Dodge Dart number two, now what?

Ok apparently I have a problem. As some of you may remember I bought a 1973 Dodge Dart in October. It was a great car and I really enjoyed driving it around. It ran perfect, had cold A/C and was in great shape. So of course I sold It on Tuesday to the first person who looked at it.

Old Dart...

So there I was $1,000.00 richer then when I started out in October but now unfortunatly Dartl'ess. What would any GRM'er do but buy another one that doesn't run.

Here is my latest purchase. A 1972 Dodge Dart without a drivetrain...

The $10,000.00 question is what should I put under the hood. The easy button is a carburated 318. The less easy but better in my oppinion option would be a newer Magnum motor with fuel injection out of a 90's Ram or Dakota. Or should I go for the gusto and piss off the Mopar faithful with something a little more exotic? LS1 or RB25 anyone.....

I am leaning towards buying a wrecked Ram with a 5.2 Magnum and a 5-speed manual at the moment but I am easily swayed The Magnum motors are an LA decendent so the old-school motor mounts will fit as will the oilpan and pickup. I could look for a 5.9 Magnum but they never made those with a stick and getting the stock computer to play nice with out the flexplate tone ring is not easily overcome with out a stand alone. The 5.9 is also externally balanced which adds an extra layer of complication. I figure I can get a wrecked truck for around $1000.00 and then sell off quite abit to recoupe some cash.

I am also trying to do this whole thing for a budget. I am in the car $1850.00 as it sits plus $250.00 for shipping from Ft. Pierce. The car should get here the beginning of next week and then I can asses what all it needs other then the obvious.

What says the collective. Magnum Motor, Carbed LA, 5.3 Chevy, RB25 or 1JZ Twin turbo?

P.S. I don't have a thing for yellow cars it just happens that both were already that color....

Definitely LSx or one of the listed Japanese options.

Smart way to go is a wrecked magnum or LS power car/truck.

those leter model Magnum truck engines are pretty much junk if you want to add power to them... i'd be looking for either an old 440, or at the very least a 70's 360 of some sort as a foundation- they had steel cranks until 78, and some of the trucks still had the good old 340 heads on them..

another option if you want to keep it in the Mopar family is late model Hemi, but i'd swap in an LS engine of some flavor before one of those behemoths..

It will be worth more to a Mopar guy if you keep it Mopar but I think it will be cheaper and better to LS it.

Yes mopar guys are purists, you'll have a harder time selling it if you put something non mopar in it. That being said, they make carb intakes for magnum engines and the older electronic ignition distributors will work. That is actually your easiest option.

Go big or go home LOL

Needs more MS-equipped 5.7 hemi with a t76 turbo......

Turbo'd 1.8L Miata drivetrain & suspension swap?

Turbo slant six.

Clearly, the suspension and cage say drag. As such, a lot of motor is likely the answer.
I too recommend staying Mopar.
Even more so, I recommend trying a "no touch" flip.

What are your goals?
If it is to get in and get out quick then flip as a roller. Lets face it, the buyer of this is likely already a Mopar guy and may well already have the engine for it in mind.

Hemi 265ci straight six with triples, from the factory it ran high 13s stock

JohnRW1621 wrote: If it is to get in and get out quick then flip as a roller. Lets face it, the buyer of this is likely already a Mopar guy and may well already have the engine for it in mind.

Or on a stand ready to go. Or running nicely in a rotting 70s Imperial.....

On second thought, go buy a rotting 70s Imperial!

IIRC those cars have different K-members for Slant 6, Small Block, and Big Block. So what it is already set up for should probably be the deciding factor.

Another thought for flip is to give the buyer the ways and means.
As mentioned, a route would be to get a Dodge Truck donor. Buy that truck. Get a truck that drives, runs, tows.
List that your intentions were to swap out strong truck drivetain...but...a buyer from the Northern Rustlands could fly down to FL, buy truck and Dart; add U-haul trailer and get it all back north, easy.

Up north he sells clean Dodge truck body.

Don't put an LS or foreign swap in it unless you plan to keep it forever or part it out when you are done.

Bang for the buck, a 360 Magnum is the way to go. Should be able to find a clean used one for around $300. Need a passenger car oil pan and pickup for an LA360. Edelbrock RPM Air Gap intake for a Magnum, a Comp 264HR-12 cam and matching springs and you are running low 13's all day long with mild gears driving it back and forth from the track.

