My 63 Dart has a 225 slant 6 out of a 72 Mopar. As far as I know it is completely stock, with the exception of a basic rebuild. (before my ownership). I have run a best of 19.05 at 73 mph with it at the Mopar Drags at Sacramento Raceway in 2007. I bought the car in January of 2007, and have been working on it since. It didn't need much as far as motor work, as all it needed was a new distributor. I had just gotten it driveable the week before the Mopar Drags 07, and ran pretty quick for being all stock.
Since then, I haven't touched it much, other than a little body/interior work, I raced it a few more times, and won 1 race with it, but I have had some troubles as well, including an electrical fire, and carburetor issues.
I made a decision to do some work on it this winter, but yesterday, I woke up and decided that I wanted to fix it up now.
I had bought a set of headers about a year ago for it for $10, so I wanted to install them, and the carb had issues, so I wanted to rebuild that, and give it a little tune-up (timing, valve adjustment).
I had planned on starting with the carburetor, but since the auto parts store had to order one, I began with the headers.
Here are the $10 specials. I sanded and repainted the primaries for looks right after this.
The motor at it's starting point. Roughly 1pm.
The intake and exhaust came off with ease, despite the fact that I was experimenting.
There it is off the car.
I degreased and painted the engine block. (I lost a lot of time here, but it was well worth it). I went with Chrysler orange because I think it looks better than the original blue.
Then I installed the headers, They were a bit of a pain, but I have done harder ones before. The intake install was simple, but with the headers, it was very difficult getting the bottom nuts on. I don't even know how I got some of them on. Next time I do this (hopefully never), I will definitely buy a gear wrench to do the job easier. These pics were taken at about 4pm, and I had to stop to go to work. The lighting was also messing with my camera during these pics.
This morning I rebuilt the carburetor. Very simple. I used lots of carb cleaner on it, that's for sure. Installed it, it fired up after a few adjustments. On a side note, before, when i would open the throttle, just a little bit of gas would dribble out of the squirters, and now it is a spray! I knew something was messed up. Anyway I got it tuned pretty good, it may need a few minor adjustments later on though.
Afterwards, I reset the timing (it was off a few degrees), and adjusted the valves. They were way too tight, especially the exhaust. I think whoever did them before adjusted every valve to the same gap. I don't know, but I got them right on, then reset the timing and readjusted the carburetor. It runs very good now. It should be pretty quick too. I won't find out until next year though.
One thing is certain, it definitly looks better now.
