I NEED YOUR HELP!

[Troy]

My advice: set clear goals and have a plan before you buy a single part, fire up a welder, or turn a wrench. This will save way more money than anything else you do.

You can remove a lot of stuff from a car to save weight. Unfortunately, a lot of that heavy stuff is required to drive on the street (working lights, real bumpers, full exhaust, etc.). So you have to compromise.

Then, once you remove all that stuff you'll have to put on more heavy stuff (cage, tires, oil system, etc.).

As mentioned, "race" parts don't last long on the street. If your idea of "street driven" means a 3 mile hop to the local cruise-in once a month then I wouldn't stress about it much. If you want to drive 20 miles on the highway to work every Friday it's a whole new ball game.

A lot of power often means a filled or partially filled block. Couple that with a race water pump, high compression, and traffic and you'll probably be fighting cooling issues non-stop.

Then what do you do about gas? A small fuel cell and a big power motor means you'll only have maybe 40 miles to work with. If you're running race gas you can't just pull over and fill up at Shell.

Race cars don't need awesome paint and body work. People are a little pickier with street cars. This is an area where you can dump a lot of money in a hurry if you aren't following a solid budget plan.

If you want to drive on the street you can probably ignore all the advice about a tube chassis. You won't be legal in most places. Check local laws *first*.

A spooled rear axle, giant tires, and huge gears will suck to drive on the street - especially with an automatic trans with a high stall. (Although a stick shift with race clutch wouldn't be any more fun in traffic!)

Troy

[70 sublime]

Put a trailer hitch on the Charger and use it to pull the Dart drag car to the track

Think you would have more fun and be able to have a good car for both worlds for close to the same money as just chopping up the Charger

[Mike DC]

Put a trailer hitch on the Charger and use it to pull the Dart drag car to the track

Think you would have more fun and be able to have a good car for both worlds for close to the same money as just chopping up the Charger

Best advice yet.


I will add, "Buy both cars already mostly done" to that.

[Flamdremon]

Well I plan on having this car the rest of my life and I would like to have it built mostly by me even though it costs more than buying one mostly finished. Heres what my GOAL is. !970/charger r/t barely street legal. (i just want to be able to say Its street legal and maybe drive it down the street once in a while thats all) then mostly race it in the summer. I just like the idea of knowing my car is fast and street legal in the back of my mind. Thats MY idea of a dream car. We all have different ideas of what a dream car is otherwise this wouldnt be as much fun or as special So here it is (barely street legal 1970 r/t. with 800 maybe 900 hp depending on the cost.) maybe a hemi depending on the cost later. And to do the quarter somewhere in the 9s.

[70 sublime]

Do you own a 70 R/T Charger now ??

[Flamdremon]

No but im going to start in a month. Ill be buying the body at lease at some point soon though

[Flamdremon]

1

[68X426]

1

Hey Koryzazu, are you the Koryzazu that posted on the Camaro forum a few years ago?  If so, good to see that you found the light in the Mopar world.

Flamd: what you are describing is a '68 Hemi Dart.  That is a real world and do-able 9 second killer machine.  I believe that Ray Barton is still building them for the public.

http://www.b2cars.com/for_sale.php

http://www.streetlegaltv.com/news/68-hurst-hemi-dart-l023-is-this-the-worlds-fastest-muscle-car/

[Wicked72]

Turboz my friend. http://www.nelsonracingengines.com/  these guys make my dream hemi. But you can build a badass twin turbo wedge that is an easy 9 second capable car. But keep in mind once you drop that money into the motor. You'll need the rest of the parts to hold up and match the goal. That kind of power and speed there should be no compromise in parts.  A turbo car will do what you want, very street friendly and can be cranked up at the track. Hell you can have the car setup with street tires then swap over to slicks on race day. I'd get setup with goodies from us cartool, sw race cars, and QA1. Monster brand 727 with a gear vendors od or get a t56 but an auto will be faster imo.

