440-Swapped '68 Dart Gets Engine Bay Makeover! | Roadkill Garage

I told you I could talk this guy out of this car. And you did. Yep. And you know what? We have something in common, Fryrigger. What? Maybe more than one thing. We both love 68 darts. Oh, absolutely. And big block Mopars in 440 cubic inch size. It has everything we love, all in one tidy little patinaed package. I know. It's a beauty. If you haven't seen prior episodes of Roadkill Garage that feature this car, here's what went down. Steve and I were driving the Crusher Impala right through the mountains here. And we pulled over to reset some GoPros and stuff. And dude runs up and he's like, hey, I've got a 440 dart. You can come thrash in the dirt on my property. And we're like, can we also? How can you say no to that? Yeah. We're like, can we thrash the Crusher Impala, too? They're like, yeah. And so we came over here. And sure enough, this guy Dusty's got his 440 dart. And he and I were doing donuts in it. And before we even finished the donuts, I'm in the car. And I tell the guy, you need to sell me this car, or I need to buy this, or how much, or whatever. So are you selling me it? It's the Wayback Machine 42. It is. That is the key to the whole thing. Back when I was a staffer on Hot Rod magazine, this is circa 1994, 95, I built a really well-known project vehicle, which was a 68 dart with a big block known as the Cheap Thrills Dart. I guess that put my name on the map for butchering stuff with, like, hose clamp transmounts and stuff like that. And this car reminded me of it so much. This was a pure nostalgia play. Here's the skinny. It's got a swapped-in 440 big block, as well as a 727 automatic and an 8 and 3 quarter rear end that's reported to have 456 gears in the thing. It seems to run pretty good. It's got a Mopar M1 single-plane intake, aftermarket carburetor, air cleaner, MSD ignition, stuff like that. I'm pretty sure the charging system doesn't work. I know that the exhaust system has been cut off the thing, and I suspect it probably overheats on the highway, especially with those gears if we drive it too fast. So what we're going to do right now is try and fix those things, and then our goal is to drive it from here in Onyx, California, all the way back to Steve's place north of Bakersfield. Is it Onyx? That's close enough. I'm going to do that. All right. First up, we have an exhaust system, and we're going to install it. Cheers. You know what? We're going to make this luxurious with actual mufflers. I lubed that, so don't put it in the dirt. I know, David. It's not my first day. On the job. He always mansplains me. You think this is safe? Should I put it in neutral so it rolls up as it jacks, or should we just let it slide off the key member? It's not. I have it hooked. That's why I keep checking it. Oh, OK. Because I was way ahead of you on that. Now I apologize. Seriously. If this came off, it can go on, right? Whoa. Hey, Steve. It just went right on. Yeah, I thought so. Yep, OK. That's good enough? We got at least 3 quarters now. Oh, OK. Ah, that's loud. We got the exhaust on. We got all the fluids checked. Ready for donuts. Try it out. I've never even driven this car. Our steering is good. Yeah. Got an evil drive shaft shake. Yeah. The rear shocks on the car are completely blown out. Totally. You see it went straight to 4,500. The converter is loose. Yeah. I can tell. I really felt it. It's not fast either. No, let's see what it does from a dig. OK. It's pretty gutless. It runs about like I would expect it to run, to be honest with you. Yeah. I mean, just compare this with the crop duster and those burnouts for distance. Oh, come on. I have to admit, I'm surprised it's as doggy as it is. Really? With that gear and that converter, I figured it would at least annihilate tires. But it doesn't. I think the converter is probably really close to the horsepower peak. It's 4,500 on the stall speed. Right, that's what I mean. And the horsepower peak's probably 5,000. Yeah. It might be 4,800. It might be. This is among the worst driveshaft vibrations I've ever had. Yeah, it's pretty horrific. It's not as bad as when we made our own driveshaft for the crop duster. That was even worse. You're right. Yeah. I thought that was going to be perfectly good. It wasn't. It would suck to pitch the driveshaft out the rear end of this car. It would. It's pretty comfortable, though. Oh, it's a dart. I know. Like, the seating position is ideal. I know, it's a dart. And actually, I must admit that the bucket seat dart is actually superior to the bench. Oh, yeah. I agree. Wow. I did not think they were stopping. No. I think we might have to trailer this. Is it a driveshaft? Yeah. And fail. The dart ends up being a lot better than expected in some ways and worse than others. And the worst way is that the driveshaft is wrecked. It was vibrating really bad when we were on the highway, and doing burnouts and stuff. I crawled under it. The front U-joint is falling apart. So instead of driving it the 50 miles back to Steve's place on a windy mountain road, we're going to go ahead and trailer it. And when we get back there, we will fix that and more. So this is going to shock you about what we're going to be doing to this car in this episode, because