Progress
- Thread starter 68coupe
- Start date
-
Progress rock's!
forcedfedmopar
Well-Known Member
What radiator is that?
aaadave
Well-Known Member
hey jim, whats up? you about ready to drive that cuda? lol. dave.
Hey Dave - I've been ready! I put trans fluid in today, going to put oil filter adapter on tomorrow and fill with oil. I have to connect from original metal fuel line to fuel rail. Just about ready to fire it up. Then, gotta get exhaust on it.
Hey - almost bought a 70 Dart 4-door.
aaadave
Well-Known Member
good to hear. i'll tell ya what, you just cant beat turning the key and go first thing in the morning. best thing I ever did to it. used to dread driving it due to continual carb problems, but now cant keep out of it. drove it all week for crusin the coast in oct. all in town driving,stop light to stop light traffic with a/c running got 16-17 mpg. I wont complain.
that looks great, nice work on the cooling system. This is motivating. Have you figured out the belt setup with no power steering? I will be running a/c with no power steering on mine so Im a little curious how it will be done. Again nice job, that will be a nice running and driving car!
I have been researching that. I intend to eventually install air conditioning, but that's probably down the road a little. I could go ahead and mount the compressor to use as a idler pulley. You can also fabricate an idler pulley to go in the place of the power steering pump.
My understanding is that you can substitute other belts of the correct length to satisfy your configuration requirements. It's also my understanding that Mopar uses a 7 groove belt and others use 6 groove. The main consideration is that the waterpump is directional, so the belt has to turn it in the correct direction.
I'm not sure what exactly I'm going to do at this point. I'll keep you posted!
forcedfedmopar
Well-Known Member
Thanks! What manifolds are those? Are the old engines and the new ones the same exhaust manifold pattern? (ie can we swap the old manifolds onto the new motors)
The manifolds on mine are from a 92 Dakota with the 2 1/8" outlets. Yes, the old manifolds will work on the Magnum heads. I had mt 318 LA manifolds bolted up for a while. Look in the exhaust section for threads/posts by Treblig. He has been pairing a passenger side Magnum manifold with 340 HP manifolds.
forcedfedmopar
Well-Known Member
That's good to know! I planned on keeping the stock Dakota manifolds but then found a set of headers for CHEAP. I finally got my car home and in the shop, going to be bringing the Dakota home tomorrow and starting disassembly! Im super excited to start on this. Ordered a bunch of parts from rock auto yesterday, including floor pans!
aaadave
Well-Known Member
well, i guess it would be called hillbilly engineering, lol, but I put mine in till it hit the bottom of the pan, measured how much was still sticking out and cut it off that much. with 4 quarts in the pan and 1 in the filter, made a mark were the oil level was to indicate full. was gonna get all sophisticated and cut it off the top and drill a new hole for the handle end. NOT. that suckers one hard piece of steel lol. oh ya, you need to bevel both sides of the end so its easier to insert. dave.
-
