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Big Block Dart Ride of the Month Winners

206K views 53 replies 20 participants last post by  Viarrah 
#1 · (Edited)
July 2011 winner is Deepocket's 1969 Dart....






Deepocket's Story
Wow! Short will be tough, but here goes. i bought the car totally stock with a 273ci engine. I never test drove it or had him start it. I payed him $20.00 to drive it to the shop. I bought it to race and retire it to street when I get older. I liked the body style of the 67 to 69 dart is what made me buy this car. It was in nice shape to start with. I did all the work myself including the roll bar, all the engine and trans and rear suspension as i've been involved in high performance cars all my life. the only thing I didn't do was paint the car. It came out better than expected and that drew the guys at car craft in to put it on the cover of January 2011 issue and a 6 page featured add. The car now runs a best of 5.92 @ 115 mph in the 1/8th mile. That equates to 9.40 quarter times. the new engine is a all aluminum 528ci. Thats about as short as i can do even that there's so much more.

http://www.carcraft.com/featuredvehi...r/viewall.html
 
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#2 · (Edited)
August 2011 winner is 68 Hemi GTS's 1968 Hemi Dart





Nevin's Hemi Dart Story

I grew up around the Dart. My dad had originally bought it in 1972 well before my mother had even come along. being a H code 383 4 speed GTS it lended itself well to being a serious street strip car right from the start. some of my earliest memories are sitting on my dads lap behind the wheel of this car with it running. 2 1/4 open fenderwell headers on a 13:1 440 kind of leave an impression, even on a 4 year old. My dad quit running it in the early/mid 80's, then it just sat in the corner of the garage for over 20 years. I Had built the Hemi for a 67 Belvedere I had at the time, but the dart seemed like a way cooler choice for a Hemi. so after lots of coercing, I brought the dart to my house in the fall of 06. with alot of help from my Father, Whip ( 69 dart hulk ), Tim ( forced 340 ) and a few other good friends this car was built (and painted ) entirely in my garage. It's sporting a 500ci cross ram Hemi (that i machined and built). it spends 90% of its time on the street, but it does get a few good weekends of racing each summer at some mopar events. It usually runs mid to low tens with a torque-flight or a 4 speed, although the 4 speed seems to always be in broken pieces...

back in the 70's



early on


after paint


done



 
#3 · (Edited)
September 2011 winner is ab7fh's 1970 Dart





This is what's in it...

512 CI Low Deck
Indymaxx block
440 Source stroker kit 13.5:1
Stealth heads
Crane solid roller cam .630 lift
Milodon gear drive
Moroso vacuum pump
727 Trans by CRT
5500 converter by A-1
S60 rear axle with 4.10 on spool
CalTrac monoleafs and bars
29.5x10.5-15 Phoenix slicks
 
#4 · (Edited)
October 2011 winner is 69DartHulk's 1969 Dart





Whip's story

First of all, thanks to everyone who voted, we all put a lot of time, effort, and money into our cars and it's nice to have others notice that. I was actually building an '88 Fox body mustang to race. It was turning into a pretty trick little car. But, I've always wanted a '69 Dart. Then, me and Nevin (68 Hemi GTS) were sitting at work passing the time on craigslist when he says, "Hey, check out this Dart, the guy is looking for a fox body trade roller for roller." Well, long story short, me and my new wife end up driving to Iowa from Michigan as part of our Homeymoon to make the swap. Now, that's a keeper in my book. We did a lot of work bringing the Dart back from strip only to a street/strip car, and I couldn't be happer with the trade. It gets a lot of attension, and I'm told it looks Damn Sinister coming down the road!
 
#5 · (Edited)
December 2011 winner is Mshred's 1971 Scamp...Congrats.









Mshred's Story

Thanks to all who voted for my ride! Grew up around my dad's 69 Dart 440 that he was building (member GT on here) and so naturally wanted one of my own. Long story short I picked it up as a /6 granny mobile and redid everything on the entire car in my garage minus chroming the bumpers, upholstery and shooting the actual green. I learned as I went along, and attribute everything I know to the help of my dad who worked endless hours with me teaching me and showing me the correct ways, and through forums like these where people helped with my questions. Car has gone through a couple of setups but is currently a very mild 360 with an A833 4 speed and a 4.10 dana 60. I drive this car rain or shine on the ET streets and its a blast every time I get behind the wheel! At 22 years of age, I feel like I have a pretty cool car, and the best thing is I can say I did it with my own two hands!
 
#6 ·
......................Congrats 2 all the ride of the month winners..........U guys all have great cars............kim..............
 
#8 · (Edited)
January 2012's winner is Nick's aka Dart Kid's 68 Dart GTS

0/0







Nick's story about his car:

My car was my 13th birthday present from my Dad. It started out as a 318 GT, totally complete running and driving. Over the next years my Dad and I tore it down to get it ready for paint.

