Stroker's 68 Barracuda

Thanks. I dont think Im going this degree of wacko on the Cuda.

That CAD model of the Coyote was from either GrabCAD or STL finder and it's pretty accurate to the measurement I took from the back of the engine I had. I dont know if they have a Gen 3 Hemi, but Im sure theres got to be one out there.

If you wanted to, I could take a look at your file. I've seen some of the flat plate spindles in action andbthey are pretty solid.

I've only used Fusion360 to loft the plates, but played with actually displaying them all at once. Pretty cool.

Here is the current idea:





The upright is planned to be (4) 1/4" 4130 plates with (2) 1/4" 4130 gussets. The other plates are mild steel as they are more just spacers. The LBJ bolts are hidden under the last plate.





The idea is that I don't have access to milling equipment, but I can layout some plates and weld them into something that works. The better plan would be to mill the main structure out of a 1" thick plate and then weld the UBJ mount to it, but I don't see a way to get it done. The other thing about this is, the face of the rotor to the back of the mounting ears is fixed so I had to get the spacing right. And using several odd thicknesses nailed it for me.

The only other thing to do after mocking it up is to build an ABS sensor mount into it. I'm probably jumping the gun in printing the plates at this stage, but oh well.

This is based around a 2015 Mustang rear hub. I started with 2015 Challenger front hubs but the I don't trust the bolt pattern and decided it wasn't worth ignoring.

The other thing to note is that this narrows the front track about an inch. Works fine if I run a smaller offset like +24mm instead of the +35mm wheels I bought already. This certainly isn't anything for the average guy to be interested in, and honestly is way overkill for me. All I really needed was an ABS tone ring and there are easier ways to do that than this. Guess we will see what the final bill is after I get a quote on the plates.

That's a great idea on stacking the plates and welding them into one unit.

Ever think if adding a few extra offset/varying holes in each plate to add a few rosette welds in between each piece to give it a little more grab?

I like the lower ball joint bolt pockets. Eliminates a wrench, that's cool.

stroker416 said:

That's a great idea on stacking the plates and welding them into one unit.

Click to expand...

Thanks! I think I will do some work this evening to see what the weight might be. I expect it will be heavy, but if it is twice the weight of the original spindle, might not be the greatest idea.

stroker416 said:

Ever think if adding a few extra offset/varying holes in each plate to add a few rosette welds in between each piece to give it a little more grab?

Click to expand...

I did, the holes just below the UBJ mount are there just for that. But I didn’t think about ones around the hub itself. That’s a great idea.

stroker416 said:

I like the lower ball joint bolt pockets. Eliminates a wrench, that's cool.

Click to expand...

That was kind of out of necessity. The hub covers the bolts and the bolts are too close to the hole to leave wrench clearance. And even worse, the hub has to be bolted to the spindle before the LBJ can be bolted on.

DionR said:

Thanks! I think I will do some work this evening to see what the weight might be. I expect it will be heavy, but if it is twice the weight of the original spindle, might not be the greatest idea.



I did, the holes just below the UBJ mount are there just for that. But I didn’t think about ones around the hub itself. That’s a great idea.



That was kind of out of necessity. The hub covers the bolts and the bolts are too close to the hole to leave wrench clearance. And even worse, the hub has to be bolted to the spindle before the LBJ can be bolted on.

Click to expand...

If you add material type to your compenents in Fusion 360 it will give you weight, density, etc. You can even run some kinematics on it to see what kind of load it will sustain.

stroker416 said:

If you add material type to your compenents in Fusion 360 it will give you weight, density, etc. You can even run some kinematics on it to see what kind of load it will sustain.

Click to expand...

I wondered about that after I posted it. Looks like the current setup is about 11.2#. Not sure how that compares to a stock spindle, but I have read that an F-body spindle is 3# lighter than an A-Body one. But no actual weights to compare.

The real apples to apples would be spindle and hub weights.

I will have to look around and see if I can figure out how to check the strength. What I should do is send it off to a design firm and have it analyzed. But that’s for the bucks up guys.

I have that extension in Fusion that can similate loads on the material. If you want to sent it to me I can give it a run this weekend.

stroker416 said:

I have that extension in Fusion that can similate loads on the material. If you want to sent it to me I can give it a run this weekend.

Click to expand...

That would be great!

I'm going to try and knock it down in weight a bit first though. Looks like an A-Body spindle is about 8.2# and an F-Body spindle is 3# lighter so sure enough I have over doubled the weight. At the same time, the Challenger spindle I had to take measurements off had to have been 25-30# and I found threads where the Camaro spindle was discussed at it was at least that heavy. So while mine would be heavier than stock, it's not anywhere close to some of the late model stuff.

I will send you a PM.

Couple of cheap shots of the dash insert that I'll be putting the 3D printed guage cluster into. Needless to say I forgot a few things.





Notice on the left near the curve in the dash pad, forgot to arc that.

