Leadfoot Rally '73 Duster

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Duster346

Duster346

Chris Andrews
Joined
Nov 13, 2004
Messages
571
Reaction score
370
Location
Castle Rock, CO
Not really a restoration. We built a '73 Duster in less than 9 weeks for the Leadfoot Rally. It was a slant six/3speed, sunroof, rear defrost, fold down rear seat car that we plucked out of a field in Brighton, CO.

We built the car out of 3 storage units with parts we had on hand, and ordered what we needed.

For the race rules, the car had to have a $2500 value or less. Sweet! Paid $600 for this one .. let's put the 340 that's been on the engine stand for 10 years in the car! Sounded good ....

The Leadfoot Rally was a multi-motorsport event featuring a drag race, road course race, oval track race, slalom course, rally cross race, and the final competition, a rally to Las Vegas, NV from Pueblo, CO. :-D

We have 3 other A-body cars, but with the risk of the car going into the wall on the oval, or going off the road course, getting into another car, etc. We decided to use this one that already had some body damage/rust. We figured we could pull the drivetrain and salvage what we could, should the car get wrecked.

Here's some pics of the build ....

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Sounds like a ton of fun. If you are missing anything from the duster I have a parts car with some stuff left on it.
 
Found some 17x9 Cobra R rims and 275/40/17 tires on Craigslist for cheap. We wanted a bigger footprint for the road course .. it was just a matter of fitting them!

Fronts fit fine .. just needing to remove the upper ball grease zerk. On the rear, we removed the 8.25" corporate rear in favor of a '67 B-body 8.75". The rims had almost 6" of backspace, so we needed the wider housing, and offset hangers to relocate the springs in .80".

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A sign of things to come? hehehe
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Out with the slant!
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Time for paint! :-D
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Flat black paint job in the driveway ..
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Time for some front end work on this rusty pig. The front end got new ball joints and new Energy Suspension everything and .890 383 A-body torsion bars. We moved the calipers to the back to fit a front sway bar. With time and $$ running short to be ready for the race, we never did get the sway bars. It bit me in the *** when we raced the car as it had to much body roll and we couldn't keep up with the field.
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Got the slant six to 340/360 conversion mounts, with some modification to the slant k-frame, the 340 was in in 5 minutes. Of course, we had to pull it almost all the way out later to get the driver side header in. :toothy10:
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Andrews Racing Transmissions 904 ready to install.
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It's now a flat black Gold Duster, awaiting race day. We literally worked to get this car ready until the day of Driver Introductions. We worked until 5am the day we were supposed to be in Pueblo. Got to Pueblo at about 9pm on Tuesday, about 3 hours late for Driver Introductions.

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Overall, we had a blast at the 2009 Leadfoot Rally. My only regret was not putting sway bars on the car. With all the work at my shop, we were pressed to get this car done. It had about 110 miles on it when it hit the dragstrip. We weren't sure what it would run. It seemed to be a bit down on power, only posting a 15.08 best at the 4200 foot elevation track in Pueblo. We were overweight and ill handling compared to the competition.

It's kinda funny when you first fire these things up. It's like a newborn that doesn't know what the hell is going on. As they sputter to life, coughing gagging and misfring until they hit on all 8, they must be thinking "What the hell is going on, why am I here?"

The car worked flawlessly, held great oil pressure. It was kind of fun driving a stickered up race car on the street during this event. Ultimately not putting sway bars on the car really hurt, as the thing just would not turn.

Not sure what we'll do with the car now .. perhaps put the good Firm Feel torsion bars and sway bars on it and road race it .. or turn it into a bracket racer. The great thing with our cars is, the sky is the limit, and we can do whatever we want with them!

Thanks for following along!!! 8)
 
Duster346 said:
Found some 17x9 Cobra R rims and 275/40/17 tires on Craigslist for cheap. We wanted a bigger footprint for the road course .. it was just a matter of fitting them!

Fronts fit fine .. just needing to remove the upper ball grease zerk. On the rear, we removed the 8.25" corporate rear in favor of a '67 B-body 8.75". The rims had almost 6" of backspace, so we needed the wider housing, and offset hangers to relocate the springs in .80".
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Smart man. Get that grip!!

For the road racing and oval track the biggest FFI T bars and sway bar would have done wonders for you. Wonder if that would be too much for the rallycross? Hellwig make tubular sway bar and an adjustable rear bar.

How did the brakes do?

