Left for Dead 68 Barracuda Buildup

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890-891on there now. Not sure of their application. Just using something I had
already to keep the project moving forward.
I really don't know how many lbs I have taken out of the car but it has always
been on my mind while choosing the parts to use. It will have fiberglass frt fenders and
a pin on fiberglass hood with some sort of vintage scoop from the era.
It seems to be a trade off in some areas. Weight vs strength. Cost is always a factor also.
The bell housing for example would be lighter if an aluminum one were used but I chose a hydo formed ansen scatter shield due to safety and the era correctness it adds to the build. It weighs about the same as a lakewood. Not lightweight at all.
I am using a sheifer aluminum pressure plate and flywheel. These save some lbs.
The transmission case is aluminum direct connection parts.
I do have the 1971 Mopar heads. They are aluminum and take the stamped
aluminum covers.
Other light parts are the race hemi water housing & moroso under drive pulleys.
Aluminum water pump is a modern offering from Mopar. The aluminum weiand tunnel ram and dominator carbs probably don't save much weight.
I will be weighing the car when done to see how close I get to A/MP specs.
 
pictures of some of the tight spots.
Steering shaft to valve cover
Back of passenger head to firewall & bell housing to tunnel.
 

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Header tubes to steering box
Master cylinder to valve cover
 

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Passenger valve cover to hammered inner fender
Not much room for a fan with under 3 1/4" space.
 

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MP Hemi... Taller, stronger and five more years of experance ... your Hemi is like a
big brother to my little Super Stock Hemi haha :) Impressive ssba...
 
Wait a minute, you're saying you found a field of cars in renssalear? The only thing I've found is an all you can eat KFC.

Killer looking motor I'm sure that will be a blast, you're not too far from me, I'm in La Crosse, have a perpetual 67 fastback build, the most mine will get is a 440, that beast is way outta my budget
 
The pasture where I found the car was about 20 mi. west of the all you can eat KFC
buffet. It was out in the sticks of rural Morocco. The 68 Hemi block I'm using
came from over your way out of the big town of San Pierre.
I knew about the block for years, then I get a call one day and he was ready to sell.
I know it seems like a lot of money and an expensive build but I have been collecting this
project one piece at a time for the past 15 years. So It has been spread out and didnt sting so much. When I got to the point where I was being held up because the missing parts I needed was very rare or expensive I sold a car to get them because I was close enough to seeing an end to all the parts searching.
I really didn't bother keeping track of what I have put into it. I really wasn't even sure it could be done at the onset.
Sticking to my plan of only using vintage parts required years to locate the old parts so I had plenty of time to clean up or polish the old stuff while waiting for the next find.
It was a pretty good day when I finally found and collected enough to actually start fitting it all together. I did enjoy the scavenger hunt but putting in bolts is defiantly more fun. This will have to due for me now till it can be fired up and driven.
 
Hey, it's crazy what you can find if you get lucky, the guy I got my 67 from had 3 barracudas a charger and a monaco, I tried to make a deal on the fiberglass body parts and one of the bigblocks he had, didn't work out; He's in Michigan City. Drives around a yellow formula S.

San Pierre is definately not too likely a candidate to find something like that, good job. My father in law told me once where there was a 69 firebird TA in the woods. And whenever I'm low on funds I sell a bike or two, those are my first love.
 
I have had some time to work on this project a bit so I will add a few pictures of
my progress.
The distributor required a spacer to keep the lower end of the horizontal
distributor head from hitting the block. I made this out of aluminum. By adding the
spacer I also needed a longer than stock distributor clamp. This I made out of steel.
I plan to chrome plate the clamp and a few other items under the hood when all is
sorted out.
 

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The water pump housing needed a 1/4" spacer to clear the geardrive.
I cut this out of aluminum. I used this spacer as an opportunity to hang a pair of
N.O.S. race coils. By leaving extra material on the driver side spacer and a homemade
bracket they are secured with simple hose clamps. I like how this came out as I can
keep the coil wires shorter than if they were mounted on the inner fender.
 

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I am still working on the alternator. I did get a old moroso under drive pully
pressed on and a original aluminum bracket from a 65 race Hemi.
I will have to make some spacers and the lower slide adjust to finish this.
Turns out I will also need to make a aluminum water pump pully to match the
belt groove of the moroso alt. & crank pully and to get a correct offset to run
a single belt.
 

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The passenger inner fender now holds a old cool can and a mechanical
rev limiter. This limiter is cable driven off the horizontal distributor and is adjustable
by twisting the cover. The distributor also will have a second cable for the tachometer.
For this I had to find the splitter gearbox. Tach cable will go in later.
 

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This is the gear box that allows two cables to be driven off one drive.
 

