Starting my son off right.

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VIOLENT\6

12 second N/A Slant 6?
Joined
Mar 31, 2007
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Location
Massena, NY...Almost Cana
Hello, I just picked up a nearly cherry "65" Valiant for my soon to be 18 year old son's 1st car.

Here are some pix he took. The grille is "64", the original grille has some very slight damage. I have straightened the "65" grille a bit & we will be re-installing it.

Valiant004com.jpg


Valiant001com.jpg


Valiant002com.jpg


The car has almost no rust, runs like a top & has 37,000 miles showing on the odometer.

Here are some pix of the other Mopars in the family.

This is my wife's car. @ least she thinks it is. :thumleft:

It has Mopar Performance heads, Mopar LT headers/cats, stock SRT cat-back W/Blastin Bob's resonator deletes, Superchips 3825 Flaspaq, 6.1 aluminun intake/injectors & AFE Stage II CAI. As it is, it turns 13.4s @ 103 MPH (4385#s race weight)

Next week it will get a 2800 RPM stall Pro Torque torque convertor & shortly thereafter, a Crane 216 cam, B&G 6800 RPM flash & PSC1-003 fuel calibrator along W/centerline Billet Series "Hammer" custom wheels on the back W/M&H Racemaster 325/45R 17 drag radials.

I hope to trim about .9 off of that 13.4.

MontealMG06003.jpg


And my 2005 Power Wagon # 0896 (hence the username)

It's a farm truck & gets used almost daily off road. It's great in snow when I have to check on my pheasants in winter.

ac8d5322.jpg



More about the Valiant:

It is an all #s correct California car.

New 13" radials & exhaust. The brakes & shocks are excellent. It drives almost like new, no rattles to speak of & handles the frost heaved pavement quite well @ hi-way speeds. The seats & headliner are also new.

My son wants to hotrod it, but we have agreed to do nothing that won't "bolt in", no cutting. We want to be able to return to original condition if wanted to preserve the value of the car.

I saw an article in "Mopar Muscle" about a budget 400 HP 318, flat top pistons, closed chamber Magnum heads etc. I think that is the way we will go, only adapting the same parts to an early 360 block. Maybe coax another 50 Hp out the extra. 42 inches. A decent Torqueflite & an 8 3/4" locker W 391 gears ought to get it along nicely.

Josh will be drivig the "Slant 6" until he can save the money for a quality engine rebuild. In the mean time we will be scouring the junkyards for a disc brake upgrade & the block/head cores. I told him I would not help him make it go fast unless it can stop fast 1st.

I hope this forum will help me to find the appropriate parts.
 
It`s almost a shame to hot rod it, but if you must it`s sage advice to get it to stop first. My father had that same philosophy.
 
PW896, you have the complete Mopar family. What could be better than that. Welcome to the site. Your son can get plenty of help here with his 65 Valiant. Personally I have a 1964 and quite a few members have 63 thru 66 Valiants and Barracudas. Yours looks to be pretty good from the pics. Some of the best Mopar engine/trans people around are on this board(not me), so I'm sure you can get any help with build, locating parts, etc., here. Mike
 
Longgone said:
It`s almost a shame to hot rod it, but if you must it`s sage advice to get it to stop first. My father had that same philosophy.

He does want to keep it a "sleeper" so the mods will be for performance only & we are going to do nothing that is not reversable.

He even wants to keep it on stock appearing steel wheels W/the little center hubbies.

Imagine a new Mustang GT getting his a$$ handed to him by something that looks like this.

Valiant004com.jpg
:salute:
 
ValiantMike said:
PW896, you have the complete Mopar family. What could be better than that. Welcome to the site. Your son can get plenty of help here with his 65 Valiant. Personally I have a 1964 and quite a few members have 63 thru 66 Valiants and Barracudas. Yours looks to be pretty good from the pics. Some of the best Mopar engine/trans people around are on this board(not me), so I'm sure you can get any help with build, locating parts, etc., here. Mike

Well, it's not "complete". My daughter has a 2000 Buick Regal, but @ least it has a 3.8. One of the best damned engines ever built by GM.

BTW: I work for General Motors. :thumbup:
 
Imagine a new Mustang GT getting his a$$ handed to him by something that looks like this.

Valiant004com.jpg
:salute:[/QUOTE]
:) I can see it, that would be beautiful!
 
you are the :king:

*sniff *sniff...makes a father smile.....good on you.

blind hoping his lasts until his lil man makes 18....

:glasses1:
 
Welcome. Looks like a good start, and nothing better than a father son project. My son also will be working on a 65 Valiant that i have. So it is good to see the younger ones enjoying Mopars
 
Welcome to this great site Powerwagon896!!
You have a great set of mopar's
and as you can tell there is a great group of mopar dad's here too!
Jump on in and enjoy!!

Here is my old 63 I let get away.

63g resized.jpg
 
hay that is a great looking car mine is a 65 custom100 2dr coupe with a 273. i have thought about hot rodding mine like a sleeper as well.

i and a friend changed the front of the car to 73 up disk brakes (best thing i've done for the car) 383 torsion bars, 8 3/4 out back.

i have had to put a 318 (out of a 72 polara) into the car now this is not a strait drop in. the torque converter crank mating was different and the 65 autos are a cable shift. so choices were new trans this ment new steering column (not my fist choice). i could also have the torque converter cut in half and the 72 up engine half welded onto the 65 trans half of the torque converter (my second choice). but what i ended up doing was to get the out side dimensions of the 318 crank and the inside dimensions of the torque converter and had a pilot bushing machined up to fit.

when i do rod my car i think that i will go with the two halfs of the torque converter.

any way thats my little tail of the 65 hope it was not to much and didn't confuse you to much have fun with the car
 
1966 dart wagon said:
nice cars the charger looks bad :headbang:

Best so far W/the Charger is 13.405 @ 102.81 MPH, 4385# race weight.

That was W/Mopar Performance heads, Mopar LT headers/cats, Superchips Flashpaq, 160 Milodon TSTAT & manual fan controls on M&H Racemaster 275/50R 17 drag radials.

Since then, I have adapted a 6.1 intake manifold/injectors, stock 2 3/4" SRT8 cat-back W/the resonators replaced by Blastin Bob's straight through tips & I installed an AFE Stage II CAI.

By May it will have a Protorque 2800 RPM stall convertor, Crane 216 cam, B&G 6800 RPM flash & PSC1-003 fuel signal calbrator. I'm hoping for mod 12s. Crank HP right now is about 427, after the mods it should be pushing about 500 HP @ the crank. I am upgrading to 325/45R 17 M&H Racemaster drag radials.

Oh yeah, it gets 26 MPG on the hi-way, 18 MPG mixed driving.
 
PowerWagon896 said:
Well, it's not "complete". My daughter has a 2000 Buick Regal, but @ least it has a 3.8. One of the best damned engines ever built by GM.

Your right on the 3.8 or now 3800 thing because it was built by Buick.

(I was a Buick GS guy before I became a Mopar guy)

Chuck
 
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