a little more than the throttle is.
Some do this by putting a small bolt and nut in the slide part of the TP rod, but doing it this way limits the throttle travel and the carb will no longer move to the WOT position.
What you want is something that makes the TP rod lead the throttle until it gets to wide open, but then allows the throttle to continue to wide open.
I did a web page about how to do this really easy, and I call it the 10 cent 10 min shift kit.
It works really well and is easily undone if you want to do an actual shift kit or governor change later.

www.letsgocomputers.com/shifts.htm

First road trips can be a little stressful but what I did was to basically do what I could to be ready for any possibility and throw the rest to the wind, knowing I could eventually fix anything that could possibly happen.
Once I let go of all the anticipation of possible problems it was a flippin blast.
My first long trip in my car followed a lot of Route 66 through AZ and CA and I even stopped for a little bit at the James Dean memorial where he was killed when he got into a car accident.
Click to expand...
Get AAA and relieve the stress
 
Why do you need it to shift so high? The Shop Manuals say 15mph. Your automatic shift points ( letting it shift in drive) are based on kickdown adjustment.

Made several trips from the NW to the LA area fr Springfling in old Mopars, 67 Dart with a 273 and a 67 Fury vert. No AC or Sirrus. Top down most of the way in the vert except whne going through central Oregon. It was snowing. Had a blast on all the trips. Went solo on one so it was kinda a slw trip with nodody to talk with.

Make sure you put together an emergency kit. Belts, hoses, Orange Box and extra resistor (if you are running that), extra bottle of antifreeze, extra oil, hand soap, shop towels etc. If there's room a jack and a pair of jackstands. Oh, add a couple of front and rear wheel bearings and seals.

AAA is not a bad idea so you can get flat towed to a safe place to work on the car.

Find out if there are any FABO members along the route. We are always available to lend a hand
 
dart4forte said:
Why do you need it to shift so high? The Shop Manuals say 15mph. Your automatic shift points ( letting it shift in drive) are based on kickdown adjustment.

Made several trips from the NW to the LA area fr Springfling in old Mopars, 67 Dart with a 273 and a 67 Fury vert. No AC or Sirrus. Top down most of the way in the vert except whne going through central Oregon. It was snowing. Had a blast on all the trips. Went solo on one so it was kinda a slw trip with nodody to talk with.

Make sure you put together an emergency kit. Belts, hoses, Orange Box and extra resistor (if you are running that), extra bottle of antifreeze, extra oil, hand soap, shop towels etc. If there's room a jack and a pair of jackstands. Oh, add a couple of front and rear wheel bearings and seals.

AAA is not a bad idea so you can get flat towed to a safe place to work on the car.

Find out if there are any FABO members along the route. We are always available to lend a hand
Click to expand...

I know a few members live near my route but I will also be traveling with two other old cars. Both are older than mine and both go on 300+ mile drives a few times a year.
 
Let me know if you need anything, I'll do what I can to help out. I'm hoping to be there Saturday sometime. Is it Friday too?
 
75slant6 said:
Let me know if you need anything, I'll do what I can to help out. I'm hoping to be there Saturday sometime. Is it Friday too?
Click to expand...

Yep. We are driving down Friday morning then driving back Saturday night. No crackle fest this year :(
 
No cackle fest??? Bet someone thought it was too loud or harmful to the environment....
 
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