Maybe that's why...........
- Thread starter 68R/T
- Start date
TheIronSausage
Two brain cells left.. rubbing together for warmth
I really like the red accent stripe at the bottom of the windows. I'm not sure that it accentuates this car's "body lines". But you can tell that despite the visual impact (crotchpunch) of the design, Chrysler seemed to care enough to mask off, and spray a different color there. I'm sure they knew that letting Helen Keller design a car was a bad idea, but they went whole hog in the effort anyway. Don't mean to insult you or you car at all, I think they're awesome.. but even the Rambler fanboys be like, Whaaaa?
I'd have one, they're just sooo weird!
I'd have one, they're just sooo weird!
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68R/T
I got drunk and swallowed my teeth, now
Being a 1960 any 2 tone paint was not available. These accents were added by the original owner. (I'm the 3rd, the 2nd was the original's nephew) I'm not a huge fan of the 2-tone treatment and plan on returning it to a base white. :hmmm:
TheIronSausage
Two brain cells left.. rubbing together for warmth
I could go either way on that.. I can't say that I've seen one two-toned before. It really draws your attention to the hips. I think I like that it makes you look right at the elephant in the room.. On the other hand, maybe playing them down was the right idea to begin with.
TheIronSausage
Two brain cells left.. rubbing together for warmth
I approve!
TheIronSausage
Two brain cells left.. rubbing together for warmth
I just super sixed my '63. I'm not going to lie. I was totally underwhelmed at first. Until I drove a hundred miles round trip on the interstate tonight. Around town, the thing's still a dog. It makes a better noise, but certainly wasn't worth the money and time it took to scrounge all of the factory super six parts. The difference is night and day at 75 mph though. It's got way more legs at the top end. It feels real weird to put your foot down in an early A body and actually pass another car in excess of 80 mph. I'm sure my 2.71 (sure grip.. WTF?) gearset is talking there, but the car never had the guts to cruise effortlessly at 75+ before. As for your 170, I hear they respond really well to turbocharging.. shorter stroke and all. The easier route might be the Offy twin BBS manifold.. there's one on FleaBay now. I would've jumped on it ages ago, but the jerk selling it is selling all of the linkage separately for the same price as the manifold. The beauty of it is that it uses the factory gas pedal and bell crank parts you've already got. That means you wouldn't have to find the 64-66 gas pedal with throttle cable, or the '77-'80 super six kickdown parts for the trans. Just think, Miss ugly might almost keep up with traffic.
Dr.Jass
Pastor of Muppets
Uh, yeah... I see why you had pickup problems 68. It's nice to see them side-by-each to illustrate what you were describing to us last month. Glad you got it sorted out with shiny new parts. :dance:
Unlike other cars my family owned at some point, I have no soft spot for the early As. It might be because I wasn't yet around when they had it, but I sorta like '67 Fairlanes and that pre-dated me as well (I think--I might have been in that one as an infant). I can appreciate Miss Ugly, but it does zero for me no matter what paint scheme it's got.
The V8 didn't appear in A-bodies until the '64 model year, which would've been September 1st of '63. That was the debut year of the 273, which was created solely to put a V8 in the A-body.
Sausage, Stretch's '65 has a rod linkage for the throttle... or at least, part of one since the engine's gone. But there's a rod sprouting from the firewall that extends about a foot into the engine bay. You know more about these things than I do, so what gives?
Prior to acquiring the race 340, I was doing a lot of reading on hot-rodding the inline sixes. It seemed to me that generally speaking, the 170 was considered the way to go regardless of forced induction. Part of the reasoning was the extra weight of the tall-deck engine, but most of it seemed to be because of the miserable ports of the Tilt Six head... kind of a "the heads can't flow enough to properly feed the larger engine" thing. I wasn't planning on building some kind of psychotic world-beater, I just wanted to pep it up a bit. Turbocharging seems the best option, but it usually does so no surprise there.
