American Dream 1968 Charger

[manny z]

Well had a chance to do some work on front suspension today. One thing I did find was, the shop I had it at for a while, installed some parts on it the wrong way. Nothing broken or missing just a matter of making sure they are on the RIGHT WAY!! I also had the chance to install the new Wilwood 6 piston calipers.

One mod that I did have to is, on the stock steering knuckles. Since I do not want the bump steer on this front end to 6" (sarcasm) from full droop to full compression. I had to drill the knuckle tie rod hole out to 5/8".

From the factory, the stock tie rods are on the bottom of the knuckles. With the factory setup, and steering box I am sure with slight adj, you can get the bump steer pretty close to 0. But the rack in pinion in my car, the tie rod has to sit on top of the knuckle now. I will do the final adj when the car is ready for the road.

In the process of looking for something in my shed, I happen to find a sway bar from my old dodge Dakota, that I did some heavy suspension mods to auto X, and road race. YES, a dodge Dakota, LOL.. Sorry no pics, they were on a computer that crashed on me.
That sway bar in question, was the stock one from the truck. It is solid, 1 1/8" in diam. So for ****s and gigs, I checked to see if it would fit on my charger, low and behold it fit!!!! And fit well!!!!! The center section of the bar, and the bend of the arms, look like they were friggen made for this car!!

I am going to take all the measurements of the bar tomorrow, and see what the rate is on it. I figure since this bar is a good size, and I am sure the rate of it will be good, plus I am going to be using QA1 double adj shocks, I will have room for more then enough of adj. Plus it will save me money, and fab time to try and fit a torsion bar type of front sway bar.

One thing I will be surely do to this bar is, mod the ends of the bar so it will have 2 vertical adj holes, instead of the one horizontal.
I am going to do this so the end links, will not have any bind, on bump and droop. I did this to my SRT 4 race car, and gave me more grip on the tight corners since the two front wheels were not having anymore bind issues.

I will posting pictures of the tie rod work I did, the brakes, and the how the front bar mounts on the car tomorrow.

[manny z]

Alright first and foremost the whole idea with the dodge Dakota sway bar, is going to have to get shelved. Seems that the QA1 lower arms are a little different then the stockers. So it looks like I am going to go back to my idea of using the Speedway torsion bar style bar.

I finished up the tie rod situation. Now that I have them just where I want them, I am sure the bump steer will be just where I want it.

Also you will see the picture of the frame connectors. You can see how I tied them to the front frame rails, and the cross member for the torsion bars.

Don't have a picture of but, did work on my oiling system. I am running a Keith Black swinging pick up oil system. I misplaced one of the fittings so, I decided to get all new hardware for the feed side of it. All black AN fittings, and black braided line.
In one of the pictures you will see that the oil pan is flush with the K member. I made this pan out of a rear sump big block pan. Used a Moroso wide pan kit, and baffle kit.
I wanted to make sure that this engine will not starve for oil, EVER.. haha.

One picture of the rear sump I installed on the new gas tank. I am going to be running a feed and return line, both -10.

Mounted the fuel pump, on the rear rail, with the filter, up to a boost ref regulator.

Next a partial picture of the exh. The headers will be 2" primary tubes, as equal as they could of been. The collectors I decided to use are 4"x4" turbo waist gate square flanges, 7/16" thick. These are never going to warp from the heat. I am going to use 2 flex tubes right after the collectors, down to 3" to 3 1/2" oval tubes, into the X pipe, to a SPINTECH MUFFLER, on its way, to a boom tube coming out of the drivers side in front of the rear tire.
And one night while watching TV, I decided to take a Leather steering wheel cover, and some 1/8" thick dense foam. Also used white stitching for it.
Was thinking about aftermarket but, I could not find one that fitted to look I was looking for.

[wyattroa]

My favorite car by far..I love the round tail lights on it. Will be tagging along.

[rustomatic]

Cool stuff--I dig the ingenuity. There was/is a NASCAR Charger (I think they also had a 200 mph Superbird) at Canepa in Scotts Valley, which was of course in perfect/restored condition. The torsion bars were cockpit adjustable from the driver's seat position. If only I took pictures . . .

[manny z]

Originally Posted by rustomatic

Cool stuff--I dig the ingenuity. There was/is a NASCAR Charger (I think they also had a 200 mph Superbird) at Canepa in Scotts Valley, which was of course in perfect/restored condition. The torsion bars were cockpit adjustable from the driver's seat position. If only I took pictures . . .

I would of liked to have seen how cockpit adjuster worked!!

Couple of small updates this weekend.

One, I was not sure what muffler I was going to use with that EXH I have. I was thinking I might have to change the tail section of the exh, to one of Dr.GAS'S BOOM TUBE MUFFLERS. But instead I found out that Spintech makes EXACTLY what I needed!! Since the oval tubes on the exh are 3.5" I thought it would hard to find something but, I was wrong. Spintech sells a duel inlet, and duel outlet oval 3.5 muffler, that I am going to fab into the exh to work. I found a lot of different cars with spintech mufflers, and REALLY like the way they sound!! One thing they were all duel exh, so I am sure mine will have a sound all its own with the exh going out on the drivers side, and pushed out by the Pro charger!!

On another note, it is funny how you always have some people telling you what you "should" do with your car. LOL!! Do this, do that, keep it all original, blah , blah , blah...

For example, my car came with low back bucket seats, without the factory headrest!! I thought of them as 2 small park benches, so I sold them and got a really price for them a few years back. So my quest for the seat I liked, and would go and look good inside the car. So Friday I was looking on CL for the San Fran bay area, and came across a pair of corvette seats that were priced to good to be true!! I called, and they were still for sale, so today I took the 2.5 hour drive to pick them up. They need a little TLC, and I am changing the cover anyways, and picked them up.

Already ordered the few small pieces that looked old, and will be ordering new leather covers for them, as soon as I finish the suspension, and exh of my car. These seats are out of a 97 vette. I am prett stocked about getting started on getting these to fit my car. I REALLY like the style of these seats. I personally think they will fit the look I am after.

[badbu68]

Like the look of this project alot! Wish I would have kept my 68 charger, but my chevelle barely fits in my garage, the charger would definitely not.

[manny z]

Originally Posted by badbu68

Like the look of this project alot! Wish I would have kept my 68 charger, but my chevelle barely fits in my garage, the charger would definitely not.

Should of made room, haha!!