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[bayyum]

nice story shifty dart

 

[BigStrok3]

Well I might as well add my story to the bunch.

My real name is Adam. Im currently 21 years of age. Ive been into mopars all my life beings that I was raised around them. Ive been going to monster mopar for as long as I can remember. When I was 15 I found a car that really caught my eye it was a 1970 plymouth duster. I found it while browsing the pits at monster mopar weekend. It was really clean. I went all over the car myself before confronting my dad about it. It was a dark blue with 340 stripes and a black bench seat interior. The best thing about the car is the interior was perfect and the body was as straight as an arrow. The only draw backs to me were the 7 1/4 rear and it was powered by a 318. But the price was very fair for a mere $3000.00 well trying to talk my dad into letting me get a loan didnt work so I had to pass that one up which really dissapointed me.

So after a while we ran across an 1982 amc spirit (the car in my avatar). Beings that my dad has allready put one of these together with an 8 3/4 rear and a ground pounding small block chrysler it was a cakewalk to get it going.
Before

After

Then I decided it was time to buy me an actual older mopar muscle car. I was looking to buy either a duster or a dart. I ran across a 69 dart that was all the way down in georgia. After talking with the guy on the phone for a few days and him sending us some pictures we strike a deal. Well turned out I made the trip all the way down there for nothing. Was not at all like the owner said it was full of bondo rust bubbles everywhere spray painted interior. So I was out a full day and around $300 in gas money.

Well after getting home I decided to scan the local craigslist in search of a nice A body mopar. I ended up finding my 74 duster I have now around sikeston, MO. Virtually no rust but it did have some dents and creases. It was the gold duster model with a 318 with a little under 60K original miles. It had near perfect black interior other than the ripped carpet and ripped front seat. Right when I seen it and went all over it I fell in love you could say. So we made a deal right there on the spot for A hair over 4K. I left very happy and felt I got a great deal. Its hard to find something around my area with little to no cancer. This car looked like it had been garaged its whole life.

After adding a 340 and a 904 transmission, New carpet and bucket seats out of a 70 dart, An 8 3/4 rear with a 3.55 sure grip, getting body work and a decent driver paintjob put on it, a new set of chrysler rallyes with new tires this is how she turned out.

My future plans with my duster is to remove the engine again and rebuild it and add a stroker kit to it, Get it completely redone in hemi orange with the hood black out treatment and matte black 340 stripes, add a factory snorkel to a new fiberglass hood, and add my new go wing to the trunk.

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

 

[avarageerod]

I'm 25, although I feel much, much older. but I qualify:cheers:

I inherited a 1976 Ford F250 from my dad who died when I was 4. Long story on how I finally got the truck but its not important. I got the truck when I was 16 and it sat until I was 18. I started repairing what was broke and ended up spending all kinds of money restoring it, thinking I would have it forever because it was my dads. In April of this year, after 2 engines and lots of time, I traded my dads truck for a 1967 Barracuda. I was just tired of putting money into a truck I didn't like that much. Although I miss the idea of my dads truck, I don't actually miss the truck. I remember riding in it as a kid, and riding my son around before he passed, so I have the memories. I like the Barracuda and have always loved the Mopars. It a totally different mentality than the Ford or Chevy guys. Different looks and style. Even this board is a different class of people.

I traded this...



for this...

 

[skep419]

My name is Sam Kepner and I will be a young gun until April 2010. My Mopar story begins with a 1969 Dodge Dart GT that was saved from the scrap yard when I was twelve. Getting the car to be street worthy by the time I got my license was the goal. By the time I turned 18, I was more interested in making it go fast than what it looked like. One trip to the drag strip and I was hooked. The build has changed a lot since it first began.

Before the Dart was purchased, my dad had a 72 Javelin SST and a 74 Javelin AMX with a 360. The AMX was pretty quick and my mom never wanted me to drive it. Evidently my go cart driving was a little reckless. After it was sold, my dad came home with the Dart. It was missing some parts and was very rusty. It had a 318, 904, and 7 1/4. I new it had potential.

My grandpa used to go down south for the winter and agreed to let my dad and I work on the Dart in his garage. We got it running but there was still a ton of work before it was street worthy. About 10 swap meets and 20 trips to the salvage yard later it was ready for paint. The paint job was sweet (red with the black GT trim and black top) and the Crager SS's topped it off.

So I finally got my license and it was basically drive the Dart until something broke. I remember hitting a pot hole and having the torsion bar mount explode. As the years went by, the 318 wasn't enough power. I purchased a 360 from a buddy and dropped it off at the machine shop. I gave him a Mopar Muscle article to go by and started ordering parts. After the engine was built, my dad saw the Dart in pieces and was pissed. He is all about keeping it "original". Plus he didn't think it would ever get put back together. A few months later, I started the car outside with straight headers. He got there about the same time as the cops. After that, going to swap meets was way more fun. We picked up an 8 3/4 with two 3rd members for 500 bucks at Mopars in the Park in Shakopee, MN. The guy threw in a 727 for an extra $50.

I was renting a house with a few buddies. Every pay check was getting dumped into the Dart. I purchased a custom 2800 stall converter from Midwest Converter, a new 3.91 Richmond gears for the 742 suregrip. That year at Mopars in the Park, my dad and I picked up front disc brakes from a 76 Duster for $150. That winter with the help of some buddies, we installed all new front suspension, frame connectors, new axles, and cop car steelies.