[Wicked72]

Twin turbo Haze @ 6psi: https://youtu.be/KTP6lvAIR2w. I talked to this guy a few times, very nice and gave me a lot of info. He was running I think twin t60 at the time. And he drove it everywhere too. 9s is fast as hell. I think he's in the 7s now. Also keep in mind you say you want to keep this car forever. Watch this guy's videos and see how hard it is on the car. It gets beat to hell.

[68X426]

A very sweet '68 Hemi Barracuda.  $125k (or offer) buys a great car and 8 second times.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Plymouth-Barracuda-Hemi-/141634486960?forcerrptr=true&hash=item20fa12c2b0&item=141634486960

[Flamdremon]

Yea that was me on the camaro forum but I sold my z28. ive since been educated a bit since then... but seriously im still pretty firm on the 70charger r/t. Regaurdless of how long it takes to get there.

[Flamdremon]

Can somebody tell me what the car(70charger) would weigh with no engine with ONLY the essentials to race (cage ex ex ) at regulations to be street legal and ableto race at 9 seconds.

[Mike DC]

A big-block 68-70 Charger with the interior gutted weighs about 3400 lbs.  No seats, no HVAC, etc. 

If you get serious about yanking odds & ends, and starting to mess the car up then you can lose another 200 lbs.  At this point you have no side windows, the headlight door assemblies are fixed open & gutted, the dashboard is homemade, etc.

A stock (all-iron) 383/440 with a 727 trans is maybe 850 lbs total.  

Fiberglass front end is worth another 150 lbs.  Doors & trunklid & rear bumper are worth maybe another 75-100.  (But for a drag car you may want everything behind the doors to remain steel for weight distribution.) 

[Mike DC]

Look at the orange Dart in this thread:

http://www.moparstyle.com/forums/showthread.php?1343-Tube-frame-chassis




That's a tube chassis type of build.  The roof & sides/doorjambs of a stock unibody shell get fitted over the top of a custom-built tubular chassis designed for drag racing.  It keeps the stock doorjambs/hinges/etc but it does not keep the stock dash/firewall.  Stock floor is all gone too.  

If you wanna go fast then you will be getting pretty close to this one-step-at-a-time.  You can save yourself some trouble by just starting off this way.  It also means you don't need a complete & solid (read: expensive) Charger to start with.  A rough shell with the lower half rotted away isn't worth much.

The whole outer skin & many other parts of the '68/69 Charger is available in a catalog now.  The '69 stuff also mostly fits the 1970 car from the windshield on back. The 1970-specific front end sheetmetal is not being reproduced.  But you would have wanted the 1970-specific front end to be done in fiberglass anyway.

[Lennard]

Check out the street legal '70 Charger from a buddy of mine.

http://voodoohemiracing.nl/race-cars.html

[Flamdremon]

Ok guys get ready to yell at me. Would a 632 fit in the 70 charger r/t?

[Challenger340]

Ok guys get ready to yell at me. Would a 632 fit in the 70 charger r/t?

Not going to yell at you, no point.
But really here, someone should at the very least....... point out the utter stupidity of your question ?
Obviously,
pretty much anything can be made to fit anything else ?......  when it comes to North American V-8's ?

The real question would be "why" ?
Still trying to find a "cheaper" way to fit the budget ?   

[Flamdremon]

I'm not trying to be (cheap and cut corners ) I'm just trying  to figure out the cheapest way to do it and not waist too much money

[Challenger340]

I'm not trying to be (cheap and cut corners ) I'm just trying  to figure out the cheapest way to do it and not waist too much money

There is trying to prevent "waste" as it relates to costs in a project.... and then...... there is "running low 9's Street Legal in a 1970 Charger" ?

GET the picture here ?

Come up with a budget FIRST !
Then, research feasibility/costs to your goals.

[Troy]

If you're going to mangle a car that much what's the point in needing it to be an R/T? You're just going to overpay to purchase the car simply because it's an R/T. Now if it's a gutted rustbucket the difference between an R/T and a base model might only be $1,000 - but there's still a premium. The 70 is the rarest of the 2nd generation years so you have to fight availability as well.

