68 Valiant Build.

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ValiantBBC

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May 17, 2020
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Location
Cle Elum, WA 98922
My nephew Jack knowing my history sent me a link on the 68 Valiant with the Hellcat engine swap. Totally awesome car!! Loved reading the article. So I decided to become a member of the A Body's Only and tell my own story. This is a rather interesting take on a A Body Valiant build that some of the members might enjoy while some will question my sanity to do what I did. After all the ups and downs of my history with this car it ended up being a very cool, quite fast at that time for a daily driver and definitely a sleeper back in 1977 when I finished it. With today's technology I know there are lots of really cool cars out there right now that are already built or in the process of being built, but in 1977 the easiest and the most affordable way to build a fast car was to put a big engine in a smaller car. That's how my 68 Valiant evolved but that's not how it started.
In 1975 I bought my 68 2 door Valiant for $1000. It had a 340 (bad rod bearing that knocked like crazy but it ran), 4 speed and 8 3/4" rear end. My intent was to turn it into a Pro Bracket drag car with a highly modified 340/4 speed and race it at Mission Raceways in Mission BC Canada. I immediately started stripping the car down in a small garage I was renting (at the time I lived in an apartment) and sold off some of the parts that I was not going to use. At the same time I was also buying plenty of speed parts for the motor/transmission/rear end etc.
Sorry for the quality of most of these pictures, I didn't have a decent camera back 44 years ago.
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Here it is after removing quite a bit of the sheet metal and cutting out the inner rear wheel tubs.

Fortunately for me I worked as a shop foreman at a custom fabrication business which allowed me unlimited access to work on my Valiant after working hours. So after stripping the car down I towed it to the shop and would work on it in the evenings and weekends.

The first things I did was fab the inner wheel tubs and install flush with the outside of the stock unibody frame rails, then a 4 point roll bar, and frame connectors. After that I had the the whole undercarriage sandblasted
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Because I knew the car was going to be a 4 speed stick car and not an automatic I got a Dana 60 out of a wreaked Ford 3/4 ton pickup truck. My previous car was a 66 Barracuda with a hopped up 340/4 speed/narrowed 8 3/4" with 4:88 gears that I raced for a year. While racing I broke the 4:88's (replaced with 4:56's)and on a different date broke one of the axles. So I knew I wanted a rear that would stand the abuse of the violent launches and the Dana 60 was just the ticket.
I then moved the leaf springs on center with the frame rails, designed and fab'd a floating suspension and an adjustable 4 link for traction. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of this suspension but here is one I have that is very similar. This is of a 67 Valiant that I helped my brother build a couple of years after mine. The only difference is that his has a ladder bar system. If you look closely you can see the slot in the bracket bolted to the bottom of the leaf spring. With this system the leaf springs only function is supporting the weight of the car. There is no forward pressure on the leaf spring. The ladder bars or in the case of my car the 4 link take all the forward inertia. I also narrowed the housing, bought a posi unit, 4:56 gears and racing axles.

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So it was while I was doing the rear end work on the car at the shop I worked at that things went for a big DUMP!! The garage that I was renting was burglarized one night and everything I had for the car that was stored there was gone. Full motor (disassembled), transmissions, clutch assemblies, scattershield, shifter, guages and on and on. They even took all my tools. I didn't have any kind of insurance on my stuff so it was a total loss. I was devastated!! Buying all of the parts that were stolen would cost me money I couldn't afford to spend again. Looking back on it I know I should have spent the extra money to get the insurance but I never thought it would happen to me. Lessons learned!!

Now this is where some and maybe most will question my choices moving forward. Keep in mind that I love the A Body Mopars especially the Valiant and in order to move forward with my objective of racing in the Pro Bracket category I had to regroup and develop a different plan. So stored in my apartment closet completely disassembled was a L72 427 cu in 425 HP big block chevy that I had bought off a friend of mine 2 years earlier. He had been building for years a 56 Chev Bel Aire 2 dr. In it was this brand new crate motor that had never been started c/w hooker headers and a scattershield. The car still needed a ton of work and money put into it to finish and he had completly lost interest and wanted to sell it. I bought the car, sold off everything else but the motor which in the end cost me only $300. Best buy I ever made!! It was complete from carburetor to the oil pan. Here is a picture of it.

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So I decided I was going to go ahead with the sure to be criticized idea of swapping in the big block chev into the Valiant. Once I started the install I discovered there was one main problem that required some thought. The oil pump which was at the rear of the motor interfered with the steering linkage. They both basically occupied the same space. One of them had to be moved!

So I decided to install rack a pinion steering system. After some research I ended up with one out of a wreaked Triumph TR 7 sports car. Because the A body's have a removable K frame this made adapting the rack assembly so much easier. I built a fixture on a thick steel table that I could bolt the K frame to while I installed the rack. I also used the 2 universal joints from the TR 7 steering column and adapted them to the Valiant column. Again I don't have any pictures of this from my car but here is a picture of my brothers car which we used the same system. The only thing visible is the U joints in the steering column. This new steering system not only saved weight, allowed easy removal of the oil pan but the best thing was it worked amazing well.
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As you can see in the next picture I ended up making solid motor mounts. In the front there was 2 pieces of 1/4" 6061 T6 alum, 1/8" stainless steel 1 piece between the motor and the turbo 400 automatic transmission and a solid one as well at the rear of the transmission. My car in this picture still had the original steering and had not yet been changed.
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There obviously were not any after market headers available for this swap so I bought some 2" dia. tube turns and made my own headers. After months of work the car was ready to go for paint.
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The car was painted a pearl white with a tinge of blue to go with the blue undercarriage.
Back from paint.
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When I first started driving the car the engine would overheat if the car wasn't always moving. I was still using the stock radiator that came with the car. This was solved by making an alum fan shroud out of 1/16" alum.

Next up. Drag Racing!
 
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