The Dart was finally quick and it was time to see how quick. I borrowed a truck and trailer and headed to Marion, SD to Thunder Valley. It was running low 14's all day. During test and tune my alternator quit charging. The guy next to me in the pits had a spare voltage regulator and saved the day. I got his name and address and replaced his spare. Later in the night it was the Mopar Dash For Cash run and I made it through the first round. The second run I red lighted. All my friends that came with were going crazy. I didn't get it I lost. You got into the 13's!!!!!!! (Which had been my goal all day.)

Since that day at the strip, the 360 now sports ported Edelbrock heads, Holley 750 4150 hp dp, Edelbrock air gap intake, Comp XE284 cam, Mopar ductile rockers, MSD pro billet distributor, MSD wires and 6al ignition box. I haven't been able to make it to the strip with the new parts but hope to pick up a full second from the last time I was there.

Well I know it became a book but I have been a young gun for a while and this is the first and probably last time I will be able to take part.

 

[CudaChick1968]

IMPORTANT!!!!​

I have now acknowledged all the entrants so far who have posted stories and forwarded their post link to [email protected].

If you posted your story already and did NOT receive an email or Private Message from me yet, YOU ARE NOT FORMALLY ENTERED IN THE CONTEST!!! Again, please be sure to follow all the instructions to be guaranteed a chance to win the great Prize Package.

 

[res1vw21]

I musta done something wrong...

 

[73duster47]

First off, thanks to CudaChick for giving all of us “Young Guns” a place to share our stories, and for everyone putting up prizes. Shows just how awesome Mopar people are no matter what age or background. Thank you everyone.

And now, the story of my love affair with Mopar.

