The '70 valiant sleeper project

v8440

Well-known member
Ok, here's the beginning of the progress post I mentioned I'd do. As a refresher, here's the plan:

Take the well worn '70 /6 valiant in the photos below, and turn it into a low 12/high 11 second snoozer. This will be accomplished by combining a bunch of stuff I have lying around with some more stuff I'll have to buy. To keep things a bit simpler, instead of a big block the engine will be a 360 I had lying around. It's currently in the machine shop getting decked, bored, and honed in preparation for the keith black pistons it will get. It's also gonna get a set of cheap eagle rods, more for lightening up the bottom end than any concern with the strength of the stock rods. The light pistons and rods will allow me to run a neutral balancer and converter, ala 318.

A set of w2's I happen to have lying around are also going on the engine, as well as a set of 340 a/e body exhaust manifolds gathering dust on my back porch. It will have a 904 column shifted just like the stock transmission, and an 8 1/4 with a 3.55 suregrip out back. For an exhaust system, I'm thinking of a single 3" pipe ended about a foot in front of the rear bumper, with a 2 1/4" pipe actually sticking out under the back bumper. The 2 1/4" pipe would be about a foot long, just enough to kinda hang at the opening of the 3" so it would look and sound like the 2 1/4 was the actual pipe size.

The interior will remain as you see it, with the probable exception of some cheap small gauges for water temp and oil pressure. The nitrous bottle will be hidden in a to-be-determined location, and I'll probably use a topshot setup inside the air cleaner. The air cleaner will also probably hold the solenoids, and vacuum hoses will contain the wires and nitrous line. (this is a smog motor, remember? It's expected to have vacuum hoses.)

For an intake manifold, I'll use a dual plane intake MP makes for oval port w2 heads. I'll just grind the insignia off the front, and paint it to look like any other stock dual plane intake. The msd box will be hidden away inside the car somewhere, probably up the passenger side part of the firewall.
 

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now if ya wanted to get crative..paint the engine corprate blue but then mist it in all the right areas with black paint...this will give it a worn/use/leaking look
 
Already thought of some stuff like that. After painting it, I may take a torch and semi burn the paint before misting it with light oil from a spraybottle and driving down a dirt road.
 
oil from an oil change NOT fresh..al nice and black preferably from someone who didnt change it for say 10k
 
need some BS to make it look like you are trying to make it look fast. Mis-matched GM buckets and a t handle shifter come to mind.
 
No more work done lately, but the 3.55's I got a screamin deal on came in yesterday. Everything was exactly as the seller said-brand new mopar gears, new pinion bearings, new ring gear bolts, new pinion seal...all for $74 DELIVERED! I was a little afraid they would back out because of the price. Got that stuff on egay.
 
I just went 75 (outbid with a proxy) on a remanned 2.2 D I D G E cylinder head. the correctly spelled ones go up to 250
 
oil from an oil change NOT fresh..al nice and black preferably from someone who didnt change it for say 10k
I'm sure he has some old diesel oil laying around...don't get much blacker or nastier than that


did I really just type that :bwuhaha: :bwuhaha: :bwuhaha:
 
Yeah, I can get some old diesel oil no problem. I keep it around, since I run my dually of of it.
 
I just went 75 (outbid with a proxy) on a remanned 2.2 D I D G E cylinder head. the correctly spelled ones go up to 250


Boot...do you need a head for a 2.2/2.5?

I've got 2 off of 2.5's that I can personally vouch for.:giggedy:
 
Boot...do you need a head for a 2.2/2.5?

I've got 2 off of 2.5's that I can personally vouch for.:giggedy:

soon:xl: need to do some testing but with 220k and the "loss of power" issues (dynasty), it will be soon, I wish my brother's van would "show up" again. I rebuilt the 2.5 he did the trans. He sold it and bought it back twice now.

Back to all things Sleeper Valiant :bravo: [smilie=i:
 
Got another idea on the nitrous-instead of running a topshot fogger in the air cleaner housing like I had originally planned, I'm thinking of doing an under-manifold fogger setup. To do this, we'll drill a hole in the back of the block near the distributor and run the line through there. I'm thinking of this not to get more total power than the top shot could deliver, but to hide it better, and because I've always wanted a fogger setup. Letting the nozzles get exposed to the hot oil will be fine-it will soften the hit on a traction-limited car. Any of you guys know where to get a good job done on plumbing the bottom of an intake manifold?
 
Update: I had the machinist buy the rods last week, and this week he's buying the main and rod bearings. At this point we have essentially everything needed to build the shortblock. My next purchase for it will probably be the intake manifold needed for the engine (a dual plane w2 intake). At some point after that I'll send the manifold off somewhere and get it plumbed for the hidden fogger system.
 
I went by the machine shop today to take some pictures of the thick main 400 block I recently found, and I decided to take some of the bottom end parts of the 360 that's going into the 4 door sleeper valiant. The pistons are a keith black hypereutectic (I forget the part number, but it's pretty light), the rods are cheap eagle rods, and the crank in the background is a std/std cast crank. We weighed the stock rods and pistons on a grams scale, weighed the stuff I bought for the motor, converted it to lbs, and found that I'm taking 5 POUNDS of reciprocating weight out of the motor! Well, if you wanna get technical it might be a little less than that since the rods are hybrid rotating/reciprocating. But still, 5 lbs of moving stuff in the bottom end has GOT to help it rev quicker. I think it'll run pretty well with a hidden fogger under the intake manifold.
 

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