| This car was
my first "project vehicle". I acquired it in 1978 when I was 16. The Dart
had only 18,000 miles on the odometer when I got it from my grandmother! The
Dart went from completely stock to an 11 second runner in just a few years.
The engine was a 318 punched
.030 over. It had 9:1 forged flattop pistons, 340 rods and crank and 340
heads with 2.02" valves. The transmission was a Torqueflight 904 with a
reverse pattern manual valve body. I did all my own tranny work. The rear
axle was a Mopar 8-3/4 with a 4:89 gears mounted on a Strange spool. My Best
ET with this setup was 12.60 @ 108mph without nitrous oxide and 11.68 @
114mph with a 100hp I.C.E. nitrous system.
In 1984 I moved to Arizona
and ran the car at Firebird Raceway. Unfortunately after only three months
in Arizona I threw a rod and couldn't afford to rebuild the motor.
I sold the car in 1988 to
Richard Beals. Rich got a great deal as I sold him the car, trailer and all
my spare parts for $1500.00. The car had been in outdoor storage for four
years and I couldn't bear to watch it sit in the Arizona sun another day.
Update
January, 16 1997
Rick,
Stumbled across your
article on the web about your old Dart yesterday. I know you had seen it
about a year ago, but I believe that we had it slowed down at the time to
11.90's. We are still running it slower to try and help save the engine but
back in November, we opened it up just to see what it would do with new
Hooker Super Comp headers. It had been running 11.50's with 2.5" Flowmaster
mufflers on it and the evacuation tubes disconnected.
The air was pretty
good and we got an 11.28 @ 117.5 out of it. This is also with less gear than
the car used to have. I blew the 4.89's about 3 years ago and put 4.56's in
it. The amazing part of this is that we are cutting 1.49-1.50 60 foot times
that are comparable to cars that run in the high 10's. Right now, the car is
severely tire limited and could go faster if launched at a higher rpm. My
brother in law mad a pass in the car and left at 3800 instead of 3000. It
ran an 11.30 out the back but the 60' time slipped to 1.55 which indicates
the car was spinning pretty hard on the line.
We currently have
wheels and tires in the garage to put 11.5" slicks under the car. This is
the next project along with going back to 4.89 gears. We also plan on
building a super street engine for it in the very near future. We recently
fully equipped the car with throttle stop and delay box so that we could be
competitive when we finally build the engine.
Just thought that you
might like an update on the car. I know that we occasionally run into each
other, but it is kind of few and far between.
Also, if you know
anyone interested in having race cars worked on, I now operate a chassis
shop as a second business out of my home. We are fully equipped to do roll
bars, cages, rear end narrowing, ladder bars, back halfs, front halfs and
aluminum work. We are also dealers for Moser Engineering axle products and
they recently started handling Wilwood disc brakes and should soon be adding
gears to their line of products.
Richard Beals
Update:
Richard
Beals sold the Dart. I received an email from the guy he sold it to with
this photo, but have not heard about the car since. I would sure like to
keep track of it. If you know who's running this car now drop me a line.
ab7fh@yahoo.com Last I heard the car was
running a 440.
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