I also think that at that level a Hemi really isn't going to cost that much more than a wedge (if any).

There was a guy here for a while that took his really nice Charger racing. As he got faster and got the "speed bug" more he finally realized that he was destroying his car. He sold it and bought a Duster I believe. It was lighter, faster, and already modified so it was less work/money to get where he wanted. I think he eventually sold it as well and bought a Chevy. I said all that to say... sometimes it's not practical for one car to meet all your dreams. A small, light, cheap, track only car will get you your speed "fix" and still leave you enough money to have a fairly nice Charger "driver". I got tired of trying to make a big truck work as a daily driver, car hauler, and date mobile. It didn't do anything well and cost more to do everything. *If* I were to go racing I'd have a 5.0 Mustang or something similar (possibly a Dart but the ones I like aren't cheap either). If I wanted to go around corners it would be an RX-7, 240sx, etc. In either case it would be a dedicated track car without anything that wasn't required. There's no point in hamstringing yourself with regulations and/or fighting physics. If I were to blow it up or crash I wouldn't be terribly worried and I wouldn't have wasted a pile of money. And I'm saying this as a person with a whole pile of Mopar project cars (and parts!) littering my shop.

Mike seems reasonable with his weight. I was with another Mike in his 70 Hemi Charger and it weighed 4,400 (if I remember right) on the truck scales in street trim with two of us and car show stuff in the trunk (chairs, cooler, etc.). Losing all the baggage, 10-12 gallons of fuel, and passenger takes it to about 4,000. Removing seats, carpet, padding, various door and window hardware, A/C, console, spare tire, loose change, and whatever else you can find gets it down to 3,500-3,600. Or you can go the other way: a bare shell is maybe 1,200 and add 2,400+ pounds of stuff (fenders, doors, hood, deck lid, bumpers, glass, front suspension, rear suspension, brakes, engine, transmission, drive shaft, grill, pedals, steering column, seat(s), roll cage, lights and wiring). You can use fiberglass body panels, lexan windows, and aluminum components in the drive train to save weight - possibly at the expense of street driving.

In the end, you're still heavier than a small block Challenger, Mustang, or Dart/Duster in full street trim. Speed comes down to power to weight ratio. Power is often correlated to money. It makes sense that if you want to save money and go fast that the first objective is to cut weight. You can't cut as much weight if you still want to be street legal. Fine, just spend more money.

Again... plan, plan, plan! Be realistic about what you want and how to get there. If you can't build the power for the money you have then readjust your priorities and run the numbers again. Big projects have a way of getting out of hand in a hurry.

Troy

[Flamdremon]

Troy Im not gonna budge at all from my plan. Im going to get a 9 Second street legal charger. I dont care if it takes 3 or 4 years to get there. It really doesnt matter. I think with a 632 at 1050hp it can be done without gutting it completely. What are your thoughts?

[JB400]

Is this the direction you want to go?:

http://fastraces.org/


   

[303 Mopar]

I'm not trying to be (cheap and cut corners ) I'm just trying  to figure out the cheapest way to do it and not waist too much money

Come up with a budget FIRST !
Then, research feasibility/costs to your goals.

And once you have a budget, double it and you will be close.....

[68X426]

not gonna budge at all from my plan -  -  -  What are your thoughts?

How ironic your statement.  You're not going to BUDGE, or did you really mean to say that you're not going to BUDGET  

You won't budge, so why ask for thoughts?     The opinions will soon be only about you and your personality, not about building a car.

It's obvious that you are cheap.  Nothing personal.  It's ok, be proud of it, embrace it. 

Please stop with the nonsense of "I'm not cheap, but how do I build an expensive car the cheapest way". 

Budge or don't budge, budget or don't budget.  Simple fact - you cannot build a $100,000 car for $20,000. 

Those are my thoughts. Thank you.