The original blue 68 seats are hiding away, and were replaced with the better design 67 buckets, in white.

We replaced the 318/ 904 / 7 1/4 for a mild '72 340 with 727 and 8 3/4 with 3.55 SG. I was driving it with that when I was 15 and only had my permit.

After running in the high 13s for a while, I decided after my 17th birthday I wanted to go faster. The 340 was yanked and sold and my Dads 440 from his car went in. It started with low to mid 12s, and after getting bigger headers (current ones on the car) and a new 2800 stall converter, it was running 11.70s with a 650 and 3.55's.

Swapped to a Holley 750 DP and 3.91's and it has gone 11.30s with open headers, 11.40's through the exhaust. It is a complete street driven car. Full exhaust, street tires, stock interior.

I've had this car almost 8 years now. It was a father / son project, that my Dad and I for sure enjoyed. Hes the person who got me into mopars and better yet, DART.
 
#9 ·
Good short story Nick and your car is a winner.
 
#11 ·
Febuary 2012 winner is chryco's 69 Beast.





 
#12 ·
This is really Cool ! A huge thanks for the votes , this means a lot. Deepocket`s and Bremereric`s cars are both meticulously built from all angles and awesome looking machines . Again thanks .
I bought my Dart less engine and trans from a racer from Iowa in Jan. 1982 after seeing it compete at the Div.5 Bracket finals in Sioux Falls So. Dak. I ran it for 14 - 15 years with a W2 340 / 727 combo finally breaking into the 10`s ........then dropping a valve and bye bye 340 ! The car was put away , I got married then my son arrived , but all the time I was planning how I would rebuild my Dart. I started by lightening it up with fiberglass fenders , doors , and decklid in addition to the existing glass hood and bumper. I also was modifying my stock front end with a rack and pinion and coil overs (Early Pro Stock style )
. I was about to approach our local chassis guy about building one out of chromoly when I saw Ron Jenkin`s add and bought one . I used plexiglass for the side windows and removed the trunk floor ( replaced with aluminum ) and the front inner fenders went too. With the Wilwood brakes in front and back and with all the other mods , this thing was going to be light !
I originally was planning a 528 B1 / Glide set up , but always wanted a Hemi back in the Dart since that was what was in it before I bought it. Something about the wall to wall valve covers ! I ran into Andy Neal (Tweety ) a former member here and after selling off a bunch of my old race stuff and the B1`s , acquired the KB/RBRE Hemi from Andy`s old 68 Dart . It`s got all the good stuff , Bryant crank , Oliver rods,JE pistons Bullet .750" roller cam and screwed together and dyno`d by Ray to boot . I got a JW 'Glide , ultra bell adapter , with trans brake , new Strange axles , spool . gears , and driveshaft . The car went together really well and although I had some troubles getting it down the track ( busted the Glide , bent the front end ) I finally got it down the track for a couple of shakedown runs in 2010 . It wound up running 9.75 / 139.40 on a hot humid July day with year old gas and only 3k off the line . It didn`t over heat , went straight , and stopped well. It was like running 7`s for me ! Didn`t get a chance to run it last season , but bought a new Neal Chance 5500 stall converter recently and am shooting for the track season opener to try it out . With some good air , new C12 , the new converter and using the trans brake AND LOTS of LUCK, I think there`s 9.10 `s in it .
Thanks Again Everybody !
Rob

Before


After
 
#13 ·
Great story Rob, Thanks.
 
#14 · (Edited)
March 2012 winner is Deepocket's Street Legal Duster







Deep Pockets Duster Story.
When Idecided to get into the go fast V/8 scene, I could have gone Chevy, Ford or Dodge. Well, you can see what direction I chose. The Dduster started as a race appearing but remained street legal as it had all the dot glass, working lights and turn signals and dot approved tires. it's still currently registered and insured. It was built to be a muli purpose car for street and drag. I first had the 509ci Reheer Morrison engine in it to run Chevy events as well. Then I took it one step further and lightened the car a little more by putting glass doors on it and a lexan rear window. Then came the all aluminum 565ci aluminum bullet. The best quarter time from the 509ci was 9.42 @ 144 mph. The new engine's best is 8.42 @ 160 mph. That's on muffs and charging system. Once again to all that voted my way. as of now I'm not going to build another car............ unless I find a sweet deal on a 70 roadrunner. Thats it for now.​
 
#15 ·
thanks to all that placed there votes. if i'm not misstaken, we had a pair of true sportsman here as we both voted for each others cars. i look foward to next months nominations. lets get some more rides this time. i know that there's a lot of really nice cars on this site. dont feel bad if you might not think it's so perfect. there a lot of people that will appreacate what you've done. i'll tell that the "scud" will get my vote, and it's not even done yet. and then he'll get my vote when it's done. so come on guys an LETS SEE WHAT YOU GOT!!
 
