Hey everyone, I thought I would start a thread here to show the build up of my Valiant.
I bought it back in summer of 2007. After searching for a Plymouth of my own ( Back in the day my father had a 71 Barracuda, and his brother had a 69 Road Runner that they would both drag race ), I came across this Valiant sedan in Rhode Island, almost exactly like the 1974 Dart my grandfather used to own. After seeing how unaffordable for a college student anything sporty like my father or uncle owned has become nowadays I decided I would go for it and purchase the Valiant. Here are some pics after I got it back home to NY.
It was originally a 318 car, 8 1/4 rear end, with about 74k on it. The seller was the 2nd owner and had given me all documentation on the car dating back to the original sales reciept.
That summer I also took it out to Mopar day at the local drag strip.
Summer 2008, the car was mainly used as a toy on nice days and saw some car shows. Here is a pic of a local show in which it won a trophy at. The car gets a lot of attention at shows and even on the road as it seems everyone knows someone who used to have a similar car.
Towards the end of the summer I had saved up enough that I made the decision to put something with a little more power under the hood. I purchased a 408 Magnum stroker and at a friends house began what became a long process of putting the motor in.
Here are a few pics of the motor the day we picked it up. And a couple of early pictures of the install beginning.
The install process took a while longer than expected, as me and the friend who put it in work completely opposite schedules, and with the days getting shorter and colder time was becoming less available to work on the car. After getting the motor in, we realized the headers I had would not be able to work with my Valiant, so it had to sit and wait longer until I could order a set of stepped headers from TTI.
By the time the headers had arrived, snow was about to make its way in for the winter, so the car had to go into storage until spring.
The headers were installed, a local exhaust shop made me custom 2.5" dual exhausts with an x pipe, and the car was started for the first time. Here is a vid of it firing up, still needed to be timed and tuned up at this point.
After the car was started and tuned, it turned out there was an oil leak coming from the oil pan. The car is currently at a shop getting this repaired under the engine manufacturer's warranty as the motor had an oil pan with a defect in it that was causing the gasket to not sit flush.
So that is where my Valiant is up to this point, hopefully sometime early next week I will be getting it back. I'd like to hear the comments you guys have for me about the car. I will update the thread as soon as I get it back and clean it up for some pictures and maybe a few short videos.
Next up is going to be some wider wheels/tires in the rear. I am thinking 235/60/15 Mickey Thompson Street ET Drag Radials so be on the lookout for some pics with those.
The car will mostly just be a cruiser for nice days, go to car shows and see some occasional track time. Thanks for taking the time to check out my Valiant.
I bought it back in summer of 2007. After searching for a Plymouth of my own ( Back in the day my father had a 71 Barracuda, and his brother had a 69 Road Runner that they would both drag race ), I came across this Valiant sedan in Rhode Island, almost exactly like the 1974 Dart my grandfather used to own. After seeing how unaffordable for a college student anything sporty like my father or uncle owned has become nowadays I decided I would go for it and purchase the Valiant. Here are some pics after I got it back home to NY.
It was originally a 318 car, 8 1/4 rear end, with about 74k on it. The seller was the 2nd owner and had given me all documentation on the car dating back to the original sales reciept.
That summer I also took it out to Mopar day at the local drag strip.
Summer 2008, the car was mainly used as a toy on nice days and saw some car shows. Here is a pic of a local show in which it won a trophy at. The car gets a lot of attention at shows and even on the road as it seems everyone knows someone who used to have a similar car.
Towards the end of the summer I had saved up enough that I made the decision to put something with a little more power under the hood. I purchased a 408 Magnum stroker and at a friends house began what became a long process of putting the motor in.
Here are a few pics of the motor the day we picked it up. And a couple of early pictures of the install beginning.
The install process took a while longer than expected, as me and the friend who put it in work completely opposite schedules, and with the days getting shorter and colder time was becoming less available to work on the car. After getting the motor in, we realized the headers I had would not be able to work with my Valiant, so it had to sit and wait longer until I could order a set of stepped headers from TTI.
By the time the headers had arrived, snow was about to make its way in for the winter, so the car had to go into storage until spring.
The headers were installed, a local exhaust shop made me custom 2.5" dual exhausts with an x pipe, and the car was started for the first time. Here is a vid of it firing up, still needed to be timed and tuned up at this point.
After the car was started and tuned, it turned out there was an oil leak coming from the oil pan. The car is currently at a shop getting this repaired under the engine manufacturer's warranty as the motor had an oil pan with a defect in it that was causing the gasket to not sit flush.
So that is where my Valiant is up to this point, hopefully sometime early next week I will be getting it back. I'd like to hear the comments you guys have for me about the car. I will update the thread as soon as I get it back and clean it up for some pictures and maybe a few short videos.
Next up is going to be some wider wheels/tires in the rear. I am thinking 235/60/15 Mickey Thompson Street ET Drag Radials so be on the lookout for some pics with those.
The car will mostly just be a cruiser for nice days, go to car shows and see some occasional track time. Thanks for taking the time to check out my Valiant.
