The Green Machine

 
 
 

When I bought this car in '93, I envisioned a quick handling smallblock car with a six-speed and power everything. It's amazing how things can change. It wasn't long before I became obsessed with the 440 Dart idea and it wasnt much longer that I realized how hard it was to find parts and information about building one. So, BigBlockDart.Com was born. The site was built along with the car, and it's become quite a mass of info on bigblock A-bodies. Hopefully, the car AND the site will last for years to come.

 

The car was originally a '69 Swinger with a slant 6 and 38000 original miles. Unfortunately, it had sat under a bunch of pines for years, and once the resto was started, I discovered quite a few "rusty" areas. It also had been hit hard on the driver side long ago, and had no less than three inches of filler on the quarter. The door jamb was also pushed in over an inch, which took some creative pulling and hamering to fix.

 

The roof, trunklid and passenger door are all that's left of the original skin. The sheetmetal came from YearOne, while the fiberglass fenders and hood are race-weight(read thin) items which I found used in fair shape. The bumpers are still steel, which I felt was a must for street duty.

 

The paint is '96 Neon Nitro Yellow, and during assembly any new parts available were used including weatherstripping, door handles, and mirrors. All glass and molding is original. Front suspension uses poly-graphite bushings, 383 resto torsion bars, manual disks from a '73 Dart, and a 1.125" sway bar. I didn't get into playing with various shocks yet.

 

The interior is mostly stock, save for the dash and '96 Neon buckets. A new stock headliner, carpet, and front armrests were the only items that were replaced. The shifter is a Hurst Quarter Stick. The dash was home-made by making a sheetmetal box and a flat panel of 1/8" aluminum with Auto Meter Performance Series gauges. The heater, hazard, headlights, and wiper controls are all the stock items grouped together on the right side. In the future, a home-made console will hold air/fuel ratio gauges, A/C controls, and stereo.

 

This pic is kinda dark, but all the rear detail pics can be found elsewhere on this site. The rear is a stock 8 3/4 A-body with Richmond 4.10's and a sure grip. Moser axles with B-body drums round out the rear. The springs were moved in 4.25" on each side, and the wheel wells were moved in to the frame. Tires are MT Sportsman Pro's, 28 x 12.5 on 15 x 10 wheels with 7.5" backspacing. SS springs, MP shocks, and a pinion snubber finish the back off. Traction isn't too bad on the street, but slicks would be a definite need for a strip run. The exhaust shown here has been replaced with side exit dual 3" aluminized pipe.

 

The 440 is .030 over with a steel crank, Manley rods, SRP 10.75:1 forged pistons with Total Seal rings. Piston clearance was increased a bit to allow for the addition of a 250 horse nitrous system in the future. The heads are pocket ported 906's with bronze guides, 2.14 and 1.88 stainless valves and MP dual springs. The chambers are polished and equalized to 86 cc's to yield a static compression of 10.18:1 -- I found this to be the absolute maximum with pump gas here. I imagine theres a chance I still have some detonation, but everything is working well and I haven't found any signs of damage yet. A custom Crower cam has .531" lift and 239 int. dur. and 249 exh. dur. @ .050 lift. A Weiand dual plane intake and Holley carb sit on top. An 850 mech. sec. seems to have a bit more response, but I currently have a 750 vac. sec. which is much smoother at stop signs. It all goes out through Schumacher tri-y headers and 3" side exit exhaust with 29" long OEM-style truck mufflers. A 727 was rebuilt using a B&M transkit, Cheetah reverse manual valve body and a TCI 10" converter.

 
 

I have no performance figures to date, as I dont plan on running it this year. To pass tech, I'd need to invest a few more dollars, so perhaps next year I'll make it legal, along with upgrades such as the nitrous system. Currently, most comparable cars I've seen are running mid-11's, So I'd expect similar numbers. Except for the shortblock, all the work done to this car was done by myself, mostly in the driveway. Without a doubt, doing all this work myself proved to be the most rewarding experience I've ever had.

Feel free to write with any questions, and Thanks for stopping by.

 

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