To say I grew up a car guy is an understatement. Just a couple months before I was born my mother, father, and sister went to the final Nascar race at Riverside International Raceway in California, my mother being pregnant got the family a free upgrade to the VIP suites, being that temperatures were in the upper 90s that day, so racing and cars were in my blood from the start. The start came August 28, 1987, that makes me 22 today.
All my life there has been at least 3 Chrysler products in the family. Two have remained constant for all 22 years of my life, my father’s 1970 Dodge Super Bee, and his 1977 Dodge Warlock “True Spirit II”. The Super Bee has always been in the garage, with the Warlock, known to our family as the BEESST sitting on the side of the house.
Taking an aside to describe the cars… The Super Bee was my dad’s daily driver when he went to Cal Poly Pomona to study Civil Engineering from 1973 to 1977. At the time it was his nighttime racecar as well, with a 383 and pistol-grip shifted 4 speed stock. The car club he was in all had dark cars for nighttime street racing, so the Hemi Orange on the Bee got covered in a maroon color. Dad had the plan to make it into a tilt front end Pro Street style car, but upon getting married in 1982 the car was stashed away. Upon graduating from College, dad bought the BEESST, after a year long search. He wanted a full time 4 wheel drive, short bed stepside truck, with a 440, and finally found it and is the one and only owner. It was recently discovered that this truck could be one of 4 ever made with the 440. That was on the road until 1997.
As a young child my dad would take me to Mopar only car shows all across Southern California. I always asked about when I would get to drive the Super Bee. My dad is a huge model kit builder and collector (over 75,000 in the garage right now), and he started me off on the road to building a Mopar one at a time…in 1/24th scale. The first model I ever built was of the 1988 Daytona Shelby Z he had at the time. I also had plenty of Hot Wheels cars, 90% of which were Mopars, I still have all of them.
Somewhere along the line, very early, I made what most of you would call a mistake, but to me I call it the right choice. I am a huge fan of Dale Earnhardt. Yes, the most Chevy of all Chevy guys, but if it weren’t for him, the Chrysler Kit car program would never have exsisted, and his first race in the cup series was in a Dodge, so its all good. My dad did seem a bit disturbed when we would go to races, in Phoenix, Sonoma, and eventually in Fontana, and I would wear GM shirts with a Black Chevy on them, and how my bedroom walls were (and are) covered with pictures and posters of Earnhardt’s cars, along with various Mopars cut from magazines or pictures I had taken as a child.
When I turned 15 and started driving with my permit, I really started bugging my dad to get the Super Bee back on the road, but it served as a storage unit for all of our camping gear and other items as I worked towards earning my Eagle Scout. At the Spring Fling that year I bought a t shirt with the Super Bee logo on it, just to egg him on. Every shirt I ever saw with a Super Bee logo on it from then on until late 2005 I bought, just to get my dad to get the car back on the road. I ended up marching in Pacific Crest Drum and Bugle Corps from 2005 to 2007, and on one of my first rehearsal weekends I wore one of my Super Bee shirts. One of the instructors was trying to tell the members where to go in the forms, and didn’t know my name. He called me “Super Bee” because of the shirt, and the name stuck. To this day every time I see one of the guys or girls I marched with, they still call me “Super Bee.”
Upon graduating High school, I was given the choice between going away to school and living on my own, or a car. I really wanted a ’69 Charger, but mom and dad said that was too big of a car for my first car. So I tried to get the BEESST, but with the fuel mileage it gets, that wouldn’t work. Dad suggested I look at Darts or Dusters. So I picked up each Auto Trader variation and circled every single V8 powered A body I could find. Eventually he took a side trip on the way home from work and looked at a 1973 Plymouth Gold Duster with a 225 Slant 6. Dad managed to get pictures and showed them to me, two days later my mother and I went down and looked at the car. I test drove it, and loved it. Mom made me test drive over 40 other cars after that, trying to convince me not to get this 32 year old car, but I was already in love and would not be swayed. On July 28, 2005, my Duster came home. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to drive the Duster for the first two weeks I owned it, as I was on the East Coast marching with the Drum Corps. But would dream about my Duster every night.
Upon getting home I set to work getting the car road ready for the upcoming school year, starting at Cal Poly Pomona in the fall, as a Mechanical Engineering major. That summer I took the Duster everywhere, showing off my old Mopar to all my high school friends. Starting school I quickly learned about all the quirks of driving the Duster daily. The starter died on me when I meant to come home one night in my first week of classes, a phone call to a friend had me pushing the car to the parking lot near the dorms where the Duster sat overnight until my dad would drop me off the next morning with a new starter. That was the first night I ever stayed up without sleep, worried sick about my car. A couple months later I was driving home when the car died in the middle of an intersection. After getting pushed by a few helpful people into a nearby gas station I learned the importance of having a spare key, when I locked myself out of the car without my jacket on a rainy night, just to go buy a Coke. Dad showed up with a new battery and we got the Duster home.
On April 11, 2006 as I was driving to school to take a Chemistry midterm, the original Slant Six blew at 65mph on the freeway going through Ontario, CA. My Duster was dead for nearly two months as I performed my first ever engine swap, replacing the dead Slant with a remanufactured one. I was extremely proud of myself, and my Dad found just how much fun it was to work on an old car with me, so we duster off the Super Bee and began to work in it with the goal of me driving it to Cal Poly once before I graduate, a homecoming for the car of sorts as it spent 4 years of its life on the same campus I’m spending my time.
Over the course of the next few summers I would restore some part of my car, gaining money by performing chores around the house. Summer of 2007 was spent restoring the interior, summer 2008 redoing the suspension and adding sway bars. Also in 2008 I finally ditched the original hubcaps and 14inch wheels for a set of Cragars, which I loved because the same wheels were on the Super Bee.
In January of 2008 pulling out of the parking lot at school I was amazed to see another ’73 Duster sitting in the parking lot. I immediately stopped an wrote a note to stick on the windshield. The owner of that car is now a good friend of mine, Tamara along with her father Mike. Meeting Tam was also my first experience with a V8 Duster, and man did I want what she had in her car. We hang out all the time and talk Mopar, as well as study together being we’re both Mechanical Engineering majors. Tam and her dad have been a huge help, and inspiration, for both my Duster project, and the restoration of the Super Bee.
By this time I had become a member of the Cal Poly Pomona Formula SAE Raceteam. This is an engineering design team where we design, build, and race a small, formula style racecar. I quickly got the nickname of “Mopar” on the team from my various Mopar tshirts and because no one could seem to remember my name. Since being on the team one part of the car has always been Hemi Orange…my signature. The team would prove to be instrumental in one of my most memorable Mopar moments.
On February 9, 2009 tragedy struck my Duster once again, as the Slant Six broke its crankshaft. Everyone says the Slants are bulletproof, they’re not. I babied two of them, never going above 70mph, never racing, always checking fluids and performing tune-ups regularly. I hate the Slant Six. Not enough power, no auto parts stores have parts for them, and they’re far from bulletproof. This set in motion the gears to turn my Duster into the car it should’ve always been, with a small block.
At about the same time, my friend Tam’s Duster shattered the crankshaft in its 318 as well, and she and her dad had a 340 they were going to build into a 416 stroker and a 360 laying around. I struck a deal to purchase the 360, and after looking at it and getting a promise from Tam’s dad that it was mine, that I could pick it up the following Saturday, he turned and sold it to the editor of Hemmings Motor News. That sunk me fairly low. All geared up, ready to get down to business with my car, all my savings from my first few paychecks at my new job, and my plans blown wide open. Oh well, they needed to do what they needed to do to get Tam’s car back on the road, so its all good.
I managed to find an engine and trans for the Duster not too long after that episode, this past May. Unfortunately that 360 had been bored .060 over and I needed to find another, which I recently got back from the machine shop, not too long until I can start putting it together.
In the meantime, the formula team from school decided to go to Germany to compete against the best teams in the world. As I was browsing FABO I came across the information that the German Mopar Nationals were going to be the same time that I would be in Germany. I got more information from Tom, DieWilde13, and soon a plan was in place to get me from Frankfurt where I was with my team to Herten for the Mopar show. And what a plan it was, it involved me riding in a beautiful 1972 Plymouth Barracuda with a 318 along the autobahn. The ‘Cuda was driven by a guy named Marc, who’s slightly older than I am and has become a good friend, even on the other side of the world. The German Mopar Nat’s were amazing. I would have never thought that there were so many Mopar fans in Germany. I am eternally gratefull to Tom, Marc, and all their friends who I met over there and who let me enjoy their Mopar show with them.
And if the show itself wasn’t enough Mopar in Germany, while I was competing with the team at Formula Student Germany at the Hockenheimring, there was drag racing going on on the other side of the track, and the Mopars were out in force. 1970 Coronet, big block Darts, small block Challengers, and a HEMI Duster. Amazing cars, and extremely distracting to me when they drove by where I was working on our racer.
Upon returning home from Germany I poured everything I had into my Duster to get it back on the road. A lot of progress has been made, but there’s still a long way to go. At the time of this writing I am ready to spray paint under the hood and in some touch up locations along the body. I only need to purchase gaskets and bearings to put the 360 together, and the trans is ready to go. Hopefully the engine will be in the car and ready to fire by the end of the year. I’m pouring nearly every penny I earn into the Duster.
Whenever I see another old Mopar hanging out somewhere, I have to stop and take a look. More often than not I leave a not telling the owner how much I enjoy seeing an old Mopar on the road and how nice their car is, no matter what shape it’s in. I know how good that feels, and I’m always game to brighten someone’s day.
As for the Super Bee, it is currently up and running after 4 years of work, my dad finally drove it around the neighborhood, minus the front end sheet metal and exhaust. That car now has a 426 Max Wedge, 4speed, and 3.55 Sure Grip rear end. The neighbors somewhat hate when that car fires up, but it is pure music to our ears in this house. It is an absolute shame we have to put an exhaust system on it, but that’s what cut-outs are for!
Some of my friends like to joke with me that the reason I am pretty much the only single person I know of is because of my car. As I’ve said, nearly every penny goes into it, I talk about the Duster constantly, I have thousands of pictures of it, dozens of books on it. There are piles of Mopar and Hot rod/Car Craft magazines on my bedroom floor that stretch back eight years, and I still read them. My bedroom closet is full of Duster parts. The Cragars and BFGoodrich tires I bought for the Duster last summer are stacked and sealed in the closet, and right next to them are a fresh set of door panels and a new dash pad. Piled on the floor infront of my closet are engine parts, oil pan and windage tray, linkages, intake manifold, etc. That car is one of the most important items in my life, falling in shortly behind my family, my friends, and my country. There is no better feeling for me than driving the Duster, and hopefully that feeling will return shortly, because I just don’t feel the same driving anything else.
MOPAR OR NO CAR!!!
Pictures are of the Duster as it was last on the road, me installing the rear sway bar, Duster a few months after I got it, river of trans fluid under the car during the first engine swap, the Super Bee as it currently sits, the Super Bee when it first rolled out of the garage to being the restoration a few years ago, and the BEESST as it sits today.
The Video link on the bottom is to a video of the Super Bee on its first drive in 30 years that occurred this past August.

