help! i dont want a ricer
i recently did a tune up on the /6 with plugs, wires, cap rotor ect an it changed nothing really.
Replacing parts isn't tuning. You need to learn to diagnose issues, whether you're working on a slant six, a big block, or a Toyota 4-banger. A poorly-tuned slant with some new parts will run poorly. So will a poorly tuned 360. You've gotta learn the same lesson I did - that making cars faster and/or better isn't just about bolting new parts together. Your 360 will still need to be tuned. It won't be "drop in and go" unless you're spending a lot of money to have someone else build it, break it in and tune it for you on a dyno. It'll be cheaper to learn how to tune your slant than your 360.
theres just too much little things. i worry my doors r gonna fall off cuz the stikers r porrly repaired an rusting again.
That's a valid issue. So, cut out the old metal and have new metal/door strikers welded in. Are you saying don't plan to do this until AFTER you swap in the 360? Gotta get it done anyway, and with some research and elbow-grease, it would be a LOT cheaper than buying another car, even if you had to hire someone else to do the welding for you.
You seem to have made up your mind that you need another car. That's totally cool, it's your money and your time. Some of the older guys here are just trying to point out that, since you ARE short on funds, the "less-glamorous" alternative would probably be better for you in this case. Your arguments against putting money into the Dart seem to be based on inexperience. We've all been there (well, most of us have), and some repairs seem intimidating and frustrating until you've been successful in fixing them.
Rebuilding my first front end scared the crap outta me, but I couldn't afford to pay someone $700-800 in labor to do it for me. And I wasn't 16, I was 40. It wasn't easy, but it didn't take a lot of "brain power" either. The night and day difference in ride and handling makes me VERY proud, and unlike other cars I drive, I savor every single mile I drive it. I also wouldn't hesitate to do it again on another car, now that I know what I'm in for.
On the other side of the coin, when I first bought my slant six Swinger, I had every intention of dropping in a 360, just like you. Driving it reinforced my determination - getting it up to highway speeds was a monumental effort, and I practically had my foot to the floor just to maintain highway speeds. Oh, and the mileage SUCKED. I thought this was because it was a slant six, and of course, slant sixes sucked. Guess what? After driving it that way for a couple of YEARS, I had the car at a local mechanic for something (don't remember what), and he figured out that the distributor was stabbed wrong by a previous mechanic or owner. He reinstalled it correctly, set the timing at 10 degrees, and guess what? It was like driving a different car! Was it fast? No. But it ran "normally", and would keep up with every average car on the road, and mileage went WAY up. Now, had I been smart enough to diagnose the problem myself, I wouldn't have wasted YEARS driving it that way. Now I know better, and how to diagnose the problem in the future.
Like I said, if you want another car, that's up to you. But this is an A-Body forum, not a Honda, Toyota, Cavalier, or Neon forum, so what kind of advice would you expect here? A LOT of us would rather drive our a-bodies as our daily-drivers AND our toys (or have an A-body for each). And there's only one really good reason that you can't do it, too: You want another car, and nothing we can say will change your mind on that.
Hope you find what you're looking for, and when it comes to questions about your Dart (like,"what's the cheapest way to replace the doorjambs?"), ask away. You'll get some of the best A-Body advice right here, by folks who have been there, done that, and learned things the hard way.
