74 Dodge Challenger, Fuel Injected 500, 4L80E

[faridv8]

I cut and pasted this from another board, so the verb "tense" may not be right, but bear with me.


I originally started out with a 70 Plymouth duster and a 440 back in 97. I back halved that car with ladder bars and coil-overs and had plans of putting it on the street. Hence the name, "Tubbed440"*. Well, as luck would have it, I was making pass # 10 on it one night for some shakedowns. This was the 10th pass the car EVER made. It was the night of a lunar eclipse in '98. All of my buddies had bad luck, one caught fire in the staging lanes, the other shelled his rear in the water box - and I figured I'd make one more pass for the night. Well, I found a problem:eek:. When I left the line on the footbrake, the rod pulled out of the master cylinder and I didn't have any brakes at the other end. 150 yards of swamp and 5 trees later, we know how that one ended.

Fast forward to 99. I tub another duster. This one actually makes it to the street in 2001 or so. I actually had the car long enough to buy one of Bills front suspensions under it and drive it on the street for a while! Well, as luck would have it, one night in 04, the throttle stuck during some "test runs" out on the road. I shifted into high gear and let off and was like "oh sh*t!!!!". Curve comes up and I have skinnies on the front and 18.50 wide mickeys on the back with an auburn unit. Long story short, I was able to do some crash R+D for Bill and his alterKtion. Not what I was hoping for. I do think it helped Bill some though.

So, by that time, I figure it's time to try another body style, maybe "A" bodies are just not my bag. This time, in 2004, I buy a 74 Challenger for 2200. Complete from head to tail, throw some new gas in and a battery and hear it run. No sooner than I got it home and heard it run, I pulled the 360 and 727 and had it SOLD! Now begins the saga that I call "The Car that will Never run". Enjoy the next couple of posts/pages.

This is what she looked like when I got her home. It's a 74 Rallye car....so it had the hood, instrument cluster, center console and originally came with a 318. It was rough, but all there. Hello November of 2004, . These were taken the night I got it home.





These were taken after I got it in the Garage.


















I had originally decided to take the engine, trans and rear that had been in my two previous dusters and put in this car. Lots of things have changed since then. I sold the shortblock, kept the heads (Eddy RPMS) and built a 500 inch stroker. Later on downt he road, I sold the rear, narrowed another dana (the other one was too short) and sold the 727 and decided to go with a 4L80E trans instead. I wanted over drive and power handling capability with minimal cost. (Let me clue you in, there IS NO CHEAP WAY TO PUT OVERDRIVE BEHIND A 800 HP, NITROUSED big block).

Engine with eddies and some build pics... H-beam rods, 4130 stroker crank (4.150) billet steel main caps (should have held out for the aluminum ones) Ross pistons zero decked.











Here's how much room I would have had with the eddies, Team G and a dominator under the stock Rallye hood.



Not much room for sure.

I then changed the plan and decided to go fuel injected to try and gain some hood clearance and drivability. I picked up a holley commander 950 pro from a dude for cheap. Sold the intake, fuel rails and throttle body (it was from a kit for a BBC) and kept the brain and harness. The visions of power tour started dancing though my head, .



More to come.

[faridv8]

Hasta acà todo bien... luego el creador de esta bestia se fue un poco al carajo.. aca va la restauracion del casco:

Well, onto some sheet metal work. Both quarters were shot. I got some re-pops from Goodmark and they fit quite well.

















Some more random work here and there.....







Drivers door had been hit pretty hard before I got it and they used 2 gallons of bondo...



......and then I decided to make more room for tires.

[faridv8]

JAULITA:

So every street car has to have ladder bars, coil overs and an AlterKtion, right? Bent the cage myself out of mild steel. Still not finished with it yet though. I need to install the a pillar bars and couple more.











Rear suspension. I drew up a model of it in Inventor. I'm currently making a custom watts link for the rear. I don't really have enough room for the rear to swing side to side.....those 325/50 MT DR's take up lots of room. I decided to go with a 15x10 Boyd Coddington smoothie II on the rear and 15x6 on the front.







None of this is finish welded - it's just tacked in at the moment.

Bill's front suspension.





Some pics of the stance and ground clearance.











I have since cut the collector flanges off and otped for some collector slip ons that go to 3.5 inch oval tubing. That runs to a pair of oval inlet, oval outlet spintechs.

[faridv8]

Some more fit check pics of the front suspension, headers and what not. I'm reverse cooling it with a Meziere remote pump.







( I realized after I took the pics that I have the driver's side coolant hose going to the outlet instead of the inlet.... LOL)

Lots of room to move the engine back. When I get my bellhousing for the 4L80, I'll move the engine back a little.



Random shot from the rear after a coat of flat black to keep it from rusting after some sandblasting.



Random header shot after I first put them in. I was pretty happy.

[faridv8]

So, now that we have all the old stuff out of the way, onto the newer stuff. By now you know that this car will have a 500 stroker, fuel injection, a 4L80E trans, roll cage, big rear tires, alterKtion, and what not. Now comes the fun part. I decided to sell the heads and buy some Victors....













They are obviously not out of the box type heads.... They need some clean up, valve job, and general set up. Not to mention some porting

Not many companies out there make fuel injection for the BBM - and my hood clearance is at a premium becuase I want to keep the factory style hood. I sold the steel version and picked up a fiberglass replica from VFN. Damn nice hood for sure. It weighs in at like 20 lbs vs. the 150 of the stock hood. All single 4bbl throttle bodies that flow the amount of air that I will need are in a 4500 flange. SHow me a 4500 flange intake that will fit under that hood with an air cleaner and throttle body......right ....