#16 ·
Make sure you submit your short story when you can. You can post it or send it to me and post it.
 
#17 ·
Got your short story and posted it above.
 
#18 · (Edited)
Winner for the month of April 2012 is 71Dartman440's Big Block Swinger



First and foremost....thank you, it’s quite humbling for someone who appreciates the tireless efforts others put into their cars as well, so again thanks and thumbs up back at ya. What you see in the picts culminates 15 years of parts gathering, parts replacement, re-plating, etc. etc. and a long hard thought out decision on paint and body (what color to paint the Dart haunted me for a year or so, but very pleased in the end). In 2011 there finally came enough free time to bunker down and bring it all together. So it still seems surreal to hop in it, fire it and go! You might be surprised to know I have a deeper appreciation for the 67-69’s, but when I saw this 71 for sale, sitting on jack stands in its poor state of condition and seeing its potential; well, guess it was simply meant to be. The local paper caught up with the car recently and wanted to get some ink on it in their weekly article “Wichita on Wheels”. Check it out here to read more on the car and the 15 year journey: http://www.kansas.com/2012/03/17/225...th-a-dart.html



 
#19 · (Edited)
Winner for the month of May 2012 Nasty68's Nasty 68 Dart.









First of all thanks to everyone who voted for the cars. I grew up around mopars. Dad had a 69 roadrunner, 69 superbee, 67 valiant, dodge stealth and later on a 68 4 door dart with air. My first mopar was a 71 challenger and around 1998 i bought the dart for a race car. Was a /6 with a rod hanging out of the block that i picked up for $250. I ended up loading it up on a dolly and drug it home with my jeep wrangler. Talk about a scary ride. The dart sat for almost 3 years at a friends mom's house because i had no where to put the car and i basically gave up on it at the time. I ended up getting my motivation to work on the car from my dad but he never knew that. He was on the way back from a funeral while living in baltimore and got hit head on in his 68 4 door dart. Dude in a trans am was trying out the new tranny in the car and blacked out. Dad spent almost two months in shock trauma University of Maryland where he later past. It was time for me to build my 68. I sold the challenger's body and kept the drive train and now it resides in the dart. 383, auto with a 8 3/4 rear. I added a 10pt S&W cage, S&W ladder bars and coil overs in the rear. The 8 3/4 has been narrowed slightly to allow the use of weld 15x10 prostars with 4.5" of backspacing and 325/50's out back. Front end has been rebuilt, upgraded with big ball joint upper arms and disc brakes from a aspen. 15x3.5" prostars with vw tires up front. Rear uses a aerospace disc brake kit. I still need to work on the interior but we are never done working on our cars. They are a love and a passion. Thanks again.
 
#20 ·
BBD's Ride of the Month Winner for June 2012

SRT's 1968 Dodge Dart






 
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#21 ·
SRT's 1968 Dodge Dart






Ok so first I'd like to say thanks for all who voted.. I have never won anything with this car and I feel truly honored to be June ride of the month winner. I decided to pull the trigger on some goodies for the build so I called up Dave Webber at Moder Muscle Performance Group ordered a set of his ported 6.1 heads with 625 springs, retainers, and guides, custom cam, forged drop in pistons with new rings, cometic head gasket, new rod bolts, etc. I also made a phone call to my friend AJ Hemituner and bought a complete 6.1 engine. He wanted to send it to me assembled but I wanted it un-assembled so I could put the goodies on it from MMP. After seeing a smoking deal on a used KB I scooped it right up and now had all the parts in place within 10 days from nothing to everything. That's a very remarkable turn around time on this.

Next I called up my buddy Jeff (Popeye's Hemi) and asked for his assistance to assemble this mountain of parts. Jeff arrived Friday night grabbed so beers went to the shop and the labor began. We both were unsure as to what to gap the new rings at so i called very intelligent individuals in the know and they gave what they would gap them for my build. So after a lot of reading and talking on the phone we decided on the top and second gaps along with the bottom rings. We purchased a hand wheel to gap the rings to our specs. If you've never gaped a ring it takes a long time to measure each cylinder gap the ring put in back in the cyl, measure again, grind a little, put it back, you get the point... very time consuming. After 3-4 hours we were complete and are very satisfied with our work.

Time of assembly... We were smart enough to mark each rod and cap by a number and the direction it was facing before disassemble. This made a assembly easy and had two check points (our marks and the pistons had larger valve reliefs with obviously go on the top of each cyl). We used a crappy ring compressor that we fought a few pistons with but other than that they all went in with out a hitch. Something we did was to rotate the crank with the crank journals down so when we installed the piston a rod it couldn't reach it a smack it possible causing damage to it or the rod. We used this same level of attention to detail throughout this entire build. Every Bolt was spec and torqued, all new gaskets, assembly lube, etc.