There was a lot of disdain for headers on the Slant Six site, the primary reason (pun unintentional) was that the bottleneck in the exhaust was the ports themselves, and as such the factory manifold breathes just fine. One can't deny the look and sound improvements, though. Ultimately, my very-tentative plan was MPFI on a modified Slant Six intake, EDIS-6 ignition, a .100" mill to the head's deck surface, and a warmer camshaft... all of which left the door wide open for turbocharging later. :dance:
Unlike other cars my family owned at some point, I have no soft spot for the early As. It might be because I wasn't yet around when they had it, but I sorta like '67 Fairlanes and that pre-dated me as well (I think--I might have been in that one as an infant). I can appreciate Miss Ugly, but it does zero for me no matter what paint scheme it's got.
The V8 didn't appear in A-bodies until the '64 model year, which would've been September 1st of '63. That was the debut year of the 273, which was created solely to put a V8 in the A-body.
Sausage, Stretch's '65 has a rod linkage for the throttle... or at least, part of one since the engine's gone. But there's a rod sprouting from the firewall that extends about a foot into the engine bay. You know more about these things than I do, so what gives?
Prior to acquiring the race 340, I was doing a lot of reading on hot-rodding the inline sixes. It seemed to me that generally speaking, the 170 was considered the way to go regardless of forced induction. Part of the reasoning was the extra weight of the tall-deck engine, but most of it seemed to be because of the miserable ports of the Tilt Six head... kind of a "the heads can't flow enough to properly feed the larger engine" thing. I wasn't planning on building some kind of psychotic world-beater, I just wanted to pep it up a bit. Turbocharging seems the best option, but it usually does so no surprise there.
There was a lot of disdain for headers on the Slant Six site, the primary reason (pun unintentional) was that the bottleneck in the exhaust was the ports themselves, and as such the factory manifold breathes just fine. One can't deny the look and sound improvements, though. Ultimately, my very-tentative plan was MPFI on a modified Slant Six intake, EDIS-6 ignition, a .100" mill to the head's deck surface, and a warmer camshaft... all of which left the door wide open for turbocharging later. :dance:
68R/T
I got drunk and swallowed my teeth, now
I watched a handful of slanty's run in the NSS class at Great Lakes a few years ago. They can be built to run some very respectable times. And their sound is akin to a thousand angry bumble bees in a beer can amplified. But the bottom line is still $$$ per punch. You can invest a fraction of the cost in any sized V8 and get a much larger return. :huh:
TheIronSausage
Two brain cells left.. rubbing together for warmth
All early As with slants had the stupid rod/bell crank setup. It looks like this.
You'll notice just to the right of the bell crank hole on the firewall, there's three black spots. These are the mounts/holes for the factory V8 throttle cable (this is my factory 273 Dart.. has both options). In order to change the stock slant Holley 1920 (I think) or the Carter BBS to anything else except the Offy 2x1 setup (which looks like this)
You'd need the stupid rare '64-'66 factory V8 gas pedal, and throttle cable. Any later gas pedal should fit, but has a different waffle pattern for the purists.. They repop the pedal these days, but not the cable that I'm aware of. At any rate, this really is the cheapest option for '68's ugly duckling, because he'd have to drill holes in the firewall for the hard to find, and pricey throttle cable, or cut the entire heater out of the car, and remove the section of firewall that bumps out into the engine bay in order to fit a V8 in at all. I have worked on a '76 BMW 2002 that has a rod linkage going to the back of a Weber DGEV 32/36 that seems like it might swap onto a slant with modification, but then you're still looking at manifold/adapter/non Chinese Weber purchase, and I'd estimate all of it at around $600 scavenged off of EBay, and Redline.. That wouldn't include modification, or fabrication either.
