1968 Plymouth Valiant - The Varment

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Varment

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Location
Rochester Hills, MI
Back in 2003 I purchased my very first car; a primer grey, 4-door, Plymouth Valiant 100 with an itty bitty 225 under the hood. It was perfect! I was one of about five or six people in high school with an ol' classic. But there was a problem... it was slow. This had to change. So, in 2007 I decided to rip out the old slant six and throw in a rebuilt and bored .030 over 318. To say the least I was gung-ho about the whole project. Unfortunately when I was younger I didn't quite have the income I have now a days and ran out of cash and never got to see the engine in the car.

In 2010, thanks to some friends of mine that nagged the living hell out of me about getting the car back on the road I decided to open up shop again! This is where I have photos guys!!!

My first job was to get the garage worthy of putting a car back together because unfortunately working in the below photo is SO time consuming and annoying!
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After the garage was cleaned up me and the friends got the new engine in and the old engine out!

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The engine actually fit without hardly any issue, excluding a few giant gashes on the engine bay, but hey it's a daily driver, no show car! Anyways, we got the engine in and low and behold...a miss #-o. Talk about gut wrenching when you spend thousands to get the car running again and it doesn't run!!! After completing a compression test it was obvious cylinder #2 was not holding any pressure and when we tried blowing air through it when both valves were men't to be closed we came to the conclusion of exactly what we found, a stuck valve.

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Since I don't own the equipment or knowledge to fix the head, it all came apart and the head went to the machine shop. They checked over the entire head, fixed the valve, and got it back to me a day later. That night ended up going till 2:00am and finally the car runs!!!

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Also, somewhere between putting the engine in and getting it to run I completed all of the light body work needed ranging from small pin holes to slight dents, and the car got painted GM Torch Red by the local hot rod shop!

Here are the before and after paint shots:
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Sorry if all the information seemed like it skipped a hell of a lot of steps. It did. I wanted to get a project file in here now so that I could constantly update it with the little or big things I am doing to the car. So I brought everyone up to speed! Hope you like the Varment!
 
Thanks Varlo! What I would do for a 2-door though! Will have to sit next to this one though because with this being my first car there's no way I am selling it!
 
Thanks Varlo! What I would do for a 2-door though! Will have to sit next to this one though because with this being my first car there's no way I am selling it!


Hey, 4-doors are the new 2-door.

Check this out:

Vortech-inspired almost stock 360 Magnum, mid 11's at 115 mph, quarter mile...

You can have a LOT of fun with a 4-door!!!!:pirate:
 

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enjoy! looks like a fun build!
Myself...enjoying my 4 door 69 Dart Custom with the slant..DD and working toward getting better mileage. The project car is the 69 Valiant...just a street cruiser..build is in sig line...good luck and have fun!
 
If it would quit giving me small problems I would love it! I can't seem to get the distributor in the right position for the life of me so it is currently running like complete crap. I still need to put about 300 miles on it before I am comfortable with testing its power. I havn't gotten to punch it yet.

As for how it sounds I am so in love with it! I think I might replace the flex fan with an electric fan though so I don't have to hear the loud buzz it creates.
 
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