72 Dart 440 4-speed build
The car is a 1972 Dart Swinger that was originally a 318/auto car. I bought the car when I was 16 (2002), where I pulled it out of a horse field where they had been filling the trunk with hay for the horses. I painted the the car Dodge Ram Atlantic Blue for my high school senior project. The original powertrain was quickly taken out for a 360/727 and a Ford 8" swap. It was a decent combo but the machine shop miscalculated the compression ratio and the motor ended up only having about 8.5 compression. The lack luster performance led me down the turbo path. I built a turbo system around a 6.0L powerstroke turbo I scored off craigslist. The first version had restrictive home build log style manifolds. After running into tuning issues on the chassis dyno I modified a set of ebay ram 1500 ss headers. The motor ended up making 450hp and 550lbs to the rear wheels on 6lbs of boost. It was a blast to drive but was constantly plagued with issues. I could never seem to keep a head gasket in it. Eventually I got fed up with the set up and sold the motor and trans out of the car. Just prior to selling the motor I swapped in a shortened 8.8 rear end. 8.8 swap Right around then I got married and soon started having kids. That was about 10 years ago and the car has pretty much sat ever since. Fast forward to now and I am determined to get the dart back on the road and keep it there.
From day one of owning the car, I have always wanted to convert it to a manual transmission. Then came the snowball effect. 'well if I convert it to a 4-speed now but then later on decide to do a big block swap, I'll have to re-buy a bunch of the 4-speed parts. Only logical thing to do now is put a big block in it too!'
The motor is a rebuilt low miles '78 motor home 440 with new bearings and rings but still using the stock 7.5 to 1 cast pistons. I chose this motor for the low entry cost. I figure it's a good way to get the big block swap done on a budget and then later on build something a little more stout. I tryed to put nice parts that I could reuse around the motor. The motor has stock 452 heads with upgraded comp springs to handle the mopar 284/484 cam. On top is a 750 cfm holley sitting on an edlebrock RPM air gap intake. It's using schumacher headers and engine mounts.
I ran into an issue when reassembling the engine. The block had core shift in it. It was bad enough that the cam would not fit in the block. My machinist (different shop from the 360 builder) was able to hand file, shape, scrape the cam bearings enough to get the proper clearances around the cam. It's not the ideal situation but I decided to learn towards the 'dont get it right, just get it running' side this time. So partly for that reason and also because the car isn't ready for the motor yet I built a test stand to start the motor on and break in the cam. Here are some pictures of the car over the years and the progress now.
The car is a 1972 Dart Swinger that was originally a 318/auto car. I bought the car when I was 16 (2002), where I pulled it out of a horse field where they had been filling the trunk with hay for the horses. I painted the the car Dodge Ram Atlantic Blue for my high school senior project. The original powertrain was quickly taken out for a 360/727 and a Ford 8" swap. It was a decent combo but the machine shop miscalculated the compression ratio and the motor ended up only having about 8.5 compression. The lack luster performance led me down the turbo path. I built a turbo system around a 6.0L powerstroke turbo I scored off craigslist. The first version had restrictive home build log style manifolds. After running into tuning issues on the chassis dyno I modified a set of ebay ram 1500 ss headers. The motor ended up making 450hp and 550lbs to the rear wheels on 6lbs of boost. It was a blast to drive but was constantly plagued with issues. I could never seem to keep a head gasket in it. Eventually I got fed up with the set up and sold the motor and trans out of the car. Just prior to selling the motor I swapped in a shortened 8.8 rear end. 8.8 swap Right around then I got married and soon started having kids. That was about 10 years ago and the car has pretty much sat ever since. Fast forward to now and I am determined to get the dart back on the road and keep it there.
From day one of owning the car, I have always wanted to convert it to a manual transmission. Then came the snowball effect. 'well if I convert it to a 4-speed now but then later on decide to do a big block swap, I'll have to re-buy a bunch of the 4-speed parts. Only logical thing to do now is put a big block in it too!'
The motor is a rebuilt low miles '78 motor home 440 with new bearings and rings but still using the stock 7.5 to 1 cast pistons. I chose this motor for the low entry cost. I figure it's a good way to get the big block swap done on a budget and then later on build something a little more stout. I tryed to put nice parts that I could reuse around the motor. The motor has stock 452 heads with upgraded comp springs to handle the mopar 284/484 cam. On top is a 750 cfm holley sitting on an edlebrock RPM air gap intake. It's using schumacher headers and engine mounts.
I ran into an issue when reassembling the engine. The block had core shift in it. It was bad enough that the cam would not fit in the block. My machinist (different shop from the 360 builder) was able to hand file, shape, scrape the cam bearings enough to get the proper clearances around the cam. It's not the ideal situation but I decided to learn towards the 'dont get it right, just get it running' side this time. So partly for that reason and also because the car isn't ready for the motor yet I built a test stand to start the motor on and break in the cam. Here are some pictures of the car over the years and the progress now.
