That is awesome. Good to see her run so well.

 

Thanks man! It's a long time coming, kicking myself for not being more diligent working on it for the last 10 years. Worth the efforts though!

 

I know the feeling. I worked for 9 years on my Dart and got it running in 2011. After that it has been a long road to different mods along the way. If I was to do it over, I would probably build a completely different set-up.

I like the stall on your converter. You can build pretty good boost for the launch.

 

Yeah I'm super happy with it, Dusty from PTC spec'd it for my combo. It couples nicely when I'm just cruising around town, but lets me build boost pretty quickly even with just a footbrake.

 

The last thing I did was put a TH400 from Hughes Performance in it with a 9.5" bolt-together converter. The TH400 is rock solid and I love the combo now. In the future I may swap the stator in the converter out for a slightly looser one, but it's good for now.

 

So I'm not sure what I want to do with this car. The last year or two I've been working long hours and just feeling burned out on the hot rodding thing. Let it mostly sit in storage for the time. Recently moved to a more office-y job and am considering getting back to work on the hoopty.

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Problem is, I need to figure out if this is a cruiser or a racer. It's got way more power than the blown out vintage shocks and S shaped rear leafs can put down. The 4" fender dumper is a little bit too loud for cruising around town under the radar, but the overdrive, fuel injection, and 17" wheels make it drive really nice. I'd like to upgrade engine management to a Holley, but I'm trying to decide if I want to do a transbrake and reverse manual valve body or not. Maybe a quiet(er) exhaust to the back bumper is the ticket. Not sure I want to keep the rollcage if it's going to be a street cruiser though.

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So the way I see it is either I build:

A basic racecar - reverse manual transbrake, finish the cage, keep the fender dump exhaust, maybe swap the front bench for race seats and lose the backseat, nice double adjustable drag focused shocks, slicks and skinnies

or build

A street car - quiet exhaust, 17" drag radial, cut the cage out, put some carpet in, some street oriented shocks, maybe sound deadening, etc.

OR

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Gut my rusty blue car and transfer all the racey parts to this $500 rust free barracuda shell and build a for real racecar. Nice cage, tubular suspension, motor plate, lexan, maybe swap to a glide?

All I know is none of these options are cheap, and the price of parts has like doubled since I was last looking around.

 

I find myself in the same circumstances a lot. No time, no motivation and the car suffers an identity crisis. Am I a street car, do I want to be a race car, street/strip car? I don’t like to drive mine on the street much in a big city with horrible drivers and I only get to the track a couple of times a year.
Do you have a track nearby? Do you go often? Is there a cool hot rod scene in your town for street cars?
If I were to go full on race I’d probably start over with a roller at a minimum. It would take me 10 years to build that Barracuda shell. I like your Dart. I would think some kind of balance between street/strip would be a minimal time and money investment to enjoy it.

 

I would throw quiet exhaust on the dart and take out the cage. It's a great every day hot rod: paint isn't perfect so you don't care about door dings and scratches, you can beat on it when you want, its reasonably reliable, overdrive, efi etc. Then build the 'Cuda for race, that way you don't have to worry about compromises.

Driving around something that looks like a rusty pile has been really freeing for me.

 

I have a slow race car and an uncomfortable street car so I know the feeling.

I would do the full exhaust and carpet first. Would swing out / removable door bars be enough. I don't like my bar, but I have never thought about cutting it out. Would new adjust able shocks function as street and strip?

So I guess I would slowly try to improve the street but not through out the strip nothing says you can't have two sets of tires.

I don't like having a car I can't / don't enjoy. I am planning on taking the spool out of mine.

 

My biggest concern with the cage is with safety on the streets for myself and my passengers. A dude on YB died a few years back in a fender bender cause he got head trauma from the funny car cage.

 

I don't have a funny car cage. I would not feel safe in one with out a helmet on. My car a bar not a cage. I have sfi padding anywhere the driver can touch.

I assumed we were not talking about a funny car cage.

 

Yeah mine just has a bar for now, but I'm a big dude and the seat is pretty high. If I was rearended hard enough I could probably make contact with it. I also don't want to put the kids in the backseat with the shoulder bar in front of them.

 

This is something I've been back and forth about. I started just wanting a cruiser but it all snowballed and now I want to run 9s and drive it. I think if I can hit that goal with what's in it now, I'm going to leave it as is for a while. Biggest upgrade to comfort was carpet honestly. I got it without the mass backing from rockauto.com and it was like 17 lbs shipping weight. Worth it IMO. I'm more in the boat that I want a car I can drive a lot on the street and go turn a good time at the track if I feel like.

 

I think this is where I'm landing too. A comfortable cruiser that can still put the hurt on modern muscle cars. Carpet, quiet exhaust, maybe some sound and heat dampening too. Oh, and a radio!

 

I am a wimp, it's hot down here add A/C to the list for me!

 

If this car was originally an A/C car, I totally would. Not interested in hanging an aftermarket box under the dash.

 

Double post