To daily drive, or not....

It’s been a while since I daily drive my ‘79 Magnum. It was my only car for a long time.
(The wife got the modern car for several reasons, more reliable with peace and quite from her, gas mileage, running the kids around when they were young, etc… )

I’ll say what I did t do to it, hot rod it for 12 seconds and better! The stock engine was replaced twice. I wasn’t so found of the ODA 400 since ‘78 was built in the horrible years of no power. The 5.9 that replaced it was a 80-K mill. I kept it simple. Bolt on parts. No cam. I just put on a RPM with a 600 carb, chrome box ignition, headers with a 2-1/2 exhaust. It’s making 300 hp.

I left the transmission stock, the rear end has 3.55’s. The OE 3.21’s in the 9-1/4 let loose, so the slight increase in ratio was not a big deal. Just a few more rpm’s at Hwy cruise.

There is the biggest issue right there to consider when the car is an every day driver. Your cruise rpm’s. Hwy. gears may not be the greatest around town but if you hit the Hwy @ anytime your never thinking about driving it slow in the right lane. Honestly, even a set of 2.76 cog’s is a smart idea. IMO, no higher than 3.23’s.

I was going to do a cam in the 5.9. It’ll be small, really a baby cam, like maybe two steps higher? It’s two fold. Keeping the stock converter limits the cam duration to under [email protected] & even more so when you have Hwy gears. If you have 2.76 gears, perhaps a limit of [email protected] or less is better. You’ll still get good mileage and it’ll drive around town great.

Then what A body Joe wrote.
(I’m glad the forum puts up that “view posts made” before I reply and re type what he said.)
But that’s dead on. Oh hell yea. On my Magnum, I opted for 245/60/15 on all 4 corners. Re did all the bushings. Added new leafs in the back, better than stock shocks on all four corners as well. How far you take it is your call. I suggest sway bars if your not equipped.

PST is a sight supporter. I have used there stuff before with really nice results. I highly suggest paying attention to the suspension with PST. They also have break upgrades. I did t need it for the Magnum since it has the big discs stock and the 9-1/4 I swapped from a Cordoba has 11 inch drums. Yea, that’s upgradable, but it works fine for me now.