Thank you very much again for putting this on, and also for your consideration.

http://s221.photobucket.com/albums/dd86/73duster47/?action=view&current=FirstDrive_0001.flv

 

[CudaChick1968]

I musta done something wrong...

Ross, you're fine!!! As the first storyteller, you're the one who brought my lame instructions to my attention (that the "Thread Tools" thing didn't work). Sorry I didn't send you an email, but figured my public thanks/hug would let you know you're IN!!!!

Again, sorry for any confusion.

Best of luck to all the entrants! This is a wonderful thread and I'm enjoying every bit of it. Keep them coming!!!

 

[res1vw21]

Ross, you're fine!!! As the first storyteller, you're the one who brought my lame instructions to my attention (that the "Thread Tools" thing didn't work). Sorry I didn't send you an email, but figured my public thanks/hug would let you know you're IN!!!!

Again, sorry for any confusion.

Best of luck to all the entrants! This is a wonderful thread and I'm enjoying every bit of it. Keep them coming!!!

Thanks for the hug!

 

[res1vw21]

First off, thanks to CudaChick for giving all of us “Young Guns” a place to share our stories, and for everyone putting up prizes. Shows just how awesome Mopar people are no matter what age or background. Thank you everyone.

And now, the story of my love affair with Mopar.

To say I grew up a car guy is an understatement. Just a couple months before I was born my mother, father, and sister went to the final Nascar race at Riverside International Raceway in California, my mother being pregnant got the family a free upgrade to the VIP suites, being that temperatures were in the upper 90s that day, so racing and cars were in my blood from the start. The start came August 28, 1987, that makes me 22 today.
All my life there has been at least 3 Chrysler products in the family. Two have remained constant for all 22 years of my life, my father’s 1970 Dodge Super Bee, and his 1977 Dodge Warlock “True Spirit II”. The Super Bee has always been in the garage, with the Warlock, known to our family as the BEESST sitting on the side of the house.
Taking an aside to describe the cars… The Super Bee was my dad’s daily driver when he went to Cal Poly Pomona to study Civil Engineering from 1973 to 1977. At the time it was his nighttime racecar as well, with a 383 and pistol-grip shifted 4 speed stock. The car club he was in all had dark cars for nighttime street racing, so the Hemi Orange on the Bee got covered in a maroon color. Dad had the plan to make it into a tilt front end Pro Street style car, but upon getting married in 1982 the car was stashed away. Upon graduating from College, dad bought the BEESST, after a year long search. He wanted a full time 4 wheel drive, short bed stepside truck, with a 440, and finally found it and is the one and only owner. It was recently discovered that this truck could be one of 4 ever made with the 440. That was on the road until 1997.
As a young child my dad would take me to Mopar only car shows all across Southern California. I always asked about when I would get to drive the Super Bee. My dad is a huge model kit builder and collector (over 75,000 in the garage right now), and he started me off on the road to building a Mopar one at a time…in 1/24th scale. The first model I ever built was of the 1988 Daytona Shelby Z he had at the time. I also had plenty of Hot Wheels cars, 90% of which were Mopars, I still have all of them.
Somewhere along the line, very early, I made what most of you would call a mistake, but to me I call it the right choice. I am a huge fan of Dale Earnhardt. Yes, the most Chevy of all Chevy guys, but if it weren’t for him, the Chrysler Kit car program would never have exsisted, and his first race in the cup series was in a Dodge, so its all good. My dad did seem a bit disturbed when we would go to races, in Phoenix, Sonoma, and eventually in Fontana, and I would wear GM shirts with a Black Chevy on them, and how my bedroom walls were (and are) covered with pictures and posters of Earnhardt’s cars, along with various Mopars cut from magazines or pictures I had taken as a child.
When I turned 15 and started driving with my permit, I really started bugging my dad to get the Super Bee back on the road, but it served as a storage unit for all of our camping gear and other items as I worked towards earning my Eagle Scout. At the Spring Fling that year I bought a t shirt with the Super Bee logo on it, just to egg him on. Every shirt I ever saw with a Super Bee logo on it from then on until late 2005 I bought, just to get my dad to get the car back on the road. I ended up marching in Pacific Crest Drum and Bugle Corps from 2005 to 2007, and on one of my first rehearsal weekends I wore one of my Super Bee shirts. One of the instructors was trying to tell the members where to go in the forms, and didn’t know my name. He called me “Super Bee” because of the shirt, and the name stuck. To this day every time I see one of the guys or girls I marched with, they still call me “Super Bee.”
Upon graduating High school, I was given the choice between going away to school and living on my own, or a car. I really wanted a ’69 Charger, but mom and dad said that was too big of a car for my first car. So I tried to get the BEESST, but with the fuel mileage it gets, that wouldn’t work. Dad suggested I look at Darts or Dusters. So I picked up each Auto Trader variation and circled every single V8 powered A body I could find. Eventually he took a side trip on the way home from work and looked at a 1973 Plymouth Gold Duster with a 225 Slant 6. Dad managed to get pictures and showed them to me, two days later my mother and I went down and looked at the car. I test drove it, and loved it. Mom made me test drive over 40 other cars after that, trying to convince me not to get this 32 year old car, but I was already in love and would not be swayed. On July 28, 2005, my Duster came home. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to drive the Duster for the first two weeks I owned it, as I was on the East Coast marching with the Drum Corps. But would dream about my Duster every night.
Upon getting home I set to work getting the car road ready for the upcoming school year, starting at Cal Poly Pomona in the fall, as a Mechanical Engineering major. That summer I took the Duster everywhere, showing off my old Mopar to all my high school friends. Starting school I quickly learned about all the quirks of driving the Duster daily. The starter died on me when I meant to come home one night in my first week of classes, a phone call to a friend had me pushing the car to the parking lot near the dorms where the Duster sat overnight until my dad would drop me off the next morning with a new starter. That was the first night I ever stayed up without sleep, worried sick about my car. A couple months later I was driving home when the car died in the middle of an intersection. After getting pushed by a few helpful people into a nearby gas station I learned the importance of having a spare key, when I locked myself out of the car without my jacket on a rainy night, just to go buy a Coke. Dad showed up with a new battery and we got the Duster home.
