sefus
Well-Known Member
Pic from June, 2000.
This car has been in ten different iterations, five of those while I owned it and at least 4 of those, while it was in the middle of the build.
I grew up in this car in a manner of speaking. My best friends mom owned it, then sold it to him to drive for high school. As teenagers, we raised all kinds of hell in his car. My buddy eventually found a 71 to play with and sold this old 330,000 mile burnt up Swinger to his Dad. I in turn bought it from him and drove it a bit until parking it in a shop I was renting, saying to myself, I’ll go get a junkyard 360, drop it in and finally have the fast cool old muscle car I never had. Even though these cars were daily drivers, life was all about drag racing at the time and I wanted to finally be the fast kid on the block.
While hanging out in the circles of proper young, beer guzzling, women chasing drag racer guys I stumbled on too good of deal after too good of deal. A shortened 8 ¾, 4.10 geared, forged axles, mini spooled rear end that I just couldnt pass up. Well that “good deal” led to having to cut half the car apart to fit it in, deleting the rear seat (which was fine by me at the time - weight savings and all that), ditch the fuel tank because it came from a fuel cell car, and generally starting the transformation into a pro street styled build instead of a simple engine swap.
I got the 360 from the junkyard and from the same guy the rear end came from, he gave me another good deal on ported aluminum heads and a built 727 tranny. The engine got built and balanced, the decent 904 I had already built tranny got replaced and sold, and the race car build really went to another level. Bigger fuel lines were fabbed and ran and the sub frame was connected.
Fast forward a bunch of years and the project somehow still sat unfinished. I got tired of spending time and money on it and it never really getting anywhere. I also started paying attention to the pro-touring style of actually drivable cars and realized that it appealed to me a lot more than a teenagers pseudo drag car anymore. I didnt want to drive it as it was looks wise and wanted a better interior too, the addition of a family made that a little more attractive.
A while later a small resurgence of interest came on and the smaller, cost appropriate fuel cell got ripped out and sold before it ever had a drip of gas in it. The hard, plastic lightweight bucket seats got unbolted before my *** every sat in one for a drive. I sold the cage before it ever got welded in.
About that time a good buddy and car guy came home after living on the other side of the country for a while and kicked my butt back into gear. He’s the one that did all the body and paint and will probably be the one to finally make it run and drive.
I never wanted a show car, heck, you can't even be in most shows with a car from 1973. All I wanted was a cool, respectable muscle car and I think I’m nearing that point. There are a few things about the car that are still a little too pro street for my taste: the manual valve body in the tranny, the low gears and mini spool, etc... but my best bud who owned the car before me told me not long ago to keep it a little racer-esque, that way my boy can grow up racing cars with dad, something he did, but I never had the chance to do. It helps that I do have my grandpa’s old 68 mustang sitting, ready for a rebuild to be the easier driver so I don’t have to have the dart be a one-car-fits-all approach.
Continued next post...
This car has been in ten different iterations, five of those while I owned it and at least 4 of those, while it was in the middle of the build.
I grew up in this car in a manner of speaking. My best friends mom owned it, then sold it to him to drive for high school. As teenagers, we raised all kinds of hell in his car. My buddy eventually found a 71 to play with and sold this old 330,000 mile burnt up Swinger to his Dad. I in turn bought it from him and drove it a bit until parking it in a shop I was renting, saying to myself, I’ll go get a junkyard 360, drop it in and finally have the fast cool old muscle car I never had. Even though these cars were daily drivers, life was all about drag racing at the time and I wanted to finally be the fast kid on the block.
While hanging out in the circles of proper young, beer guzzling, women chasing drag racer guys I stumbled on too good of deal after too good of deal. A shortened 8 ¾, 4.10 geared, forged axles, mini spooled rear end that I just couldnt pass up. Well that “good deal” led to having to cut half the car apart to fit it in, deleting the rear seat (which was fine by me at the time - weight savings and all that), ditch the fuel tank because it came from a fuel cell car, and generally starting the transformation into a pro street styled build instead of a simple engine swap.
I got the 360 from the junkyard and from the same guy the rear end came from, he gave me another good deal on ported aluminum heads and a built 727 tranny. The engine got built and balanced, the decent 904 I had already built tranny got replaced and sold, and the race car build really went to another level. Bigger fuel lines were fabbed and ran and the sub frame was connected.
Fast forward a bunch of years and the project somehow still sat unfinished. I got tired of spending time and money on it and it never really getting anywhere. I also started paying attention to the pro-touring style of actually drivable cars and realized that it appealed to me a lot more than a teenagers pseudo drag car anymore. I didnt want to drive it as it was looks wise and wanted a better interior too, the addition of a family made that a little more attractive.
A while later a small resurgence of interest came on and the smaller, cost appropriate fuel cell got ripped out and sold before it ever had a drip of gas in it. The hard, plastic lightweight bucket seats got unbolted before my *** every sat in one for a drive. I sold the cage before it ever got welded in.
About that time a good buddy and car guy came home after living on the other side of the country for a while and kicked my butt back into gear. He’s the one that did all the body and paint and will probably be the one to finally make it run and drive.
I never wanted a show car, heck, you can't even be in most shows with a car from 1973. All I wanted was a cool, respectable muscle car and I think I’m nearing that point. There are a few things about the car that are still a little too pro street for my taste: the manual valve body in the tranny, the low gears and mini spool, etc... but my best bud who owned the car before me told me not long ago to keep it a little racer-esque, that way my boy can grow up racing cars with dad, something he did, but I never had the chance to do. It helps that I do have my grandpa’s old 68 mustang sitting, ready for a rebuild to be the easier driver so I don’t have to have the dart be a one-car-fits-all approach.
Continued next post...
