Project 440DD
 

Introducing my project. I've been skimming around here for month now, figured I'd post something other than a question.

The Car is a 1974 Dodge Dart Swinger, 2 door hard top. Originally a Slant 6 225 cubic inch, running driving car. Being a 74 dart and not a desirable year according to the purist, I'm doing a street/PT/drag build on this car. This is not a dedicated race car and with a family for cruising, I am sacrificing some performance and such for ease of use on the street. Anyway, the plan outlines:

Engine:

1973 440, bored .030, decked to .05
Speed Pro Forged pistons with a compression ratio around 10.5 to 1
Forged Crank
Stock rods shot peened and checked for truness, rotating assembly internally balanced.
Custom ground Comp cam, hydraulic flat tappet. .509/.512 lifts
Still saving for the heads, which will either be RPMs or Trickflows if they are shipping by then.
King bearings throughout

Engine is at the machine shop as we speak.

Trans:
Rebuilt unit by Brewers, A833 4 speed.

Rear:
8.75 A body rear, 489 suregrip, 3.23s at the moment. Plans will be for 3.91s to swap in for race trim.



The day I found her:

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...psd0db02ab.jpg

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...psd839a860.jpg

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps1b5ed4aa.jpg

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http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps1981485c.jpg

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps2d86e1f0.jpg

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http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps36394a32.jpg

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...psfc0ac173.jpg

Parts gathering starts:

The 440 as picked up for a very cheap price... guy that had it thought it was a 455 Pontiac block....yeah he wasnt the smartest cookie.

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...psa27819eb.jpg

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...psed874875.jpg

The new guts:

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...psvi2pda43.jpg

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps1tw94017.jpg



The 8.75 rear:

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps433e7943.jpg

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps26381184.jpg



New interior pieces:

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...psd833a426.jpg

Replaced the crappy flat hood with a Fiberglass unit from Glastek I got at a local swap meet directly from the Glastek booth for the whopping price of 100 bucks. It is a pin on, so that means more weight savings by ditching the hood hinges and latches...roughly 15 lbs give or take plus about 30 lbs in the hood itself.

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...psb02c2d98.jpg

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...psc3324081.jpg

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...psf224e484.jpg


New Deck lid, the other one was rusted out:

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps75b68f19.jpg

Interior is stripped, only one bad floor pan, drivers side front.

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...psc035895d.jpg

New (old) fender :

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps907b44a1.jpg

Sanding down the other fender:

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...psf0ff30ce.jpg

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps8597392f.jpg

4 speed

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps686a7f21.jpg

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...psda856271.jpg

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...pse550d4ab.jpg


A little unique touch I gave the shifter

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps451969cd.jpg

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps95d6e66e.jpg

Now what could I be doing with this:

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...psf27b01eb.jpg

Out with the old slant

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps7ac69d42.jpg

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http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps6a79e56f.jpg

Cool project. I like the hood. And the motor you are building sounds like it will be a beast.

I am interested to see how you hook up the joystick. Personally, I prefer to use the steering wheel...

Thanks,

Still will use a steering wheel. The joystick is an actual cobra attack copter stick I picked up at an Army/Navy auction years ago for a quarter.... Plans are to use it as a shift knob with some tricky functions for the buttons.

Engine should be around 500, maybe more at the flywheel. All will depend on the heads and if i decide on any porting.

dukeboy... keeping the factory power steering? What suspension changes are you planning on?

Hey... that looks like a '69 Barracuda hood. FYI - They use the same hood as a '74 Dart if you did not know.

I have been playing with big blocks in A body Mopars for 27 years...

Where are you located?

Yep, I knew :headspin: I'm in Indiana

Factory steering...well no. Front will be tubular rack and pinion coil over suspension eventually.... cost for that is $$$$

Rear suspension is going to be a parallel 4 link, fully adjustable rear, working on the design of it now, still trying to decide between a Watts setup or just a panhard bar.

Why a 4-link instead of an offset 3-link? Just wondering.

And if you can package it, a watt's link with a chassis mounted bell-crank would be really cool to see. Put the bell-crank on a socket-adjustment riser with access to socket through the floor of the trunk.

I chose the 4 link, parallel, for a couple reasons, First, this is a street/strip/PT car and I need to retain the rear seat, a 3 link wouldnt let me do that, not without a short 3rd link bar, too short for its own good. Second, this car will not only see the strip and straight line, but the torque of the 440 makes a 3 link not strong enough for the drag strip, at least in my opinion. Plus the parallel will allow full adjustability while still helping to plant the rear tires.

All good points. I was just curious. Thanks for answering my questions, though. I figured you had a legitimate reason.

No problem, I am open to suggestions. especially on how to make this Watt's bar work. That's where I'm conflicted.

Working on mounting in the new(used) set of buckets. Not being factory mopar seats, I'm having to cut the bench riser out of the floor to get them to mount flat, other than that they are fitting pretty nice. In progress pic..

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...psdrlhr3x2.jpg

Been a long while since an update. A lot has happen. Car is completely stripped, now up on a body cart. Hoping to blast it in a couple weeks.

But I did pick up a few new toys

Out with the old.....


http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...psbngzv8rf.jpg









In with the new:



http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...psnhsvsxmb.jpg

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...psnmlax1nq.jpg


http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...psvy9aobmn.jpg

The old owner's "fix"

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...pspqcjmhqe.jpg

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http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...pszadjf325.jpg

Looking good and there are some guys mounting the watts link under the axle for packaging?

thought i'd post some updates over here. After months of thoughts, I came to the conclusion I lacked the fabrication skills I needed to trust my life on my suspension, so I got with Carl Gerst at Gerst Suspensions and told him what I wanted and he went to work. This is what we have together thus far. It's still in progress and this is just the mock up version to make sure everything fits and works. It's being tested as we speak too.

4 link parallel with Watts link with sway bar

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...snlceckqa.jpeg

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http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...s38hz7d0v.jpeg

Glad to see you still making progress on the car and to admit your limitations. Good luck moving forward!

thanks, while i can weld, i dont trust it to handle the speeds and stresses I'll be doing, body panels is one thing, axles is another :Tomcat:

great work, digging this build!

thanks. hopefully ill get it done and driving next year. Thats the goal anyway

Carl Gerst finished the mock up for me. should have it on my car in a week or two.

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x...smlvwswpi.jpeg

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:bigun2:

a little progess, off with the old tail panel, on with the replacement. Not fully mocked in just yet, still got some trimming to do. :superhack:

Glad to see you still going at it. Keep it up!

Thanks. I've not been able to work on it much over the fall. Was working a ton of overtime. Plus I suffered a major project set back. Engine shop destroyed my 440 block and won't make good on it. So I'm stuck sourcing a new block

Back in 2001 I had a camshaft fail, break into a few pieces and destroy my 440 block. I called Muscle Motors in Lansing Michigan. Told them what I wanted built. They charged me for the "core" and did all the machine work. The block they chose was sonic checked and magna fluxed before they machined it. They strapped the block, heads, crank and other parts on a pallet and shipped it to me. The core charge was not too bad considering I would have to buy a block and ship it to them otherwise. They do really high quality work.
http://www.musclemotorsracing.com/