On April 11, 2006 as I was driving to school to take a Chemistry midterm, the original Slant Six blew at 65mph on the freeway going through Ontario, CA. My Duster was dead for nearly two months as I performed my first ever engine swap, replacing the dead Slant with a remanufactured one. I was extremely proud of myself, and my Dad found just how much fun it was to work on an old car with me, so we duster off the Super Bee and began to work in it with the goal of me driving it to Cal Poly once before I graduate, a homecoming for the car of sorts as it spent 4 years of its life on the same campus I’m spending my time.
Over the course of the next few summers I would restore some part of my car, gaining money by performing chores around the house. Summer of 2007 was spent restoring the interior, summer 2008 redoing the suspension and adding sway bars. Also in 2008 I finally ditched the original hubcaps and 14inch wheels for a set of Cragars, which I loved because the same wheels were on the Super Bee.
In January of 2008 pulling out of the parking lot at school I was amazed to see another ’73 Duster sitting in the parking lot. I immediately stopped an wrote a note to stick on the windshield. The owner of that car is now a good friend of mine, Tamara along with her father Mike. Meeting Tam was also my first experience with a V8 Duster, and man did I want what she had in her car. We hang out all the time and talk Mopar, as well as study together being we’re both Mechanical Engineering majors. Tam and her dad have been a huge help, and inspiration, for both my Duster project, and the restoration of the Super Bee.
By this time I had become a member of the Cal Poly Pomona Formula SAE Raceteam. This is an engineering design team where we design, build, and race a small, formula style racecar. I quickly got the nickname of “Mopar” on the team from my various Mopar tshirts and because no one could seem to remember my name. Since being on the team one part of the car has always been Hemi Orange…my signature. The team would prove to be instrumental in one of my most memorable Mopar moments.
On February 9, 2009 tragedy struck my Duster once again, as the Slant Six broke its crankshaft. Everyone says the Slants are bulletproof, they’re not. I babied two of them, never going above 70mph, never racing, always checking fluids and performing tune-ups regularly. I hate the Slant Six. Not enough power, no auto parts stores have parts for them, and they’re far from bulletproof. This set in motion the gears to turn my Duster into the car it should’ve always been, with a small block.
At about the same time, my friend Tam’s Duster shattered the crankshaft in its 318 as well, and she and her dad had a 340 they were going to build into a 416 stroker and a 360 laying around. I struck a deal to purchase the 360, and after looking at it and getting a promise from Tam’s dad that it was mine, that I could pick it up the following Saturday, he turned and sold it to the editor of Hemmings Motor News. That sunk me fairly low. All geared up, ready to get down to business with my car, all my savings from my first few paychecks at my new job, and my plans blown wide open. Oh well, they needed to do what they needed to do to get Tam’s car back on the road, so its all good.
I managed to find an engine and trans for the Duster not too long after that episode, this past May. Unfortunately that 360 had been bored .060 over and I needed to find another, which I recently got back from the machine shop, not too long until I can start putting it together.
In the meantime, the formula team from school decided to go to Germany to compete against the best teams in the world. As I was browsing FABO I came across the information that the German Mopar Nationals were going to be the same time that I would be in Germany. I got more information from Tom, DieWilde13, and soon a plan was in place to get me from Frankfurt where I was with my team to Herten for the Mopar show. And what a plan it was, it involved me riding in a beautiful 1972 Plymouth Barracuda with a 318 along the autobahn. The ‘Cuda was driven by a guy named Marc, who’s slightly older than I am and has become a good friend, even on the other side of the world. The German Mopar Nat’s were amazing. I would have never thought that there were so many Mopar fans in Germany. I am eternally gratefull to Tom, Marc, and all their friends who I met over there and who let me enjoy their Mopar show with them.
And if the show itself wasn’t enough Mopar in Germany, while I was competing with the team at Formula Student Germany at the Hockenheimring, there was drag racing going on on the other side of the track, and the Mopars were out in force. 1970 Coronet, big block Darts, small block Challengers, and a HEMI Duster. Amazing cars, and extremely distracting to me when they drove by where I was working on our racer.
Upon returning home from Germany I poured everything I had into my Duster to get it back on the road. A lot of progress has been made, but there’s still a long way to go. At the time of this writing I am ready to spray paint under the hood and in some touch up locations along the body. I only need to purchase gaskets and bearings to put the 360 together, and the trans is ready to go. Hopefully the engine will be in the car and ready to fire by the end of the year. I’m pouring nearly every penny I earn into the Duster.
Whenever I see another old Mopar hanging out somewhere, I have to stop and take a look. More often than not I leave a not telling the owner how much I enjoy seeing an old Mopar on the road and how nice their car is, no matter what shape it’s in. I know how good that feels, and I’m always game to brighten someone’s day.
As for the Super Bee, it is currently up and running after 4 years of work, my dad finally drove it around the neighborhood, minus the front end sheet metal and exhaust. That car now has a 426 Max Wedge, 4speed, and 3.55 Sure Grip rear end. The neighbors somewhat hate when that car fires up, but it is pure music to our ears in this house. It is an absolute shame we have to put an exhaust system on it, but that’s what cut-outs are for!
Some of my friends like to joke with me that the reason I am pretty much the only single person I know of is because of my car. As I’ve said, nearly every penny goes into it, I talk about the Duster constantly, I have thousands of pictures of it, dozens of books on it. There are piles of Mopar and Hot rod/Car Craft magazines on my bedroom floor that stretch back eight years, and I still read them. My bedroom closet is full of Duster parts. The Cragars and BFGoodrich tires I bought for the Duster last summer are stacked and sealed in the closet, and right next to them are a fresh set of door panels and a new dash pad. Piled on the floor infront of my closet are engine parts, oil pan and windage tray, linkages, intake manifold, etc. That car is one of the most important items in my life, falling in shortly behind my family, my friends, and my country. There is no better feeling for me than driving the Duster, and hopefully that feeling will return shortly, because I just don’t feel the same driving anything else.
MOPAR OR NO CAR!!!
Pictures are of the Duster as it was last on the road, me installing the rear sway bar, Duster a few months after I got it, river of trans fluid under the car during the first engine swap, the Super Bee as it currently sits, the Super Bee when it first rolled out of the garage to being the restoration a few years ago, and the BEESST as it sits today.
The Video link on the bottom is to a video of the Super Bee on its first drive in 30 years that occurred this past August.

