Alright, lots to discuss... Let's get down to business. I don't have many "in-progress" pictures of the work, I can either take lots of pictures or get lots of work done, I've elected to do the latter.
1. The 200-4R is in and fits very well, much better than I could have hoped. I had to cut out the torsion bar x-member and grind down some of the pinch weld as well as hammer out a couple spots of the floor, mostly up near the front that will be under the dash. Should be practically unnoticeable under the carpet in my opinion. The portion of the torsion bar x-member that had to be cut out and ground down will be welded to the tunnel to reinforce it. Additionally, I plan to cut out both torsion bar mounts and put in some 4" pipe cut in half for exhaust cutouts so I can keep my ground clearance to a maximum.
2. The trans x-member is fabricated and tacked. The 200-4R's mount is around 5" back (pulling from memory, will edit this for future reference for others) from the original trans mount so I had to design a way to move it back. I don't like the crossmember styles that extend across the subframe connectors and I wanted to make use of the original x-member as much as I could. So, I went with the simplest idea I could come up with and just cut the stock mount on a chop saw at the angles I wanted on each side and then I put some 1/4" or so plate in to move the physical mount portion back. It was way more work than I originally expected or intended but I'm very pleased with how it turned out. It won't affect my exhaust routing like a subframe based mount would and it used the existing infrastructure. The engine angle is right where it needs to be at around 2.6-2.8 degrees down.
3. The frame connectors are in. I purchased the laser cut frame connectors from John at uscartool probably close to two years ago. This was right after John had released the 63-66 early a connectors. However, John designed these to fit a 108" wheelbase, not the 111" of my Dart. So obviously they didn't fit, nowhere close. John more or less wanted me to do the work to make him a template and frankly I wasn't pleased with the proposition. All told, I ended up modifying them with an extension where the rear floorpan appears to have been extended and the room added to stretch these cars to 111" wheelbase. Everything else seemed to match up relatively but lots of grinding was still necessary. As for the current connectors he sells, no idea if he ever did the work to add the other wheelbase option or not, buyer beware?
So, what's next?
I'm planning on finishing my mini tub next, doing the torsion bar exhaust cutout mods, and installing the torque boxes I got from Auto Rust Technicians (car should be very stiff, I'm excited to see how well it turns). After that I will be moving on to more specific work, brake line and emergency cable routing, fuel line, etc. My goal is to get all of the work on the bottom of the car done. At which point I will put the car back on the rotisserie, remove all of the suspension and paint the suspension, rear end, everything in SPI epoxy. When everything is off the bottom of the car I will turn it sideways on the rotisserie and blast the bottom clean and spray all of it with SPI epoxy and Lizard Skin. After that, finishing up driveline work. I need to get a center section for my rear end, I will need a driveshaft made, I need to buy the shorty block hugger headers from street and performance to see if they will fit at all and then eventually take the car to a shop to have the exhaust done. All of it big money, that's why I'm doing everything I can do right now that doesn't cost me that much, just time.
Updates may be sporadic, I'm trying to actually work on the car more so I can cruise around in it and not this forum. :burnout:
