Finally - progress on my charger!!

[defiance]

heh... Had my car in the shop since ... I dunno, September, I think ... Getting a port injection setup built (basically, drilling manifold, installing bungs, building rails, installing regulator - the rest I already have).  got pics today of the manifold/injectors/rails!  Not super-pretty or anything, but I'm still excited about it



I hope they get it on the dyno soon; I'm getting itchety to be driving it

[greenrt_se]

nice ,keep telling abouth yours motor&car,interesting abouth efi

[golden73]

Nice work... engine specs please!!

[defiance]

'72 charger rallye, black, 440, auto trans, 2.73 gears , nothing significant done to the motor itself (very minor head porting, minor overbore, aftermarket cam (apparently nearly like stock, from what I understand).   

I got the car with all the motor work and some body work done, but the scariest wiring I've ever seen in a vehicle, and an interior nearly as bad...   I've got the interior back to tolerable, and rewired pretty much the whole car by hand.   In the process I added Megasquirt (DIY fuel injection).   My experience so far has been excellent; I'd readily turn down some of the expensive setups for MS even if cost wasn't a concern.   However, the stupid holley throttle body injector setup I used was my achille's heel; the right side injectors died, and holley wanted to charge >$500 to replace them ( they no longer made them, and the near-replacement units they made required the injector tower to be replaced, as well as all four injectors and portions of the wiring harness).   I figured I'd be better off putting that money toward turning it into a port setup.
So, now it's got a 95psi fuel pump, aluminum fuel lines, the manifold/rail setup you see above, with 40lb/hr injectors, a pass-through fuel pressure reg with return to the tank, and I'm using the 900cfm holley throttle body still (just without injectors on it now, which might Improve the flow a tiny bit,  don't know   As a note, the ECU also controls the timing, so I can sit in the cab with my laptop and tune fuel and timing specs on the fly, no soap necessary 

There are a few other neat things I did...   The interior has been dampened to the point that the interior is quiter than my 92 buick.   I fiberglassed a flip-face cd player in the dash panel so that when it flips, it's actually flush, finished the dash panel so that it's all the same texture and color (black).   It's a really nice effect.   I also fiberglassed sealed speaker enclosures in the kickpanes for a 6-1/2" & tweeter component set (elemental designs).   I've got a pair of amps running them and a pair of elemental designs 15" subs in the trunk, which is in turn dampened like mad to ensure minimal rattling.   The sound quality is sublime...   I expect the subs can probably pound like mad as well, but I live in a respectable neighborhood with nice neighbors, and have driven it minimally, so I haven't tried that out yet...   The trunk is partially finished out in black vynil, but that wasn't really a priority for me, so I haven't finished it.   

there are some pics on my web site - http://www.cei.net/~defiance/charger.html - but those are very old, most of them 'work in progress' pics.   The wiring has been cleaned up DRAMATICALLY, the interior panels have all been finished and installed, the trunk has been vyniled, the remaining wires you see hanging out in the interior relate to the alarm/keyless entry/remote start, which is now finished...   You can see the pictures of the dash, but I wasn't satisfied as those pictures show, it was kinda lumpy....   so, I took it back out again, re-sanded, and refinished.   You get the idea from the picture, but the surrounding area is a good bit smoother now.
Eh, anyway, it's ongoing, but man, I love that car...

[cudaken]

 Glad you are making some head way there defiance an dlove to see the DYO specks as well. What was the total cost to date?

As far as the moving boom box I know what you are talking about, Glad you are keeping the trunk from shaking, leave that to the Old's guys. My self, my car stereo is the duales exhaust.

My garage stereo on the other hand is Audiophile grade all the way. Make it by sometime and I will teach you about sound stage. I can tell where Mick and the boys are standing (Stones). Just a teaser, mono blocked and 600 watts a side at 8 ohms, not 2 ohms. 2 ohms 1450 a side and very stable.

Want to talk stereo, PM me. But most of the other guys won't give a shoot here.

                             Ken

  Good looking Charger as well, love the doors.

[defiance]

I fear making a guess at the money so far, but here goes.......

Initial cost is hard to estimate.   My dad paid $1200 for it in with an unknown, nearly toast 383 in it, bunnies living in the floorboards, craters in the dash pad, terrible paint (like 3 colors), but a pretty straight body.   He spent about $800 on paint (not too great, really - looks good in the pic, but needs a good bit more work IMO), about $1200 altogether on getting a 440, getting it rebuilt with the specs above, and installed, a few hundred to get a new power steering setup, some rims and tires, and some other knick-knacks.   He also spent some $2000 or so on the holley pro-jection 900cfm setup.   I installed the wiring, he did the plumbing, and it worked fine initially.   That was about 5 years ago.   The holley ECU toasted almost exactly a year after he bought it (it was only on the car for about a month, it had sat in the box waiting for other projects for nearly a year), and holley refused to do anything but sell another ECU - for some rediculous price.   Dad let it sit while he 'thought about it'.   'Bout that time, I moved a few hours away and lost track...

Fast-forward to last year, when I found out he had put a carb on it, given it to my brother, and my brother had amassed a total of about 6 different cars, NONE of which ran, dropped out of college, had no real job, etc.etc...   So, you might say I took advantage of him, but he was mistreating this car, and HE got it for free.   so, I bought it for $500 from him.

At that point, I really started fixing it.   I've probably spent over $2000 on interior alone, including nearly $700 I spent getting a solid (but cracked) dash pad and having it entirely refoamed and recovered (modern vynil and foam, so it's not going to crack again ).   I put the stereo in it, total cost of parts was around $1200, probably another $150 for wiring, fusing, and construction supplies.   The alarm/keyless entry/remote start came out of my buick, but it originally cost around $200 (retail around $600 with install, but I worked at the place at the time I bought it, and installed it myself).   Then, I bought the Megasquirt ECU, around $200 for parts and I put it together.   Also, I put a $150 electronic ignition distributor on to feed off the ECU for timing.   It was pretty straightforward connecting it with the holley wiring, and worked right off... but soon after I started having issues - I initially thought it was my fault for stinking at tuning, but after dropping it into the shop, I found that it was the injectors (both injectors on the right side were extremely weak, leading to half the engine running lean while the other half was rich).   Now, the conversion to port injection is going to cost around $1500 (8 injectors, fuel rails, nice regulator, and labor) - which, I thought was a bit steep, but I keep hearing how great this particular shop is with EFI, and I think it's the only shop around with an in-house chassis dyno, so it'll come out tuned to give best possible HP/torque numbers...   I think it's worth it

So, when it's all said and done, with what's already done or half-done, I'm in a bit under $6,000 into it, but another $3000-$5000 was put into it by my dad.   And now, I still plan on good paint, having the A/C rebuilt, getting some tint on the windows, maybe getting the rear end switched for a lower ratio (not sure on that yet), so that's another couple grand altogether, I'd guess.   But it's going to make me happy