Thank you very much again for putting this on, and also for your consideration.

Sweet Cars!

 

[bayyum]

I musta done something wrong...

me too, i guess

 

[63VALIANT*KISS]

well where to start i guess age. i am 21 years old and my family has only and always been a mopar only family starting with my dad he owns a 1968 notchback cuda,1970 roadrunner,1962 valiant sox and martian drag car /6,and a 1963 valiant 2dr sedan hes owned only mopars there would be way to many cars to list that ive seen over my 21 yrs lol so. starting with me i am very happy to say that i would nvr own a car made after 1984 and with that stated the oldest car ive owned has been my first car my 1973 plymouth duster 318 whitch had to sell after loseing my job whitch turned out to be a good thing cause it led me to get my baby 1963 plymouth valiant sw whitch i have done alot to it since i got it but much more is planned hoping next season of car shows to enter her and win win win.i have a few things planned for the ccar rebuilding the engine one of these days and shes getting a new look pearl white with tripple black hood and 340 hood scoops on her.thanks and love the site!

 

[dartgirl66]

Hey guys! A lot of you already know me from me putting my 2 cents in as often as I can on here. My story isn't really that impressive, but I'll give it a shot.

I'm just a 21 year old (22 in December), country girl that's been born and raised in Southeast Missouri. My mom's side of the family is practically owned every model and make of muscle car, but they are pretty loyal to Mopars, being the only ones they keep around. So needless to say, my mom is the one who has got me into the car scene. She has a Plum Crazy Purple '74 Chally w/ a mild 440, and she's got a 426 mocked up and ready to set down in it. She's also got a '73 Satellite, and a '72 Charger. Well, her younger brother seen the interest I was showing when I was young, so when I was 13 he asked me if I 'wanted' his '66 Dart. It had been sitting out in his pasture for god knows how long, and the mice had made nests in the padding of the seats. It was faded red/red interior, and ugly to say the least. It was definately not the Challenger I was used to seeing, but it didn't take me long to look past all of that and imagine what it could be. We drug it out of the pasture and up to the shop, and I shopvacced all of the junk out of it. The body was straight as an arrow, but just about every weekend for about a year, my uncle had me over at the shop, teaching me body work and making me sand. I will tell you now.. I despise it with a passion.. lol.. I give props to all you body guys out there. We finally got it all sanded, and I went and picked out the color it is now, and he painted it for me. I was soo excited about having it painted! But when I got to his house.. I was almost in tears. He got too much thinner in the last coat and it ran like a waterfall all over the place. I got past the idea of it looking like hell, because it did look better than what it did before. We started tinkering with it, getting it running right. The carb was all gunked up, and after we got it all cleaned out, it ran good. When I turned 16 and started driving.. it was my everyday driver.. I got good looks and bad looks when I drove it to school, but I didn't care. I was always proud of it.

