Sunday, March 26, 2006
Dart backstory
The Dart project has slowed to a near-standstill while my wife and I prepare the garage. We've been painting things and getting it organized so I'll have a proper spot for all my tools instead of tossing them in the back seat of the Dart like I did when I was working on it in my carport.
But in the meantime, I realized that there is a lot of stuff about the Dart that didn't make it onto the blog. I started the blog in the middle of a project. I had started mods on this with some small touches - a Pertronix Ignitor and a front sway bar, for instance. Then I worked my way up to Mopar Action's famous monster disc brake swap and rebuilding my front suspension. With a somewhat better handling chassis, I thought I'd see if I could give it some serious power.
A stock slant six is not the easiest engine to make gobs of horsepower. I had been pondering whether I would try an all-out slant six buildup or swap in a smallblock V8 when I heard a member of the Mopar Mailing List was selling a turbo setup. The seller was a man named Wayne who had written an article for slantsix.org on a low buck turbo installation. Since the time he wrote the article, he had added a four barrel carburetor that someone had professionally prepped for boost. He sold me the cut and welded stock manifold and the K-car turbo seen in the article, along with an Offenhauser aluminum manifold and a modified Holley 4160 carb.
Well, after getting all that put on the Dart, I couldn't get it to run right. The problem seemed to lie with the carburetor. Even after rebuilding it and installing a Holley Adjust-A-Jet kit, I couldn't get it to run right.
Finally I decided to chuck the carb and convert it to EFI. However, I didn't have enough of a budget for new injectors or a top of the line aftermarket ECU. I considered using a chipped GM ECU, but finally went with a Megasquirt. I bought a set of six Toyota Supra Turbo injectors off eBay, and there things sat for a while. I wasn't sure how to attach the injectors with just the basic hand tools I had at home.
Finally, I decided to shell out the money to have a machine shop take care of that. I bought a Clifford aluminum intake manifold off of eBay and snagged a throttle body (along with a portion of the intake manifold) off a Ford Crown Victoria with the 4.6 V8. I took the manifold, throttle body, and injectors to Nunley Machine Shop in Covington, Georgia. For $600, they modified all the parts to work together, and the end result was a complete slant six EFI intake.
And shortly thereafter, this blog was born.
But in the meantime, I realized that there is a lot of stuff about the Dart that didn't make it onto the blog. I started the blog in the middle of a project. I had started mods on this with some small touches - a Pertronix Ignitor and a front sway bar, for instance. Then I worked my way up to Mopar Action's famous monster disc brake swap and rebuilding my front suspension. With a somewhat better handling chassis, I thought I'd see if I could give it some serious power.
A stock slant six is not the easiest engine to make gobs of horsepower. I had been pondering whether I would try an all-out slant six buildup or swap in a smallblock V8 when I heard a member of the Mopar Mailing List was selling a turbo setup. The seller was a man named Wayne who had written an article for slantsix.org on a low buck turbo installation. Since the time he wrote the article, he had added a four barrel carburetor that someone had professionally prepped for boost. He sold me the cut and welded stock manifold and the K-car turbo seen in the article, along with an Offenhauser aluminum manifold and a modified Holley 4160 carb.
Well, after getting all that put on the Dart, I couldn't get it to run right. The problem seemed to lie with the carburetor. Even after rebuilding it and installing a Holley Adjust-A-Jet kit, I couldn't get it to run right.
Finally I decided to chuck the carb and convert it to EFI. However, I didn't have enough of a budget for new injectors or a top of the line aftermarket ECU. I considered using a chipped GM ECU, but finally went with a Megasquirt. I bought a set of six Toyota Supra Turbo injectors off eBay, and there things sat for a while. I wasn't sure how to attach the injectors with just the basic hand tools I had at home.
Finally, I decided to shell out the money to have a machine shop take care of that. I bought a Clifford aluminum intake manifold off of eBay and snagged a throttle body (along with a portion of the intake manifold) off a Ford Crown Victoria with the 4.6 V8. I took the manifold, throttle body, and injectors to Nunley Machine Shop in Covington, Georgia. For $600, they modified all the parts to work together, and the end result was a complete slant six EFI intake.
And shortly thereafter, this blog was born.
Labels: Dodge Dart