it's not really, like, making it go faster or being better, even though it's sort of a pooch. Nope. This is going to be all about cosmetics. I've said a million times I don't care about paint and everything. But I like stuff to be mechanically clean. And this isn't. And to be honest, this paint in the engine compartment is pretty unsightly. Well, thank you, Freiberger, because I didn't want to say anything, because, you know, I didn't want to hit, like, a nerve or, you know, upset you. But I didn't know if I could live with the singed and bay I can't. No. So the plan here is take the 440 and the transmission completely out, clear up all of this wiring and junk and weird cooling system and ugly battery and all of that. Oh, it is ugly. And then, yes, Steve is going to paint the engine compartment in the original Dodge Dart bronze color. I can't wait for the improvement. It's going to be massive. Oh, yeah. Off with the hood. OK. Steve always likes to put these on the roof of the car, and I hate that. I don't. Because then it dents it. Only in a GM car. Oh. That's it. I have never done that on one of my cars. Normally, you don't take the grill out when you're pulling the engine out of your Dodge Dart. But since the radiator core support is all cut away for this installation of the radiator that I don't necessarily approve of, it's going to make removing the engine super easy. We're going to take it out with the transmission because we can pull it forward and right through. It's going to be a gaping hole in the maw of our Dart. I really don't like the whole cooling system arrangement. The radiator is mounted where the core support's supposed to be, and that's all been cut out, and the radiator butchered in. Now, this radiator has no drain caulk, and it has no fill. So they added this header tank, which by the routing of this hose, I don't know how coolant can flow in here or how air can escape to make room for coolant. So I'm going to get rid of the whole mess and replace it with something a little more conventional. Can I remind you that I'm wearing canvas shoes? I'm wearing sandals, although I don't like the feeling of antifreeze between my toes. It may seem reckless to be directly underneath the radiator while cutting the hose, OK? That wasn't supposed to happen like that. Can I get a little privacy here, man? Dude, you ever been to a baseball game before? Here's a common roadkill garage trick not everybody knows. You know when you've got a spark plug wire and it's stuck onto the spark plug, like the rubber sticks to the porcelain, the thing's snapped on too hard, and it's in a place where you can't get your fingers on it to actually pull it off. So you grab the wire up here, and it pulls the terminal out of the boot, and you end up buying a new set of wires. Well, here's the trick. Your standard flat blade screwdriver, you want to stick it in here, get it right behind that boot, pry against the header, and there you go. Done. Ha-ha. Ah, this whole thing is so butch. Oh, it's coming out. It's pouring out of the ... Come on, hold it like this. Haven't you ever been to a baseball game? OK, let's walk this thing out of here before we ... I thought you would just grab it. It's like Lake Erie down there. Buh-bye. I think I got it. Today, 4,000 Audis, Porsches, and Bentleys are burning out of control and floating on an abandoned ship in the Atlantic Ocean. Meanwhile, we're recycling a Dodge Dart. Yeah, I think it's probably more eco-friendly because this thing's been here on Earth for 50 years, and it still hasn't burst into flames once. Not once. No. Maybe later. Well, yeah. We still have time. We're going to pull the 440, then clean this whole thing up. I guess we have to pressure wash the engine, undo the hideous paint in the engine compartment. It's like good things are happening. There we go. That was the pop. That's it. OK. OK. You know what I have to say right now? It's kind of nice not having the whole radiator core support. The worst part of the car is now the best part of the car, meaning the cutout core support, which I actually hate. You know, in the 80s, I would have never bought this car under any circumstances because of that. That would have just been unheard of levels of butchery. Yeah. Look at that. Access. Easy as pie. I'm also surprised how level it's hanging. Yeah, the level was really good. OK, the 440 has an actual casting date right on the side of it, as well as a casting number. Oh, wow. That came off good. All right. That says 76. That explains why it's got the water pump with the outlet on the passenger side. And you know what else that means? This is probably yet another Motorhome 440. Man, the legend of the Motorhome 440 continues. This thing right here is a transmission blow shield. It's like a carbon fiber thing made by CSR that goes on. And if the transmission explodes, then it keeps the parts from flying through the floor and cutting your foot off. And that's actually a very real problem with the torque flight. But we're going to remove it because this thing is too gutless to worry about it and because this is in the way of everything else. Once I get this off, then we're going to roll it all outside and pressure wash it. Now that David's got the whole engine bay cleaned