I decided to make my own.













I'm going to make a sheet metal intake with a removable top and front. The idea is to run two LS1 throttle bodies on the front, or two 4bbl TB's on the top. I can change between the two later if I want...(or at least that's the idea) I also started honing my aluminum welding skills.. This was like the 1st time I had tried this with the TIG. Granted, this was not my first weld, but this is where I ended up after about 2 hours of trying.

[faridv8]

Here's some models of the semi-finished product.








So far I have made the two lower flanges. I hope to have the plenum made in a couple of days from now.

[faridv8]

Here's a couple of pics I took of it in it's current state. I have moved (job change) from NC to VA in April of 08 and I finally got the car here in July or 08. Not much been done to the old girl. I had rolled it out of the garage to clean up and organize to get ready for some more fab work this year.







Please forgive me if I have left something out. Obviously, this has taken about 4 years, two job changes and a marriage (got married in 06) and it's hard to remember everything in detail. As you can see, it's far from finished, so check back regularly and I should have some updates.

Ran into a slight problem last night. Brake seem to be a little too big for the rim and the spindle. (Wilwood Integra 6R) I'm currently looking into other options, like Viper Brake calipers, different uprights, etc. I'll try and post up as I get along a little further on this. Everyone that knows me (from way back) knows that I don't need to skimp on BRAKES. ::





Ordered my dry sump pump yesterday, should be here either Friday or Monday. It's a 4 stage unit, 3 scavenge and 1 pressure. I've had this tank for a while now, but I think I'm going to sell it and try and get a 3 gallon. This one holds (*I think) 4.5 or 5 gallons. I've got enough fittings, line and what not to plumb it all up, all except for the filters that go on the lines in the pan.



Material should be here on Friday for the intake and oil pan fabrication. I still need to make the die mold for the runners, but I'll get there eventually. I think (if the material comes in like it should) I'm going to concentrate on the oil pan, pump mounts and what not this weekend. If I get more done than I thought, then I'll start making injector bungs and the intake plenum

[faridv8]

Made some injector bungs the other day and made some modifications to the intake manifold plates. Now I need to find someone with a metal shear and I'll be set to make the plenum.



You can't hardly tell, but I changed the port floor of the adapter to be 10 degrees. I also added a .100" deep x .060 cut around the mouth of the port to help with alignment of the intake runners during assembly. Hopefully more progress to come next week.



I know you guys are probably tired of seeing models, but I finalized the design today. This one is a little taller than the one I had previously made. I corrected the intake port mounting angle (had it wrong on the other one) and made a couple subtle changes here and there.



This arrived in the mail today...... 105mm of love.



I also heard back from Quick Time and they say that the 4L80E to BBM bell housing will be ready by the end of next week - so I should have some pics of that up some time soon.

[faridv8]

Well, I have been busy over the past couple of months, just have not had the time to mess with the car much, but here is a little progress. I'm going to cut and paste from another board that I have been keeping my build current on.

Well, there is now a comercially available bell housing for Big block mopars to a GM 4L80E. I have the first one at this point. I worked with Ross McCombs at Quicktime to get this application sorted - and it looks like we have a winner.



Here's the trans before it goes into surgery.





Here's what it looks like prepped for the new bell housing. It takes a little time and work, but the neater of a job you do, the better the end product.



In securing the bell to the pump, you'll need a 70mm long (I think that's what they are) set of bolts to get it all fitted up. You'll also need to use some silicone around the bolts to help seal it up, and I also used some TH350 pump washers on the bolts. I should have some pics of that process up before too long. Those who run the JW bell know what I'm talking about for sure.





The headers in the pics are TTI's on Victor heads - this clears rather well. You may have to do some tweeking of the right hand header collector to get good clearance for the trans pan, but a good exhaust guy could make the pipe fit there with no modifications.

[faridv8]

You'll also have to purchase a flywheel for this application from Quicktime - just bolts right up.




ANother cut and paste. I started on this mold about two months ago. LOL

Starting working on the die for the intake runners a couple months ago. This is just 1/2 of the completed project. Even after I make the form, I'll have to make another die to fit inside to complete the process. I'll have to hand blend and polish this some too. If I would have taken a little more time machining it, I wouldn't have to polish it.





Well, that mold half in the picture above is machined wrong. The draft angle is 5 degrees instead of 10. Not sure how I messed that up, but I did. At this point, the only thing keeping me from putting the engine in the car and fitting the trans is this damn intake. I have to use the engine as a welding jig. So, hopefully, before the end of December, I can have this done and the engine/trans in the car. I don't think I'll be hearing it run by Christmas as I had planned.

Ok, so I flipped the old mold half over and machined on the other side to help save material. I need to make the insert for the mold that will hold the sheet metal in place so it can be pressed in and "die formed". I hope this works, if it doesn't I'll have to back up and punt.






So, I finished the mold today. I'll start on the inner die tomorrow morning - and should have it done by the evening.

I did some hand blending in a hurry. I'll probably go back and do some more as this is kinda "eh". It's slick to the touch, but not all the radii are blended like I want. It will work either way - it'll just look prettier.