got the dart running again....

[abodyjoe]

well i got tired of not driving my dart all year. decided to take my time doing the 408 and just drop a stock 360 i have had for a while in it.



so i yanked the motor on 6-17 gathered the stuff i needed , cleaned it up and damn near killed myself getting it together this week.



what better to use for a donor car? yup a c-body. this one has the jeep hood option...lol

 

[abodyjoe]

no suprises here. timing gear is cracked and alot of play in the chain. put a double chain and new oil pump in. and you can see how clean it is. someone kept tyhe oil changed. motor only has about 48,000 miles on it. i knew it ran good about three years ago but haven't had it running since.

 

[ramcharger]

That heater hose in the 4th pic looks like a red cobra, lol!

 

[ramcharger]

Ah, the lovely nylon cam gear. WTF were the big three thinking?

Top end does look nice.

 

[abodyjoe]

had a rusted freeze plug. i knew about that three years ago so no suprise. and as usual all the slop was in the corner by the starter. i replaced all the freeze plugs and cleaned the motor up as best as possible for a temp motor..

 

[abodyjoe]

spray bombed it with some duplicolor. its no urathane uteck 3.8 but it will do.. it actually matched the urathane pretty good too. suprising..

 

[abodyjoe]

after i blew it up in oct. i decided to make it more of a cruise. so i bought a power rack for it. straight forward install there.

 

[abodyjoe]

dropped it in and hooked everything up. the power steering pump and lines were the worst part of it. ended up walking away from the pump and doing everything else that could be done until i had to put the pump on to finish up. by then i guess i colled down and it went on pretty easy.

 

[abodyjoe]

 

[abodyjoe]

man does it sound mellow. kinda embarrassing sounding...lol.

 

[abodyjoe]

so thismorning i drove it two miles...lol. it was suprisingly peppy with the 391's in it. thought it would be more of a pig. drove it to my buddy scotts and used his lift to put the 2.94 gear in it and mounted the new coil and tweaked the tow on the alignment because i screwed it up when i put the rack in. the 2.94's feel nice. car still has more jump then i thought it would. not sure what i was expecting. thought it would be more like jamie's tired 273 i guess. but i was cruising at about 1500 rpm wich seemed to be about 40-50 mph. real smooth and quiet. think i'm gonna like this. it does run very rich especially when you open the secondaries but i knew that was coming. the 780 is jetted up from djv's car so thats no big deal. just need some time to lean it out. other then that it feels good

funny how different it is now. went from an obnoxious good running 360, loose converter and 3.91 gears to a stock 360, stock converter and a 2.94 peg leg...lol

 

[abodyjoe]

i'm cruising on rt.73 and man does it cruise nice now. quiet and smooth. gotta get used to the quick steering though. barley have to flick the wheel to turn. still seems to be acting like it has air in the system but when cruising you can't notice. so i'm cruising between 1500 and 2500 rpm not thinking anything about it and i'm cruising by people like nothing. spedo says 45 mph..lol. so i get home and look at the speed calc. and at 2500 i'm doing about 70mph.. ooops.. gotta get used to this thing now..lol. i'll have to bring the gps with me to keep an eye on the mph till i change the spedo gear.
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[abodyjoe]

That heater hose in the 4th pic looks like a red cobra, lol!

lol. you right.. i didn't notice that.

 

[ramcharger]

i'm cruising on rt.73 and man does it cruise nice now. quiet and smooth. gotta get used to the quick steering though. barley have to flick the wheel to turn. still seems to be acting like it has air in the system but when cruising you can't notice. so i'm cruising between 1500 and 2500 rpm not thinking anything about it and i'm cruising by people like nothing. spedo says 45 mph..lol. so i get home and look at the speed calc. and at 2500 i'm doing about 70mph.. ooops.. gotta get used to this thing now..lol. i'll have to bring the gps with me to keep an eye on the mph till i change the spedo gear.
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I've got an electronic programmable speedo in my RC. You hit the button, drive a measured 2 mi. and hit the button again, presto! i haven't bothered to figure a measured 2 miles yet though. I was doing an indicated 40 on a frontage road today and was keeping even with 65 mph traffic on the highway. Not good, lol! That's what 3.55's and 33" tall tires get ya. Wish I had GPS on my phone.

That cobra thing is kinda cool. 8) Someone could have some photoshop fun with that one. Maybe a dart through it's head? The Cobra killer, lol!

Glad to hear you made the cruiser you've been wanting. This hot rod stuff is a very personal thing and through experience and age, that vision does change. I'm thinking about building a low rpm (hp peaks at 4500 rpm or so) big torque stroker for RC and dropping the existing RC engine into the Duster. Then, after I blow it up lol, I'll make it a 6500 rpm stroker.

Right now the existing engine is a bit much for this tank. When the power comes on, it's difficult to handle on the street and was pulling hard at 5k+ in first. Of course in 4low in the dirt/mud it will be something to truly be reckoned with! Not much mud out here in the rockies though. It just sings at 75 on the interstate but woe to the person who decides on too much steering input.

 

[Longgone]

Wow you must be tired! Great job Joe, looks good. Now you`ll have the Dart to drive and you can still work on the 408 at your leisure, assembling it the way it should be done. Win, win, situation. I was just helping out a friend (fishman) with his 408 today, filing rings and fitting the rods to the pistons. There`s going to be some nice rides emerging this fall. That C-body would`ve made a great demo derby car! Lol!