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Last picture for today. This is what I have going in next.
A old remote filter mount that gets plumbed to the Milodon pump cover and a couple direct connection gold ignition box's. I have yet to track down the correct ballast resistors for the
coils. They are 1/4 ohm. and part # P26444641.
I am also working on tracking down a fiberglass flex fan that is old enough to
be at home with the rest of the 70s parts.
 

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ssba said:
Last picture for today. This is what I have going in next.
A old remote filter mount that gets plumbed to the Milodon pump cover and a couple direct connection gold ignition box's. I have yet to track down the correct ballast resistors for the
coils. They are 1/4 ohm. and part # P26444641.
I am also working on tracking down a fiberglass flex fan that is old enough to
be at home with the rest of the 70s parts.
Click to expand...

I`d be real weery of an old fiberglass flex fan, ever seen one come apart while setting the timing ? :wack:
 
I haven't personally seen one come apart. I can see how the risk could be
greater being fiberglass and 40 years old.
If I do buy one I will certainly inspect it very close before deeming it useable.
I have looked at a few fans that I have around here and the best I got is a
7 blade aluminum made to work with a clutch. I am not sure I have the room for
a clutch or if I would want one on this engine.
An aftermarket fan I have is rated to 6500 rpm and has a small bend at the end
of one of the stainless blades. So I ruled it out.
The reason I have been looking for a fiberglass fan is mostly because many
engines like mine used them back then.
Seems logical that they quit making them for a reason. Safety issue or to lower the cost to manufacture?
I have seen a couple hoods where a blade had sliced thru the steel.
 

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Was anyone running the electric Moroso belt drives on the water pump back then? In the 80's I saw quite a few running the electric drive and a Scirrocco radiator.

I had a question about your spacer on the distributor. How do you make it so the distributor drive reaches the intermediate shaft?
 
The distributor shaft's length was designed to be used with the spacer.
I just didn't get one with it when I bought it used.
Same as the longer clamp. The parts are sometimes easier to make than
find.
I had thought about using the moroso kit on this water pump and leaving the
alternator off. I thought it was worth the extra work to run an alternator. I Dont know what the
alternator is rated at since I bought it at a swapmeet. So it will be try it and see how well it maintains the battery and at what voltage? I have a constant output regulator I am going to try.
It will take someone smarter than me to predict if I got this charging system right.
This build predates the use of electric fans so that wasn't considered.
 
ssba said:
I haven't personally seen one come apart. I can see how the risk could be
greater being fiberglass and 40 years old.
If I do buy one I will certainly inspect it very close before deeming it useable.
I have looked at a few fans that I have around here and the best I got is a
7 blade aluminum made to work with a clutch. I am not sure I have the room for
a clutch or if I would want one on this engine.
An aftermarket fan I have is rated to 6500 rpm and has a small bend at the end
of one of the stainless blades. So I ruled it out.
The reason I have been looking for a fiberglass fan is mostly because many
engines like mine used them back then.
Seems logical that they quit making them for a reason. Safety issue or to lower the cost to manufacture?
I have seen a couple hoods where a blade had sliced thru the steel.
Click to expand...

If you do find a fiberglass fan, we have an ultra-sonic water squinter at work.
I can have the NDI guys shoot it, they can can give you a print out of any unseen cracks.
We use this machine daily for composite aircraft parts.
 
Well that's a process I never heard of. Thanks for the offer, I will PM you if
I manage to turn up a decent looking fan. You wouldn't happen to know if the
resins deteriorate with age if kept out of the sun? I have seen fiberglass roof
panels that seemed to have exposed strands like the resin washed or evaporated
some. Could be the wind blast them? I have been looking for one that has all the fibers
still embedded.
 
ssba said:
Thanks, I have enjoyed the project. Wish I could work on it more often.
Click to expand...

we ran a fiberglass fan on our hemi for a few weeks, it wouldn`t help keep the engine cool enough, but, we did have a 318 rad. in it, that was a lot of our cooling problem.
 
The old radiator I have bolted in for the mockup is just from a 273.
An old Hemi racer that stops by told me Hemis are easy to cool and it
would be fine.
My thoughts are to get it recorded with a 4 row as I have my doubts or concerns with the high compression.
I figured the thicker core will be worth carrying the added radiator and water weight.
Those fiberglass fans are meant to flatten out with rpms. Intentionally making them ineffective at speed to free up HP.
You end up with just the air you can catch to do the cooling.
 
Small update today. I finally found a suitable N.O.S. fiberglass fan for the engine.
It was still in the package and in new condition so it should be as safe as can be expected
from such a debatable part. It is marked tested at 10,000 rpm. Of course this was 40 years
ago but I am willing to risk it will hold together. I polished up a factory fan spacer to
get it closer to the radiator. I still have some room for a thicker core when the radiator
gets rebuilt.
 

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