History of my '68 'Cuda

[Raul]

1968 Plymouth Barracuda slant 6 automatic on the column.
upgraded to a V-8 340 4-spd with 3.55 sure grip rear end in 1980.

I believe I tried this previously but here I go again;
I bought this car in my latter years in High School, As seen in the pic. Wow! $600.00
This car, originally Gold, was painted a metalflake blue in I believe 1977 at a garage called AKI'S in Ballard near my High School. Fully painted minus the door jambs and engine/trunk compartments for a mere $400.00. I played with Mopars taking them apart and swapping out engines and such in my early years and I believe the running gear I put in this car minus the engine came from a 1969 Swinger 340. I believe the 340 engine came out of another Formula-S that I bent the frame on in a collision with a lamp pole in Canada. The engine initially rebuilt in 1980? was all stock, balanced with only a mild cam upgrade to give it the giddy-get sound that headers so well pronounce with the bigger camshafts. It did quite well and lasted 55,000 miles before swallowing a valve in the #2 cylinder cracking the block and sending it into a coma from 1988 to 2015.

 

[Raul]

Here's the interior upgrade I did back then....Tho' this pic is recent, from last year. the only thing different in the interior is the Stick Handle. The 4spd had a hurst T-Handle on it. Kinda wished I kept it but I would've had to dowel it on the new Tremic 5spd

 

[Raul]

Around March of 2015, I took it out of the Garage and towed it to Ed Trihey's Automotive Machine shop where he pulled the engine/trans and did open heart surgery to it finding the broken valve spring which led to the swallowed valve and cracked cylinder. That particular piston rod was bent. I initially thought of painting the car a black cherry color for which I had the car towed to get the engine compartment painted for $600.00 Ed installed a 5-speed Tremic Transmission I bought from Silver Sport for $5,000.00 complete with hydraulic clutch assembly before the engine was completed.

 

[Raul]

Here are pics of my block with the sleeve installed.

 

[Raul]

And here are the other components; Ready to install.

 

[Raul]

Here's a couple pics of my bottom end completely assembled

 

[Raul]

These next pics are the heads and intake/carb setup and engine installed in car. I had roller rockers installed these heads.

 

[Raul]

Other views of my assembled Engine; Also as I took it out, the brakes were too old and bad....I had to upgrade to discs, immediately. Took my car to D & D Brakes in Seattle and they did the complete conversion for $700.00 in their labor costs. I bought my conversion kit from Classic Performance Parts for about $1000.00

 

[Raul]

At D & D Brakes, They also swapped out my slotted for the New Cragers as well.

 

[Raul]

This is the first start up after over 25 yrs of hibernation. I can't believe I had thought of selling it in that periodof time more than once. I'm glad that I held onto it

 

[Raul]

And here is my Track Time at Pacific Raceways. Please excuse the shakey camera. My son was taking this video.

 

[mbaird]

Cool car. I love the interior! Period correct.... my brother put leapord skin in his 66 Impala and had a huge box of 8 tracks in the trunk...lol
I put Chevy Swivel buckets in my 340 4sp Demon in 1980ish.
What roller cam did you go with ?

 

[Raul]

Have some dashboard instrument issues. All my gages fried for some unknown reason. I seem to remember that this 340 always liked running Hot. I remember the needle on the gauge was 3/4 to 7/8 near pegging the H on the temp Guage. Even back in 1981.I replaced all the gauges and still have issues with the temp gauge. I now run without a thermostat but the needle still pegs and I've changed the sending unit twice. My Speedometer needle jumps around from 0- 45. After about 50 it steadied out and is fairly accurate. ( No speeding tickets yet)
The car went in for cancer removal and bodywork/paint makeover in May 2016. My friend Sam from work is taking on the project. He said 6 months; it's almost a year...

 

[Raul]

Cool car. I love the interior! Period correct.... my brother put leapord skin in his 66 Impala and had a huge box of 8 tracks in the trunk...lol
I put Chevy Swivel buckets in my 340 4sp Demon in 1980ish.
What roller cam did you go with ?

The Mechanic ED selected it some custom ground cam made by Howard's Cam. I posted the specs in another thread asking for advice on fuel systems.

 

[Cuda68Scott]

Like your car, looks like it did well in the race and will be really fun to just cruise around in. Especially like the SS Cragars - always wanted those on mine back in the day but could only afford the US Indy slotted mags at the time. Are those 15's?

 

[Cuda68Scott]

Have some dashboard instrument issues. All my gages fried for some unknown reason. I seem to remember that this 340 always liked running Hot. I remember the needle on the gauge was 3/4 to 7/8 near pegging the H on the temp Guage. Even back in 1981.I replaced all the gauges and still have issues with the temp gauge. I now run without a thermostat but the needle still pegs and I've changed the sending unit twice. My Speedometer needle jumps around from 0- 45. After about 50 it steadied out and is fairly accurate. ( No speeding tickets yet)
The car went in for cancer removal and bodywork/paint makeover in May 2016. My friend Sam from work is taking on the project. He said 6 months; it's almost a year...

I remember my factory temp gauge always being off, and I later added an aftermarket gauge below the dash to get truer readings, which were actually normal. Hopefully I can restore my factory gauges when I get to that part of my project.

As far as removing the thermostat, I understand it is not considered a good thing to do that because it allows coolant to move through the radiator too fast. The coolant needs to spend a little time in the radiator to allow it to to do its job of conductively removing heat through its fins.

 

[Raul]

I

Like your car, looks like it did well in the race and will be really fun to just cruise around in. Especially like the SS Cragars - always wanted those on mine back in the day but could only afford the US Indy slotted mags at the time. Are those 15's?

they are 15's

 

[Raul]

So right now it is at my friend's Sams for body/paint upgrades. I had to have both quarter panels patched with the inner trunkwalls that support the panels replaced. My driver's door was drooping pretty bad. Sam was able to replace the bottom hinge that was bad.

 

[Raul]

He went over the whole car. Took out every little imperfection and re-aligned the doors to match the mold lines really well.

 

[Raul]

The car is currently primered. Still working inside the trunk area and the inner trunk lid, as well as the engine bay and inside of the hood which I decided to have colored a flat black finish.

 

[Raul]

I got my engine compartment and trunk sprayed flat black as well as the inner hood and trunk lids. I'm getting excited as this project starts to wrap up. The next step I'm told is to paint the door jambs

 

[Raul]

Engine Complete with carb and vacuum pump installed

 

[Raul]

Getting a bit anxious and excited....Went to Chrome Shop today and picked up some chrome plating work today. Painting the door jambs is next after some prep work for it tomorrow morning

 

[Raul]

These rechromed emblem letters turned out to be extra.... I won't be using them.
I will be using the shorter single PLYMOUTH emblem rather than the single lettters.

 

[Raul]

Color is finally being put on. Got my door jambs painted and the front interior doors repainted glossy black. A few more weeks and it's off to the spray paint booth!