73 Dart Sport for Fun

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Replacing the quarters was my call. My body guy said he would replace the entire quarter panels for the same price as just doing the patches so I said go for it. I figured this way I could get rid of the sprayed on mastic on the trunk side, make sure there was no corrosion behind the quarters and then do a good prime and paint underneath.
 
Car back from the media blaster. New sheet metal installation started today. Decided to mini tub and run a wide tire. Also ordered spring relocation kit. Looking forward to starting to put this back together.

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Welcome. Your project is going to be awesome.
Nice to see you giving some love to a 73...
 
Things are coming along. Mini tubs almost finished with trunk pan and quarters being fitted today. Reilly Street Lynx is on the way and I already have the rear rims, 15"x10" Cragar SS. Probably put the chassis on a cart and perhaps be able to measure for the rear end this week. Still trying to decide on a color. I have narrowed down my choices to either an orange or a green. As of this post looking at Sassy Grass Green, Toxic Orange, or Header Orange. I think this will be the hardest decision of the whole build!

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Kevindc said:
On these 73+ Darts do folks keep the front bumper reinforcement or get rid of it?
Click to expand...

Only '73 & '74 Sports have the regular bumper brackets up front. They went to front AND rear shock absorber "5 mph" brackets in '75. (Rears started in '74.) As for the '73-'74 front reinforcement, if it was a race car, I'd say get rid of it for the weight. Otherwise keep it. It will help hold back any damage if there is ever a front end mishap.

Needless to say, I vote "keep the beak". Dusters are everywhere. I always liked Dodge styling over all the years and models and like being a little different anyway. Keep it what it is.
 
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Look's like its going to be nice..except of coarse for the "beak nose"..
 
Whoa!
How did I miss this thread?

Awesome work. It looks like you're making great choices all around too. :)
Please keep the updates coming.

Subscribed.
 
Also...I have no idea why people dislike the beak so much. I suspect they went that route to visually offset the requisite big bumpers and IMO, I works.

I'm very glad you're staying with the beak. :D
 

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Very nice to see another 73 Sport. I should really go the route you did and get all the new metal I need while I have it completely apart but I have to draw the budget line somewhere. I'm sure I'll regret it once I have to take it all apart again. Good choice on the color, I went with Sublime Green and will definitely switch to the darker Sassy Grass once I actually get around to repainting.

Looked up what it would cost to get rid of the beak and get fiberglass 71-72 fenders, hood, valiance and bumper: $2500. Still haven't even factored in finding a grill or getting everything painted. I think I'll stick with the beak for a while haha.
 
Good to hear from you guys. As I had said earlier, I bought a Dart Sport and a Dart Sport it shall remain and that means keeping the beak. To tell the truth it's been growing on me and with the green paint and black striping I think the beak could look pretty cool.
 
Dyno day at IMM. Engine all finished up so took the short drive out to Indio for final tune and pickup.

Got to IMM about 10:00 Am and we got right to it. The engine had already been broken in and this is the last tune prior to delivery. The day began by switching out the spark plugs from the previous days run with a bit hotter plug and went on from there. Anyway, to be brief over the next couple of hours Brian and his dad Fred worked on the engine tune by tweaking a number of things. They switched out different ratio exhaust rockers, carb jets, plugs, ect. All and all pretty cool. So the SB 408 final numbers are:

C_TQ 522.12 lbft @4500
CPower 523.14 C_HP @6000

This is almost dead center of what we were shooting for.


Start to finish I've enjoyed working with IMM. When I first walked into the shop Brian sat down with me and spent quite a bit time making sure I was going to get what I wanted at the budget I had. Through the whole build Brian and I talked about the engine build, Mopars, my car, and gave me some good ideas on things I'm using on this car.

The last Picture from left to right Fred, Brian, and I.

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Thank you Kevin! Very nice words and I'm so glad your happy!!

Here's the dyno vid: [ame]https://youtu.be/5q4dCzMIgDU[/ame]
 
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