I'm currently in nursing school as a lot of you know. I have big plans for the Dart, but its currently parked for the time being, and no work is being done to it. When I'm out of school next July, we're (me and my momma 8)) going to pick the work back up on it. I plan on putting a 426 Stroker kit in its current 360, and putting hemi heads on it. We might include a mini tub but I'm still undecided on it. Its going to be painted Strawberry Electric, a really metallicy, pearly, pink, with a gloss black hood... Also, I'm still undecided about my wheel choice, but I'm wanting something polished/black...

But.. I guess thats pretty much it.. I guess I had more to say about it than what I thought.. lol..

Here's my mom's Chally and her Hemi... and then my Dart in its current state and the concept of when it's done is in my signature..

 

[dodgepower]

Hello, I'm Jamison and I'm 14 years old. The car and what's been done to date can be seen in my restoration thread "Jamison's '72 Dustpan."
I'll give a story behind in the car, what needs to be done and what I'd like to do in the future.
It's a 1972 Plymouth Gold Duster original 318/904 car but I have a 360 and the 4 speed to make the car mine!
My Aunt Beth bought the car back in 1980 when she was in the Navy, stationed in Memphis, TN. She drove the car for a little while before selling it to another sailor who wanted to the car to take to Texas. He drove the car to Texas where the original 318 blew up. He contacted a local vocational school to repair the car. The supposedly rebuilt another V8 for him. I say supposedly, because he didn't drive the car back to TN, he trailered it back and gave it back to my Aunt Beth.
My Aunt Beth had another car by this time, but my grandfather was in need of a car and she gave it him. So my aunt and uncle tow-barred it from TN to upstate NY, in the winter, no less.
My grandfather got the car running, but not for long. It hammered and made a lot of noise. Digging into it, my grandfather found out that the vocational school thought they were building a 318, but actually put in a 360. The 360, which was supposedly built, was missing bearings, wasn't bolted in to the K-frame, the exhaust wasn't hooked up, the 904 was still in the place with the 904 convertor. The rocker arm shaft was missing a few bolts and broke the shaft. It was a mess.
Grandpa set about fixing the situation. He installed bearings with shim stock, got a donor motor from a co-worker for the rocker arms, tied the engine down, hooked everything up and drove it for a years with shim stock on the bearings and the vibrating convertor before pulling the old tired 360 for a real build!
The car underwent a few paint jobs from the original tan and green interior bench seat, including one that was black and white, and it's current blue. He also installed a bucket seat interior from an F-body. When Grandpa built the 360 for it, it also built a good 727, did the body work at the time from used pieces because nothing new was available besides the spare tire well.
He drove it as a hot rod for a few years, before parking it after the rear frame rails started showing some rust at the bumper brackets and deciding to concentrate on his 'Cuda. In the meantime, he didn't like the idea that the engine and trans were just sitting without being used and pulled it stick his and Uncle Robert's '82 Diplomat where it still sits.
Grandpa decided that he had one too many cars to concentrate on after a few years and really wanted to work on his '54 Ford, so he gave the 'Cuda to Uncle Robert and the Duster to my Uncle John. Uncle John decided that he wasn't really going to do anything with the car and made the decision to give it me, last summer when I was still 13 years old.
So after thirty years, being in the family, the car has passed through two previous generations twice and is now in the hands of the third generation.
Right now the car needs quite a lot of body work. It's been in upstate NY for quite a while and needs quarters, trunk floor, floor pans, inner fenders, fenders and torsion bar mounts. Besides, of course, the engine being rebuilt, and the 4-speed swap being done. I also have the original bench seat interior for it and plan on using it, because I want something different.
For the past two summers I've been mowing lawns, doing odd jobs, trying to sell extra parts to earn the money I need. I've been able to get some parts here and there with some help and through family and friends.
Grandpa and Uncle Robert won't let me build a hot 360 until I'm older and get more driving experience. But the future plans, once I'm out of college and earning more money are a 408 stroker, an Alter-K, and a Street Lynks. That is if in the next 8 years or so someone doesn't have something different on the market.
So as you can see, the car will stay in the family for as long as I have anything to say about it!

 

[bpwordman]

Great job Jamison (and Uncle Robert):read2:
If you will count me as triplets, then I'm only 16!:-D(you do the math)

 

[Kelsey Dana]

Ok, here's my story. I'm Kelsey Dana, just turned 17 earlier this month, and I drive and restore my '72 Plymouth Scamp 318 with a 3-speed on the floor. My dad's a ford guy, he has a '47 Ford, and my sister restored her '62 Nova, so I guess I'm the oddball :happy10: . I found the car with my dad, it had been sitting in a field for at least 15 years, and the guy said the last time he started it was in 1991. I remember being a little apprehensive at first when my dad was telling me about it, but as soon as I saw it, it was love at first sight. My dad bought the car for an early 14th birthday present in August 2006 for $800 (with a restoration budget of $1200, after that it was out of my pocket), and it came with a '73 Dart parts car which I later sold for $100 :angry7: . We had to park the pair at my sister's house because my dad's got so many of his own resto projects going, there was no room for mine!
The first day of ownership consisted of cleaning the grime off the windows (the good thing about that is the grime saved the interior from being eaten alive by the sun) and vacuuming up the spiders (I *still* find dead spiders in there...) and mouse turds it had collected while it was sitting. The first thing I had to do was collect parts for it. It came with a carburator which we installed, but we still needed a harmonic balancer, radiator, water pump, timing chain and cover, camshaft gear, voltage regulator, and fuel pump. I didn't actually get to hear the engine until about March of 2007 (because of the Washington winter, it was impossible to be working on a car in the driveway with 12 degree weather), but my heart raced so fast as I heard it rev. At that time, if we primed the engine every time we tried to start it, it would actually start 1 out of every 13 tries, and die about 10 seconds later. Having sat in a field for so long, the gas that was sitting in the tank and the lines rotted so badly that we thought some little kid must've been dropping pennies in the tank. Trying to go the cheaper route, I've probably bought 15 fuel filters for this car since I've owned it. Anyway, the filters would last for about 2 days of fiddling with trying to start it, (4-ish hours a day). As if that wasn't enough of a problem, the person who owned the car before it had been sitting in the field had decided to put in a giant metric bolt for the harmonic balancer that was NOT the proper size, so every time we went to the hardware store we were trying to find a tool big enough to take it off.