Conversion motor mounts are available for late model 5.7/6.1/6.4 Hemi, as well as big blocks. The fit very nicely with manual steering. They will require conversion headers that aren't cheap. A buddy was running a stroked 5.7 with the Edelbrock dual carb intake in his '68 Dart. Car was running 11.5's in the quarter driving it to the track. Had A/C in it too. Starting line workers had to ask him to stop running the A/C in the staging lanes on the humid days...

If going big block, a 383 or 400 B-motor fits better than the taller deck 440, but the 440 will work too.

For transmissions, the New Venture 5-speeds out of the Magnum donor trucks are massive. You will need to cut the trans tunnel out and cut up the trans crossmember. The crossmember is the torsion bar anchor. That will need to be reinforced if you are cutting it up. Same holds true for the OD automatic out of the trucks. A 727 is your easiest path there.

Looks like the car is running front drum brakes,or at least the drum master cylinder.

SRT-4

One of the many silly ideas running around in my head has been an SRT-4 powered Demon. I've seen the SRT-4 engine in RWD drive trains so it's doable, I just haven't researched how. This way you can do all of the hard work and document it for me, I won't even charge ya for the idea. Deal?

• Lee

Rob beat me to it. I would clean out the shed and put one of my 273's in there but that is just because I have a couple there. You can get the 360 Magnum for $500 or less all day long.A nice cam and good manifold and you have a nice street cruiser all day long.

Here is some good info about dropping one in. www.magnumswap.com

If you are trying to do a simple budget build, either build an old carbed small block, or find a wrecked truck with a magnum and do the EFI swap. The magnum will be cheaper, but more work, since the odds of finding an old 360 cheap thats not worn out are pretty slim.

LS swap is cool, but I'd imagine theres got to be some fabrication or expensive swap mounts that would kill the budget,

Big block would also be hard to find not worn out, and K-member needs to be new, headers are goofy. Money no object, I'd probably lean this way, because the car, properly done, would be worth the most money. Mopar guys being Mopar guys, you build a pretty big block Dart, and those fools will be tripping over their boners while digging for their wallets.

Streetwiseguy wrote: those fools will be tripping over their boners while digging for their wallets.

THAT is a serious quote...

Shame you have a tight budget, otherwise I would say "turbo diesel"....

Keep it all Dart. Swap in a 1.4 multiair from a wrecked 2013.

2.4L turbo + Dakota bell housing + Toyota R154 5-speed.

400+ft-lbs and 30mpg out of the boost, what's not to like?

I'd the 318/360 Magnum route. Note: The NV3500 used in the trucks was geared fairly short, 1st was nearly a compound low. May not be the best choice for a sporting application.

Ad long as you don't hack up the body doing the install I fail to see how running and driving with an LSx motor would make it worth less than it is worth with no motor. And a running LSx drive train with all the standalone issues worked out well enough to run in that car is going to be worth something, probably more than your parts investment.

So, swap in a truck 5.3L and NV3500, drop the axle ratio to low 3s to tighten up the gear spread and make up for the low gears in the truck trans, and drive the wheels off it. If a purists won't buy it later someone more practical would or worst case you pull the works back out and no one is the wiser.

That all said, the tbi injection parts used on Mopar trucks uses components that seem for the most part interchangeable with their GM counterparts. With the popularity of the GM truck tbi swaps and their ability to control gm overdrive automatic transmissions I think hooking up a gm efi computer to a dodge throttle body and distributor is certainly doable, and adding in the 4L60E using a powerglide adapter plate would vastly improve drivability.

No need to get all that crazy though. For under 5K you are down the road with a solid low 13 second ET car with plenty of room for more if you want to put the money into it.

Go find the lowest miles 360 magnum out of the yard you can find. Get an Air Gap Edelbrock, street avenger holley 670, and a cam and springs. That will put you about 2K for all of that installed. Pull the heads and have them checked out. If they are cracked, you can get a replacement set with the LA bolt pattern for better manifold availability.

Go find a good 904 and make sure it's in good shape and you have a 12.9 bracket racer all night long.

That is the exact route I would be following if I didn't already have all of the 340 parts in my garage already.

Don't mess with the stock EFI...It's great for stock but has a very low headroom for growth.

logdog wrote: Keep it all Dart. Swap in a 1.4 multiair from a wrecked 2013.

WORD. Crank the boost a little bit, breathing mods, 200+hp

BTW--there is a '70 Imperial (I don't think it's a New Yorker) in my neighborhood. I jog by it a couple times a week. It's tucked back in the carport of a cool (but neglected) 60's modern ranch. Car has been sitting forever. At some point, I'll take pics when no other cars are in the driveway.