Looking through my old squirreled away magazines, I found this.....
The rest of the article:
Looking through my old squirreled away magazines, I found this.....
The rest of the article:
I dare you to try. And post lots of pics.
And, IIRC, the FWD Charger was an L body. Not sure about the Spirit engine donor.
Mopar offered a kit to put a 318 into a Shadow. I think you can do it!!
Well, assuming you find a decent 2.5L turbo block and can do the work to put a DOHC Neon/Stratus top end on it, you're almost half-way there.
An early Dakota 4-cylinder bell housing + Toyota R154 5-speed + rear axle of choice.
A 2.4L DOHC motor would be an easier assembly to work with, but the RWD conversion parts aren't as cheap (2.4L Jeep Liberty/Compass manual bellhousing is required)
The rest is just fab work. Engine mounts, K-frame, transmission tunnel, rear suspension mounts (leveraging the stock trailing arm mounts would be fairly easy with a panhard rod or Watts link) turbo exhaust manifold, intake manifold, electrical system, cooling and fuel system, custom progamming the ECU/using MS and tuning it, etc.
i will just leave this here...
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/turbo-sundance-dyno-run/49117/page1/
That car could be almost recreated for challenge money..
And I have less than Challenge money in this..
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/how-much-box-in-my-flare/33256/page3/
(yeah, yeah.. I will get some work done on it soon enough.)
What's the date on that magazine? It can't be that old, for obvious reasons, but we've come a long way. Looking at the ads, everybody has a fax number; nobody has a toll-free number; nobody has a website (Arias pistons does have email), and you're invited to send money to get a printed catalog in the mail. Wow.
That has to be late 90s early 00s. Pretty sure the RWD car was before the TIII FWD race car that ran 9s.
Late 1997.
That's awesome. I'd so do that to my CSX.
turboswede wrote: 7mgte+ Toyota R154 5-speed + rear axle of choice.
Fixed. 
DaewooOfDeath wrote:turboswede wrote: 7mgte+ Toyota R154 5-speed + rear axle of choice.Fixed.
I'm not sure you have. Can you build a 7MGTE for a few hundred dollars and produce similar, yet reliable, power numbers? Most I've seen are trailer queens that have had dump truck loads of money thrown at them or are complete basket cases.
Also, the motor is too long to fit in the engine bay, requiring more fab work to build a new firewall or risk having audi-levels of nose weight.
DaewooOfDeath wrote:turboswede wrote: 7mgte+ Toyota R154 5-speed + rear axle of choice.Fixed.
Blah. I was thinking, since I have the time, 2.4, boost, MA5, an a Liberty bell all stuffed in a 98-03 Dakota.........
m4ff3w wrote:
Wow! One of the issues with a Green Brick (Ehrenberg's '69 Valiant) article, to boot! Nice.
I'd like to see a L-body RWD conversion done well. Or at least enthusiastically.
Oh.. and I ain't a big fan of the TD forum..
but yeah.. Here is another RWD Shelby Charger..
powered by a GM 3.8 Supercharged engine.. and it has IRS..
http://www.turbododge.com/forums/f11/f68/241508-my-rear-drive-87-shelby-charger.html
That has to be late 90s early 00s. Pretty sure the RWD car was before the TIII FWD race car that ran 9s.
You mean 8s.. it ran 9s as a SOHC 8valve setup, iirc.
I think it's pretty cool, as long as you dont do it for traction reasons. Because if you do, you better run 7s. 
ronholm wrote: Oh.. and I ain't a big fan of the TD forum.. but yeah.. Here is another RWD Shelby Charger.. powered by a GM 3.8 Supercharged engine.. and it has IRS.. http://www.turbododge.com/forums/f11/f68/241508-my-rear-drive-87-shelby-charger.html
i saw that car at the Car Craft Summer Nats in St Paul about a month ago.. everyone just walked right past it, but i just had to give it a good looking at..
Since shelby died, anything shelby branded around me is going for more, an extra $1k atleast.
There was another 2-door RWD converted L-body in MA sometime in the last couple years. Was a low buck V8 conversion. Wasn't a Shelby based one. Can't remember if it was a Turismo or a 4-headlight Charger.
turboswede wrote:DaewooOfDeath wrote:I'm not sure you have. Can you build a 7MGTE for a few hundred dollars and produce similar, yet reliable, power numbers? Most I've seen are trailer queens that have had dump truck loads of money thrown at them or are complete basket cases. Also, the motor is too long to fit in the engine bay, requiring more fab work to build a new firewall or risk having audi-levels of nose weight.turboswede wrote: 7mgte+ Toyota R154 5-speed + rear axle of choice.Fixed.
Tighten the headbolts (yes, really) and spend $10 on a mechanical boost controller. That's 300 hp and 350lb/ft with pretty much stock reliability. If the article is any guide, he's going to be moving the firewall in any case.
MKIII Supra stuff is cheap and you could do the entire project with one donor as I describe.
Ranger50 wrote:DaewooOfDeath wrote:Blah. I was thinking, since I have the time, 2.4, boost, MA5, an a Liberty bell all stuffed in a 98-03 Dakota.........turboswede wrote: 7mgte+ Toyota R154 5-speed + rear axle of choice.Fixed.
Then go for it! Sounds awesome.
DrBoost wrote: Mopar offered a kit to put a 318 into a Shadow. I think you can do it!!
They did? I know there were a few custom K-members floating around, but I didn't know there was an entire kit!
Sky_Render wrote:DrBoost wrote: Mopar offered a kit to put a 318 into a Shadow. I think you can do it!!They did? I know there were a few custom K-members floating around, but I didn't know there was an entire kit!
Yes there was a mopar kit to put a small block in the charger/horizon. A guy I knew in southern Iowa had one that he built in the early 90's. Was a bad street car.
chandlerGTi wrote:Sky_Render wrote:Yes there was a mopar kit to put a small block in the charger/horizon. A guy I knew in southern Iowa had one that he built in the early 90's. Was a bad street car.DrBoost wrote: Mopar offered a kit to put a 318 into a Shadow. I think you can do it!!They did? I know there were a few custom K-members floating around, but I didn't know there was an entire kit!
the "kit" was only the stuff from the firewall forward- you were on your own from the bellhousing back.. which made me wonder who would buy such a kit, since making some motor mounts would be nothing for someone that can build their own rwd chassis..
The k-member was most of the kit...
It was pretty damn fab-intensive. The kits themselves are not even worth all that much, because if you have the fab skill/tools to build a car WITH the kit, you're 80% of the way to building it WITHOUT the kit anyway. 
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