Around October while I was out of town, my dad actually took it around the block. Without me there. I was pissed. Winter came and went, I finally got my license, and we were heading up on car show season. Sadly enough, the fuel line was still a problem, and my dad wasn't about to let me change it in a gravel driveway, especially since the house across the street burned down because someone was changing his gas tank and fuel line. So, every weekend we went over to my sister's house to work on it, we would just let it run to try to pull the boogers of gas out. This was the first time I had ever revved my own engine, and oh my goodness it felt good =P~ .
May came, and it was time for Mopars Unlimited car show, which I wasn't able to enter because of my stupid fuel line problems. Finally, it was running well enough to enter into its first car show, Cool Desert Nights an annual local car show that brings people from Utah, Cali, Wyoming, Oregon, Idaho, and Canada to my little Richland, Washington. I didn't place, since there was only one category, and resto projects weren't exactly welcome at the show. I loved being able to talk cars with everyone though, and surprising people when a scrawny 16 year old chick would come out from sitting behind the car to ask people if they had any questions. I got a lot of support from the people who actually knew cars, and it was a riot to hear those who didn't comment on my car. One guy said, "I used to have one of these when I was a kid. It's a '70 Duster". I had a hard time restraining my self, so my dad and I just laughed.
The week after that, I was able to bring it home!! I peeled the nasty vinyl top off and repaired the holes made from the rust.
Finally, I learned to drive it (since it was a stick) in about a week and had a great time cruising around in it during the summer. I'm a Junior in Highschool, but there’s a program at my school where you can go to the community college for free to ear your AA while completing your HS diploma. So I was driving it to school about a week before it started to prove to my dad that I could handle it for 12ish miles on the freeway. So, I merged on to the freeway, i was going about 40, and I shifted into 3rd. Nothing happened. I revved the engine. Nothing happened. Meanwhile, my dad's yelling at me to speed up, not listening to what I'm saying, and we die. On the freeway. Of course it was a fuel line thing, and I change the filter and it runs great. So, I told my dad, that’s the last straw, I'm buying a new tank and a new line. I bought the tank, I've been waiting to find a new line, and I'm changing it out once I run all the gas out of the engine. Joy riding here I come :cheers: . So my future plans are to change the tank and line, I need a new grille and rear valence, new Scamp stickers and Plymouth logos, as well as a new trim piece on the lower driver’s side, and a dash cover. Then I'm painting it FM3 Moulin Rouge with a black bumblebee stripe and black vinyl top. I'm debating whether or not to paint the bumpers black too, but I've definitely enough work ahead of me to have enough time to make up my mind.
(fredsmedina will be posting my pictures since I'm a ding dong and can't figure it out c: )

here's my photobucket account of the Scamp:
http://s870.photobucket.com/albums/ab266/Kelsey_Dana/

 

[fredsmedina]

nice story kelsey! pictures didn't show up though..

 

[Kelsey Dana]

nice story kelsey! pictures didn't show up though..

yeah, I'm still trying to figure out how I messed that one up. Could you see the pics on the photobucket link?

 

[fredsmedina]

yeah, I'm still trying to figure out how I messed that one up. Could you see the pics on the photobucket link?

yes i can see those. so if i were you, i'd just edit your post and say "look at this link for pics of my car" lol

 

[fredsmedina]

Here are Kelsey Dana's pictures!!


maybe there is some way a moderator can take these pics and add them to kelseys original post/story.?

 

[autoxcuda]

....

here's my photobucket account of the Scamp:
http://s870.photobucket.com/albums/ab266/Kelsey_Dana/

I think that was a pretty good deal for $800.

You know, that a pretty unique sort of rare optioned car. I mean 3spd floor shift, deluxe bench seat interior, 318 v-8, red? paint, factory rallye rims?...

Wonder if it has the big 8 3/4 rear end in it?

Do you have a picture of the fender tag in the middle of the engine compartment inner fender? Just left of the windshield washer bottle. It would be interesting to decode it for all the options the car had on it.

 

[CudaChick1968]

... so as to keep non-Young Gun Story content and chatter to a minimum in this thread. It should be about them!!!

Again, please keep commentary and personal observations to yourself or send them as a private message. This thread has three months to go and a bunch of off-topic banter is not going to impress potential sponsors to get involved.

 

[CudaChick1968]

... a bump for the new week!

Keep those stories and email post link entries coming!!! The Prize Package is growing almost daily. See the "Help CudaChick" thread for the latest update on the January 31, 2010 giveaway and to add your own prize to the pot!!!

 

[tyler_s18]

wow this is sweet. we all could use a lil help for our projects from time to time this will make someones day who ever wins you gotta share how it helped out you or your ride with some pics lol. i will write a story lol im just slow

 

[memike]

I am learning so much about our Young guns here :cheers::happy10:
These great stories sure do bring back memories :happy10:
My youngest son's first car was a 273 66 barracuda we found at a paint store. I forgot all about that.:clock::happy10:
Keep these great stories coming Young guns :cheers: