225 Slant 6 Plymouth Valiant - 1970

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Pompis

Pompis

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Bought the Valiant real cheap to have it as a daily driver and planned to put the Valiant front on my 73 Dart Swinger and put the Dart front on the Valiant. But I have fell in LOVE in my Valiant and especially because it has a 225 Slant 6 (Still in love in my Dart and the V8 too). Don't think I'm going to change fronts between them since I like the look to much on the Valiant that I don't want to destroy it with the Dart 73 beak front. The plan is to fix small things on the Valiant bit by bit so I have something to drive under my Dart restoration. My goal for now is to get decent fuel mileage from the Slant. And I think is going in the right direction since my mpg is between 19 - 26 now. That was achieved by change from the Holley 1920 1bbl to a 318 Carter BBD 2bbl. Found the intake manifold for sale at a site and the carburetor and air cleaner was from my Dart. Made a new linkage to the 1bbl kickdown linkage to work with the Carter BBD. The shift points is exactly like it was with the 1bbl Holley and sometimes the third gear can feel like second gear when accelerating. It has much more power now! Going to restore this Valiant with as little money as possible since I need the money to my Dart for now. But if I know me right I'm going to spend money for a better life for my 225 Slant and the Valiant. Really like the Slant with its combination of power and MPG and the sound it now makes with my new exhaust is real good. People always first think it's a V8 when my Slant idles. Most people would probably think the cabin sound is to loud but I love it since I think old car should not be all about comfort and I thrives in that sound it makes ( Been driving it for 2000 miles like this). It feels real and definitely not like the newer boring cars. I took my Valiant to a car show and it was a 4 hour drive and it was loud in the end but I still had fun and took the 4 hour drive back home the day after with a smile on the lips. It was a ringing sound in my ear awhile after. But I still don't want to tone down the exhaust sounds. The clearcoat is peeling of and it have some dents and rust on the body panels but the subframe is in real good condition and have no serious rust. Which got me by surprise since my Dart and my friends 2 Valiant's was rotten in the same places and my Valiant has no serious rust anywhere on the subframes, floor and trunk.

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Made a new exhaust system.
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Much better than the old side pipe that was there before.
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Got a good deal on the intake.
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The arrangement for good MPG and power. The Carter BBD is rebuilt and I rebushed the throttle shaft but I failed with the alignment and I needed to grind the bushing to make it fit. Now is the throttle shaft looser than before so I'm waiting for a better used throttle shaft base plate to arrive with the mail.
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Made a manual choke.
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Soldered together a more modern voltage regulator to the instrument cluster.
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Installed a Ignitor with matching coil. Also change rotor cap and spark plug wires that have resistance and are suppressed. New NGK ZFR5N spark plug was installed with a .044" gap and the ring washer removed.
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Going to install a EZ-wiring kit harness in the future. Since I don't like the wire routing with bad wires that are spliced here and there.
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You need to turn the center exhaust pipe around. The hump goes over the axle just before the muffler, not at the front...

Nice car...
 
Looks like a cool valiant. love the 4 door. Exhaust system is obviously correct since the next picture shows it on the car. It's got two exit pipes in the back.
 
Thanks for the comments. The exhaust system is made by exhaust tubes that I picked up for free in a dumpster from a exhaust system factory. That's why it's made that way since I only had some tubes in right size:)

Serj like your Dart especially since it have a Slant:) Have read in some threads you have wrote in and you have been a inspiration for my Super Six conversation.

Have been doing a distributor recurve testing with bigslant6fan's spring kit. Welded the governor and filed the notches to 0.380" (It was a R11.5 governor). Began with the blue and green spring as they seemed to be like a good curve from a thread I read. Adjusted the initial timing to 15 degrees plus the governor 0.380 = 17 crank degrees wich is 32 degrees total. My vacuum pod is a 7.5X =15 crank degrees which would be to little advance for good fuel mileage 32+15=47 total + 7.5X vacuum can. But luckily I found a vacuum pod stamped 12=24 crank degrees in my friend's garage, which will be 32+24=56 total + 12 vacuum. So I set the initial timing to 14 instead, 14+17+24=55 which would bring me into the 55 degrees total + vacuum advance and should be good for mpg. 52-55 degrees total + vacuum advance should bring good mpg.

Tested with the blue and green spring. No ping thru the power register but it feels real sluggish on the bottom compared to before the spring change. So I changed to 2 blue springs instead. No ping thru the register and it feels quicker when you drive it at 30mph and floor it. But it feels like the power register is in the wrong range for my driving style. So I'm not happy enough and going to test with a yellow and blue spring next. Want it to be more punshy in the begining since my speed is always between 30 - 50mph.

Changed to yellow and blue spring and I felt no big difference from the blue and blue spring set up. So I ended up with checking the initial timing, I have marked the balancer with 10 degrees apart up to 50 degrees. Then I realised that I had took my 10 degree marking for being 5 degrees apart, so when I thought my timing was 15 degrees it was in fact 30 degrees instead. I felt pretty stupid for doing that. So that was the culprit for my lack of performance and mpg. I cant grasp that I ran 30 initial timing 17 mechanical and 24 vacuum advance without any noticeable pinging and had power on the highway. My mpg from work and home have dropped from 22 to 17 so I guess with my new initial timing with true 14 degrees the mpg would be back up to 22 again I hope. Now it feels much quicker again with correct amount of initial timing.

The advance curves for different springs included in bigslant6fan's kit
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Here are the different springs from his kit, one blue and green spring are missing because they are mounted in the distributor.
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Before and after I welded the slot on the governor.
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It feels bad to know that the blue/green and blue/blue spring test are incorrect due to the wrong initial timing. But it feels good now with the yellow and blue spring. Going to run them since I want the mechanical advance from 900 rpm to 1500 rpm since that are in rpm range I want that extra punch. On the highway I never drive faster than 50 mph which is 2000 rpm on my rpm gauge, so the mechanical advance range suits me well for now i think.
 
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