And how about those switch holes. Way too low.

Anyway reworked it in CAD and the new piece will be here Friday. Tried to upload some more pics of the filler piece for the mini tub, but the site didnt think they were images. Next time on those.

Had to add the arcs and move the switch holdes for the headlights, wipers, and fogs up 2" on the heads and 1.5" on the wiper and fog switch. Mocked it in card board and it workes out pretty good.

Going to be 3d printing all the mounting brackets and the side piece between the cluster and the blove box.





That's the concept I'm shooting for. May black out the top half arpund the heater controls and across the top kind of like the OE cluster would be. Not sure yet.

That's it for now.

Today was short bloxlck assembly day for the 225. I wasn't planning on having to rebuild this engine. You know the story. "It's been rebuilt, it's ready to drop in." Far from it.

Well the car wasn't even ready to have the engine dropped it. It was originally a 318 car. But, that's non-mopar people for you.

So I sourced a Slant 6 K-Member because I wanted to go cheap on the initial run in of the car. I've got a 340 that needs to be sleeved that will eventually go in it, but I've got a 225 and a 225 904.

Anyway. Short block assembly was this morning. I'm not much of a camera man so I'll give you what I've got.















It's a Hughes Whiplash cam, .010" and .010" on the crank and .030" over on the pistons.
Partswise the cam is as fancy as it gets, and every mut and bolt except the mains and rods are ARP. Wanted to keep this budget, so most of the parts are right off rock auto.

I am degreeing the cam in with a timing set from Hemi Performance. Like I said, not a good camera man, I have no pics in this post of the piston/rod assembly installed or the timingnset on.

On to the next, I whipped upba little heater plate in CAD today to attach to the underside of the Super 6 intake to keepbthe carb warm because I'm running a header.



It'll be piped into the heater circuit using -8 AN plumbing. Still working it all out, currently hust have the working sketch in Fusion right now. It's on the plate getting 3D printed for mock up and final form will be aluminum.

Also have one tub about 88% done.

Making progress. Nice!

This is the "water block" as I'm calling it for the 225. First time using SendCutSend's anodize feature. I'm happy with the result.

Since I'm running a header, and there's a good possibility I'll be driving in temps below 50° F sometimes, I heard that I might freeze up the carb if I don't get some heat under it where the factory manifold bolted. Not sure how I feel about it wither way, but it gave me a chance to make something.

This is the part from the CAD drawing on my previous post. It'll seal to the bottom of the Super 6 manifold with either silicone, a gasket of my making, or the factory steel gasket. Haven't decided yet. Haven't checked the flatness of my manifold, or of this part.



The theory is that it'll circulate coolant in the heater loop to keep that Carter BBD nice and warm on this cold days. Three mounting holes are 5/16" - 18 and those bigguns are 3/4"-16 for -8ORB fittings.

Still have to make a plate for the nose of the manifold where all that other fancy stuff used to happed. It'll probably be blue too, and made out of aluminum.



Put together an 8 3/4 rear for a friend of mine with a General Lee clone. I'll post some pics of that next weekend when I install it. For some reason his VIN is for an actual 69 Charger RT, but someone put an open, 2.76 gear, 8 1/4 in it. And I'm dying to pull some numbers off the block because for a 440 it feels a little underpowered.

Anyway....



Here's that shot I talked about of degreeing the cam. The installed centerline is 104 and point to point ended up being dead on using the .050" method for the opening and closing events. Glad I didn't have to pull that crabk sprocket off...again.

The server didn't like my cylinder head pics, so I'll move on from those and jist post installed pics after the new dowel pins arrive.





Mocked up the passenger mini-tub in chassis to shift everything around until I was happy. On this side it looked like the previous attempter used a shark jaw to cut out the inner wheelhouse. Just like on the driver side they also cut out that nice flange from the inner house, so I hade to fixed the rear inner metal and then make a flange to weld to it. Right here the flange is on clecoed in. I decided in this side to just rock that shitty floor piece over the frame rail. It's really not that bad.





Probably not going to dress any of these welds. Feels like leaving them in the raw on this side kinda goes with the rattness of the rest of the car. Should have this welded in, in a day
or so.

Next up I'm tackling the hack job on the package tray and side wings of it and the rear seat brace. For some reason someone cut those out too.

Decided not to go to the garage today. Stayed home and worked on my own car.

Didnt get as much done as I wanted this weekend. The mini-tub is done, minus being sealed and coated.

Also started on fixing a rotted area in the sail panel area. Luckily I didnt have to get into the pocket for the headliner bow. The piece I laser cut just needed a little massaging to fit right. Going to make the outside bottom of that area this week.

Also, picked up a pair of 26 x R15 Mickey Thompsons from my friends uncle for a good deal, so i mounted them up on a pair of Torque Thrust II wheels.

Not sure how I feel about the skinny tire look up front. I'll see once I get the engine in and ride height is set.