What about running it next year??
 
hey sweet car. thats about the coolest $2500 car i have seen in a while lol. we r moving to castle rock so maby we could cruise together sometime. we will be on the east side of 25 where 85 ends lol
 
Awesome stuff! Looks like a fun time for sure. Bigger t-bars and sways would definitely help in the cornering department, but it still looks like a good time to me! :-D

How did everything work with the B-rear in there? I may be putting one in my GK6 Dart since it doesn't have a rear and I have an extra 8 3/4 B body rear now...
 
Looks like you had some fun with friends!Regardless of traction.15.??Timing??Some tall gears with the 17,s would help also.
 
autoxcuda said:
Smart man. Get that grip!!

For the road racing and oval track the biggest FFI T bars and sway bar would have done wonders for you. Wonder if that would be too much for the rallycross? Hellwig make tubular sway bar and an adjustable rear bar.

How did the brakes do?

What about running it next year??
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Brakes were awesome. Got the carbon metallic pads and rear shoes from Firm Feel. On the road course, the other folks were smoking their brakes. My brother was driving a bit reserved, but we never smoked ours. With the carbon pads, slotted/drilled rotors and DOT4 fluid. We were good there. On the oval we qualified 8 out of 15.

I'm a drag racer by trade, so turning these cars is still new to me. I'll put sway bars on it and see what it does for next years Leadfoot Rally, if they let us back.

tyler_s18 said:
hey sweet car. thats about the coolest $2500 car i have seen in a while lol. we r moving to castle rock so maby we could cruise together sometime. we will be on the east side of 25 where 85 ends lol
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Thanks for the compliments. Be sure to let me know when you move down here!

72bluNblu said:
How did everything work with the B-rear in there? I may be putting one in my GK6 Dart since it doesn't have a rear and I have an extra 8 3/4 B body rear now...
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The 67 B-body rear worked great. It's actually a bit shorter than the typical B-body 8 3/4. If you have a wheel that's got a good bit of back space, this is the route you'll need to go for sure. Everything lined up well, and the tires never rubbed.

pettybludart said:
Looks like you had some fun with friends!Regardless of traction.15.??Timing??Some tall gears with the 17,s would help also.
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Ran 3.23 gears in the sure-grip 742 center with the intention of driving the car to Vegas. Never did get to Vegas as we dropped out early ... not enough points to even finish in the top 5.

As for timing, I ran 35 total on the 340, but surely something wasn't right. It had a stock converter, single plane intake, and Holley 650 double pump carb. Thing was slow. We'll either stroke it this winter, or build another one!

Thanks guys. 8)
 
3.23,s with a 17 inch tire will drop your gear ratio big time!The 3.23,s were meant for 14,s.That,s a huge drop and would have made her a slug at low RPM,s.Would have done great for H.way!
 
The 17" rim with 275 series tire isn't much taller than the 14 inch wheel/tire combo that came off the car. Pic above shows it.

The motor was down on power, combined with the stock converter, small carb, and yes, I'd agree with you, numerically lower rear gear, it was slow.

It was a multi-motosport event, with an 800 mile drive for the final competition, so we selected the 3.23 gear based on that.

We still got killed by caged 4cyl, fwd imports. :angry2:
 
pettybludart said:
3.23,s with a 17 inch tire will drop your gear ratio big time!The 3.23,s were meant for 14,s.That,s a huge drop and would have made her a slug at low RPM,s.Would have done great for H.way!
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But those are 275/40/17 that only have a diameter of 25.7". That is about what a 195/75/14 is for diameter.

I have 3.23's but at 70 mph is 3200 with 245/50/15 (24.7" dia). On a road course I'm reaching 5200 rpm. The experianced pro driver that drove my car had 400 rpm over me at least.

This sites are real handy for calc'ing and comparing wheels, rims, and gear ratios:

http://www.bigcustomwheels.com/rt_specs.jsp

http://vexer.com/68rt/speed.html
 
Thropar said:
By the way, Duster346, what brake hoses did you use to run the calipers in the rear? I have to decide on which way to run mine, I remember reading Aspen/Volare hoses will work, just curious to the ones you used.

thanks
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Hi Thropar,

Actually still using drums in the rear on that car. I'm sure you'll end up using a short braided hose from the hardline to your rear calipers. Which rear disc brakes are you using?
 
kevpeters1 said:
Have you noticed any tire scrub when you turn?
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You're not likely to get an answer from the OP, this post is almost 6 years old and the OP hasn't been on the site in about 5 years. Bringing this one back from the dead!

There are plenty of folks, including myself, running wide front rims and tires on their cars. Scrub isn't an issue. The large backspace numbers are somewhat misleading, most of that is due to the increase in rim width.

I have 18x9's on my Duster with 275/35/18's. They have 6.4" of backspacing, the offset is only 35mm though. And some of that is taken up because of the track width I added with aftermarket brakes and a 3mm spacer.
 
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