I wanted to thank Scott 1fst4dr as I asked a lot of question and we shipped parts back and forth within a few days.. He's top notch in my book. Also Dave Webber and AJ for putting up with the numerous phone calls and obviously the bad ass parts to make this all happen. Jeff for the time you took to help me out ..very cool...Here is a 100 plus pictures from start to finish over the past 5 yrs.

http://s157.photobucket.com/albums/t73/jbellyus/start to finish/
 
#22 ·
BBD's Ride of the month for July 2012

383man's 63 sport Fury





 
#23 ·
383man's 63 sport Fury






Well I bought my 63 Sport Fury in 2003 and sold my 383 Dart to my son. It had the original 383 in it with the factory 727. I knew I wanted to give it the Max Wedge look and build a bigblock for it to look as much like a Maxie eng as I could. I wanted a street/strip driver that would drive to the track and run 11's. The mild 440 I built with 906 heads and the MP .557 cam ran a best of 11.49 @ 116 using 4.30's with 30" tires and a Turbo Action manual valve body and a Dynamic 9.5 converter. I did a favor for a buddy and his dad gave me a Max Wedge scoop. Then another buddy sold me a glass hood for it for only $100 dollars. So I had the painter at the Dodge Dealer I worked at finish and paint the hood and scoop. Once I installed the hood with the Maxie scoop and the Torque Thrust wheels up front I had that 60's SS Max Wedge look that I love. I raced it through the pipes and ran it on pump gas. Drove it like that for years and in 2010 I decided I wanted to have a 10 second pump gas street car so I could handle some of these high dollar new cars running 11's from the factory. I knew I could build a pump gas eng to run 10's in my 3700 lb 63 even on my budget. So I built my 493 over the winter of 2010 and 2011 and installed it in the car in June 2011. I used a 440Source stroker kit and built my 493 with 10.6 comp and Indy EZ heads. It has a solid flat tappet cam and I use the Indy dual plane intake. Put the same 850 DP carb back on and used the same Dynamic 9.5 converter along with the same Mallory dist and MP orange ECU. It worked out great for me as I put 7 passes on it last year and after jetting up some ran a best so far of 10.76 @ 124.49 through the full exh on pump gas driving it to the track and I think it has a bit more in it. Ron
 
#24 ·
Looks good and sounds good to me. Congrats on the win Ron.
 
#25 ·
BBD's Ride of the Month Winner for August 2012

Sickboy's Dart






 
#26 ·
BBD's ride of the month winner for September 2012

Is Ave's Yellow Dart





 
#29 ·
BBd's Ride of the Month for October 2012

Is Qkcuda's Bronze Cuda.







BBD
 
#30 ·
First off, thanks to all who voted for me. I really appreciate it.

I picked up this cuda in 1995. It was number 6 in a long line of cudas I used to drive and race. This one came from California, so it was rust free and still wearing it's original paint (it still is). At first I concentrated on getting it road worthy, with new brakes, exhaust, and a tune up. I also installed new Legendary seat covers and carpet. I drove it like that for a couple of years, but the original 318 and trans were tired, so I decided the only way I would get motivated was to pull the original engine and trans and get rid of them. Then it sat for a long time.

I spent the next few years accumulating parts to do the big block conversion. In 2006 I finally got it on the road again with a 400 under the hood (which was now wearing cuda scoops). It was a 9:1 motor with a Crane hydraulic cam and home ported 452 heads which made 415 HP and 450 lb/ft of torque on the dyno. It was a lot of fun to drive, and my goal was to run 12's with it. I took it to the track and did manage to pick up some high 12 second time slips. Being an old racer I could never leave well enough alone, so I decided to install a larger cam. I put in a new 292/509 wide lobe center MP cam, but unfortunately it destroyed itself on break in, taking the rest of the reciprocating assembly with it.

I then had a decision to make. Since I needed a new crank, rods and pistons, I figured I might as well get a stroker kit. So the engine is now a 500 cubic inch low block. We dyno'd it at 550 HP and 610 lb/ft of torque. This was with the same top end as the 400, and a Comp hydraulic roller cam to avoid a repeat of my previous problem. Now my goal was to have a car that was comfortable to drive on the street and would run 11's at the track. I changed from the previous 3.91 gears to 3.23's, freshened the trans and added some heavy duty drive train components. I also added a front disc brake conversion, line lock, and new rear axles and 11 inch drums. I have almost met my goal, the car is great to drive and so far it has run a 12.1 at the track. I have a few more things to change this winter, 3.55 gears, a complete MSD ignition, and a new crank pulley to speed up the water pump and hopefully solve an overheating problem in traffic. Next season I hope to get my 11 second time slip, and finish off the cuda stripe package.
 

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