up really nice, what I'm going to do is get it ready for paint. Now, this isn't a full restoration. It's just kind of a fix up. And I'm going to scuff it with 320 grit sandpaper. I'm going to use the DA sander in places where I can get to it. We'll finish it up by hand. David's going to remove a couple of more items. Maybe the windshield wiper motor and the master cylinder and stuff. Then we'll go ahead and prime and paint it. That's all there is to it. It's too late in the evening to start the painting process on the Dart. And so we're going to leave that till tomorrow. We're going to start working on the engine. Normally, when I build an engine, I'm really picky about like not painting over gaskets and making sure all the bolts are black and not painted. This we're just going to spray can rebuild a full on fog this thing. First, we're going to take the transmission off of it. Then it's going to just be hemi orange as long as we got sunlight. Normally, when I paint an engine, I use automotive urethane and I completely prep it out like perfectly. But this is just kind of a rattle can rebuild to make it a little bit better. I'm going to hit it with some primer first and then we'll shoot it with some hemi orange VHT, which is actually pretty good rattle can paint. So I guess we're going to let this engine dry. And in the morning, we're going to deal with the Dart again. I have a new plan that's going to make the Dart even more gooder. Well, I have my suspicions, Freiberger. Yeah, and it's going to be more work for you. Yeah, that's what I figured. That's what we do here on Roadkill Garage. See you in the morning. We got the Dart inside. Steve already started detailing the engine. Spray can job came out. OK, it looks a lot better than it did. Yeah. And now I'm going to install this fuel pump after the fuel pump. Are you ready to drop it in? Yeah. It's all detailed up. Instead of rolling the hoist to the car, how about we roll the car to the engine? It's less work because we're already standing here. You think it's got to go that way? Yes. Yes. So we're going to back up and steer. Oh, no, don't do that. What happened? You just shot power. Stop. I said don't do that. I didn't know what you were talking about. Oh, no. You shot power steering fluid everywhere on the brand new paint. I forgot that we disconnected the power steering hoses. So we have open fittings. And when you turn the steering box, it pukes out hydraulic fluid, which is basically ATF. What you're supposed to do is take an extra piece of hose and loop the outlet to the inlet. That way it just recirculates. Well, that was that was pretty bad. Uncontrolled discharge. Yes. It's time for a Steve Dulcich top tip. Now, when you disconnect the power steering lines from your power steering pump, you have an open pressure port and an open return port. And no matter which way you turn the steering wheel, you're going to squirt a bunch of transmission fluid or power steering fluid, if you will, right out. So you can take an ordinary piece of hose, three eighths in this case, and you just loop from one fitting to the other fitting, creating an infinite loop. It's like a microcosm of the whole solar system. It goes around and around forever. So that's done. We will never have to worry about spilling any fluid. OK, push, push, push. There we go. Wow. OK, I think down more. There it's in. The headers that came with this car are a shorty try. Why, from a company called Schumacher Creative Services, they also make the mounts to put the 440 onto the Slant 6K member in this car. That company went out of business and recently came back. I haven't dealt with them since they came back. But it's like awesome parts for Mopar engine swaps. I'm hoping their header installs easily and it's not. So the question is, will it come up from the bottom? I think so. I think it might. Now I got it trapped in here. Now, can we jack the car up? I'm going to grab some jack stands, Freiburger. Nope, it's not going to get past that steering column from here. It's hitting the firewall. I'll jack the engine up by the front corner on the driver's side. OK, there. OK. Well, are you going to drop it in from the top? Easily. Oh, that was cake. Yeah. OK, time for the starter motor. Instead of using the stock heavy old style starter, I've got this late model one. The application here is a 95 Dodge truck with a 5.9 engine. And it's a permanent magnet style, so it's way lighter and actually has more turning torque than the factory unit. Being more compact is way better when you have headers because it's easier to fit in there. And hopefully it'll fit with our combination. No problem there, David. Cool. Now all we're doing is just the little stuff that's on the list. You know, this just annoying things that take time. Accessory drive plugs, plug wires, battery tray, breather, throttle cable, stuff like that. It's going to take us forever. But fortunately, through the power of editing, you will not have to sit through it. I, however, am going to have to live all of this. What I have here is a rebuilt drive shaft. We took it to Mike at Driveline Specialties and he styled it out like he always does. And it's a simple install. Having the core support cut out of the car makes it super