68 twin turbo dart project.

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turbodart68

turbodart68

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Hi all, this is one of my projects that I have been working on for the last 10 years or so. It is far from done but I am now steadily making progress and I will post more pics as things move along. Unfortunately this is one of 4 cars that I am working on currently. A little history, this car was sold to me by my brother when I was 14 and I worked on it for a few years at night and on weekends saving money from my job at a service station to pay for parts. Originally it was a 273/904/7.25 combo and I did rebuild the 273 and a 727 and drag raced it through high school running a best of 14.33 at 99 mph. I then put a 360 in it and eventually ran 12.00 at 110 on the motor and 10.90 at 123 mph on a 150 shot. I raced it for 6 years after that.I then built a twin turbo 340 for it and never put it in, instead I put it in a friends tube chassis car where it ran mid 8's at over 160 mph. I figured it was too much for my measly stock suspension car and decided to do a round tube backhalf and make the car nice after all. Five years after taking it apart I realized that I was in over my head and turned to Gary Hansen at Hansens race cars for help. Hansen built a few super/stock darts including the helihemi dart and the defrank and cohen barracuda. I saved my pennies and sent the car out to be acid dipped at PSC in Santa Fe Springs and then on to Hansen's. Here are some pics.

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it seems im not the only one thinking in a turbo:snakeman:


keep pics coming !
 
Gary Hansen was a pleasure to do business with, a very trustworthy guy who delivers as promised, on time, on budget, and a product that is second to none. Some more pics, as you can see this car was 100% rust free and came out nice from the chemical stripping process. The car initially car out of the tank folded in half due to the rear half of the floor and frame rails missing. I wish that I had taken pics but it made me so sick to my stomach that I couldn't bring myself to pick up the camera. Soooo I loaded my heap up into the trailer and took it to Hansen's and Gary was very nice and put me at ease right away telling me that it would be no big deal as they had all the specs and could make it good as new. He told me to trust him...im glad I did as you can see they run a very proffesional shop.

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From your other posts it sounds like it currently is a roller getting the motor fitted and such?

I think it is very cool and really interesting to see it the way it is now. When it's in progress like that, you get to see some of the craftsmanship even more than when it's painted and done.

Even if it's incomplete, please bring it out to the Fall Fling show. There are lots of painted and finished cars at shows, but not a lot of true in-progress/middle of project cars.

I remember years ago someone brought a 4 turbo 64 Belvedere roller to the show and it had a crowd around it all day.
 
curious as to what you had done to that 360 for it to run 12's......by the way I love what your doing I wish I had the skills to accomplish something like that.
 
Hey guys thanks for the kind words here is more pics. Its still registered and I plan to drive it around a little bit, nothing to crazy. There are a couple of cruise nights in the area within 10 miles of me so thats probably the typical range for me. As far as the 360 that ran 12's, it was suprisingly stock with unported x heads, crane gold roller rockers, 7.8 compression and a mopar purpleshaft 508 hydraulic cam. It had a torker 2 intake(single plane), a 750 dp holley, MSD igniton set at 36 degrees with the advance locked out, 1 5/8 headers with 3" exhaust, 2 chamber flowmasters, 904 low gears, 10" 3600 rpm stall and 4:56 gears. The car weighed 3180 with me in it and had a 10.5 M/T slick. I took that drivetrain out of this car and put it in a stock 70 Swinger with all the power accessories and even steel wheels and on a 275 drag radial it ran 12.60s at 108. Really a good motor that I just couldnt kill even with a good hit of nitrous. The car was really fun at that level because it would practically run on water and required very little to no maintenance.

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Okay here is some more pics, these photos are from 3 years ago so the build is going slow. The car is certified to 7.50's and is identical to the S/S darts that run in SS/AH. One day I would like to put a Hemi in it and go race that class.

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Okay, now were caught up and this week I have turned my attention to mounting the turbos and headers. I also made the parachute mount a few weeks ago but I cant find the pics so I wll take some more pics and post them. For now heres the headers. The mount for the turbo is a bit archaic, I think I will remake it.

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More pics of the header for the drivers side. As a side note I made a chromoly tube k frame that still retains the torsion bars but has a rack and pinion. I have a few pics of that but it needs a few more items fabbed on it so I will update when time allows me to work on it. Here is the #1 tube and the collector with the j band clamp and 90 to the turbo.

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Here is #5 tube, I kinda got stuck with #3 so I decided to move on which worked out well since I needed to get around that tube anyways. I try not to think too much about tube placement, I just cut up a bunch of pieces and start to trial and error fit as see what comes up.

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#3 tube, what a pain this one was it was harder than all the others put together. I have to say that I really enjoy building headers, kinda like a jigsaw puzzle.

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You have some mad skills there..... insane ! ...... I wanna see that sucker run !! Excellent craftsman ship.... thanks for the pics !


-RPM
 
Tha'ts quite the project.

It's Fun to watch it come together.
 
Thanks for all the kind words guys. I learned how to fab by doing and looking at others projects. I still think I have long way to go till I think I am good enough but that doesnt stop me from trying. I still get frustrated and have to walk away and come back, that usually works for me. So I say go out and try it, you can do it. Its fun when you create something from nothing.
 
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