As for v8 swaps into pre '67 A bodies, if you want to keep it factory looking at all, you'll need a radiator, oil pan, early LA timing cover and water pump (water outlet and timing marks on the other side), motor mounts, exhaust manifolds, modification to the trans crossmember if you want dual exhaust, 90 degree oil filter adapter, (318 M body.. shh.. it's a secret) '64-'65 V8 pushbutton trans if so equipped (good luck), and of course, the goddamned center link with extra drop in it. Why the factory continued to run half of this shit as slant specific after coming out with the LA, I don't know.. I assume that they had another 300,000 slant center links, and gas pedals/throttle rods on the shelf, so they just kept using them instead of switching the slant over to V8 ancillaries. At any rate.. the 64-66 cars are hard enough to find the V8 shit for, let alone the minor firewall modification required for the '63s, or the absolute bush league hackery needed to cram anything into a '60-'62 car.
The slant headers are mostly frowned upon (for street cars) because they don't attach to the intake hanging out in the breeze, and you get shitty warm up characteristics and fuel puddling in the manifold.. I was tempted by a cheap set for a while, but realized that the car would drive like total butt and wouldn't fully warm up on my three mile jaunt to work from my house. "Dutra Duals" are the ideal answer, but he wants about $400 (IIRC) for his modified casting, which doesn't include modification to your existing manifold, (cutting it in two, and capping the hole in the plenum).
The lesson to be learned here is that if you want an early A body, you'd better be able to enjoy it's Byzantine acceleration, handling, and braking. Or shell out enough cheddar over time fixing those quirks to have bought the '68 small block Dart you wanted in the first place.
Whee!
You'll notice just to the right of the bell crank hole on the firewall, there's three black spots. These are the mounts/holes for the factory V8 throttle cable (this is my factory 273 Dart.. has both options). In order to change the stock slant Holley 1920 (I think) or the Carter BBS to anything else except the Offy 2x1 setup (which looks like this)
You'd need the stupid rare '64-'66 factory V8 gas pedal, and throttle cable. Any later gas pedal should fit, but has a different waffle pattern for the purists.. They repop the pedal these days, but not the cable that I'm aware of. At any rate, this really is the cheapest option for '68's ugly duckling, because he'd have to drill holes in the firewall for the hard to find, and pricey throttle cable, or cut the entire heater out of the car, and remove the section of firewall that bumps out into the engine bay in order to fit a V8 in at all. I have worked on a '76 BMW 2002 that has a rod linkage going to the back of a Weber DGEV 32/36 that seems like it might swap onto a slant with modification, but then you're still looking at manifold/adapter/non Chinese Weber purchase, and I'd estimate all of it at around $600 scavenged off of EBay, and Redline.. That wouldn't include modification, or fabrication either.
As for v8 swaps into pre '67 A bodies, if you want to keep it factory looking at all, you'll need a radiator, oil pan, early LA timing cover and water pump (water outlet and timing marks on the other side), motor mounts, exhaust manifolds, modification to the trans crossmember if you want dual exhaust, 90 degree oil filter adapter, (318 M body.. shh.. it's a secret) '64-'65 V8 pushbutton trans if so equipped (good luck), and of course, the goddamned center link with extra drop in it. Why the factory continued to run half of this shit as slant specific after coming out with the LA, I don't know.. I assume that they had another 300,000 slant center links, and gas pedals/throttle rods on the shelf, so they just kept using them instead of switching the slant over to V8 ancillaries. At any rate.. the 64-66 cars are hard enough to find the V8 shit for, let alone the minor firewall modification required for the '63s, or the absolute bush league hackery needed to cram anything into a '60-'62 car.
The slant headers are mostly frowned upon (for street cars) because they don't attach to the intake hanging out in the breeze, and you get shitty warm up characteristics and fuel puddling in the manifold.. I was tempted by a cheap set for a while, but realized that the car would drive like total butt and wouldn't fully warm up on my three mile jaunt to work from my house. "Dutra Duals" are the ideal answer, but he wants about $400 (IIRC) for his modified casting, which doesn't include modification to your existing manifold, (cutting it in two, and capping the hole in the plenum).
The lesson to be learned here is that if you want an early A body, you'd better be able to enjoy it's Byzantine acceleration, handling, and braking. Or shell out enough cheddar over time fixing those quirks to have bought the '68 small block Dart you wanted in the first place.
Whee!