convenient to work on. Unfortunately, it gives us nothing to mount the radiator to. So what I'm going to do is just a simple solution. A piece of angle iron will go right down in here and I'll drill that out and mount it to this rail on the radiator. And I'll do likewise at the top. And the radiator will be mounted up solid. Simple solutions are usually the best. Even though the car had an electric fan before, we're going to switch to a mechanical fan. Number one, because it fits. And number two, because it's just completely trouble free. I had just put this carburetor on to mock up the fuel line and stuff like that. But unfortunately, we're not going to use it. This thing just glugs fuel and I don't have time to fix it. Honestly, I would have fixed it if we weren't on a TV deadline. But instead, we're going straight to the 750 Brawler. Wait for it. That is our new 750 Brawler. The least expensive 750 double pumper that I could get at Summer Racing. Oh, man, that fan's really far from the radiator. We didn't want that stubby clutch, but it's what we had. And of course, you'd also want to shroud all that stuff. You wouldn't want this sticking up like this. It's an easy bolt on change later. Right now, it looks great for TV. That's all that matters. All right, I'm super annoyed right now. We've been waiting for the very last thing, which is an aftermarket distributor to put in here, because I didn't want to have to put an MSD box or a control box, partially because it's ugly, partially because we don't have time to deal with the wiring. So I ordered this aftermarket distributor that's supposed to be a ready to run and it's a Pertronix. And it does say on the ad for this that you might have to grind a cylinder head to make it fit. I assumed that meant with an aftermarket cylinder head. But in truth, you have to grind a stock iron head. I also didn't pay enough attention to realize that it uses a Chevy type distributor cap. So it's larger around and taller, meaning that it's going to hit both our standpipe over here and the cylinder head and our fuel line. And I'm going to have to redo the spark plug wires. So bottom line is we're not using this because I'm not going to grind my cylinder head, move that pipe, redo the spark plug wires and change the fuel line. Unfortunately, that means we have to figure out how to make another distributor work, because the one that we took out of this engine was garbage. So here comes another couple of hours of production time. It turned out that our aftermarket distributor doesn't actually fit in the engine that it's intended to go in. So I've got this old point style distributor. I'm going to take it apart, clean it, set the gap, and it'll be ready to run. I have the distributor cleaned up and rebuilt. I'm going to hand this off to Fryburger and he's going to install it. 50 year old parts from the diesel shed for the win. This is vintage. See that little port right there with a little door? Pull it down. That's for oiling your distributor. Part of your normal lubrication strategy in 1958. Yeah, there we go. Got it. Man, having the bumper on it makes a world of difference, even though it's dented. I just don't care. Do you remember how it was when we first got it with that radiator hanging down and the dangling transcooler and no bumper? Yeah. It looked all... Yeah, it was all screwed up. Yeah. This is way better. Oh, it's got huge exhaust leaks. Why? I don't know. OK. Thumbs up, not rev it more. I thought you were doing more RPM. No, it was maxed out there. That's 37 degrees of timing. But I have a feeling there's so much swing in this distributor, it's not going to idle happy. We haven't tuned the idle circuit at all. Well, bottom line, this thing runs. We're going to get it all tuned up. We'll have to figure out the timing, which is kind of a problem with the stock distributor. I have to set our new carburetor and I think pretty soon we'll be doing burnouts. But look at it. The beauty is the key in this episode. It went down the hole of death. What did, the bolt? No, the half-inch socket. Oh. We would probably need a baby light to spot it in there. Did you get it? Yeah. Great. Looks good. The question is, run better? I'm going to wager and say yes. It's perfectly good. Yeah, it's actually really functional. Nice work, Dulcich. Nice work, carburetor. Yeah, that's night and day. That's night and day. This transmission's not awesome, but it's OK. It's just a stock transmission, I think. Yeah. We never checked the fluid, did we? No. But this converter came out of a running car. Yeah. Way better. One wheel peel or does it have limited slip? Ooh, not bad. Yeah, I wouldn't do that before. Man, we made it look better and run better. Way faster. Roadkill Garage win. And it looks a lot better, too. Yep. Let's burn rubber again. Oh, man, she's still spinning in the dry burner. Worthy of being called a 440 Dart. Yeah, it is. You'll notice I didn't do the now customary donuts in the dirt because I didn't want to ruin our engine compartment. Yeah. And it's running perfectly cool. Remember before, it was up at 195 and a plus because it had that thermostat in it? And that crappy radiator, too. And now it's running at 140 degrees. Woo! Yeah! This is finally a legitimate 440 Dart. Yeah.