Father/son 1972 charger restoration project

[mikesbbody]

You guy's have come a long way in such a short time  you must be proud of him 

[oldrock]

Thought it was time to do an update to the thread. Josh now has a part time job so has steady cash coming in. He decided to bite the bullet and have his original 318 rebuilt. Engine is in the shop as we speak having it totally redone. In fact we stopped by the shop to take a look this afternoon when Josh came home from school. The engine block had been totally stripped down and gone thru a media blast. It was really nice and shiney metal like a brand new block. The machine shop bored it 20 over and is going with a nice but not crazy power on the build. Should be looking at about 300hp and 300 foot pounds of torque when it is all done which will be fun but not too powerful for a teenager.

We picked up an eidelbrock performer aluminum intake and holley 650 doublepumper carb to go along with the electronic ignition for the totally rebuilt engine. The intake was good to go but the carb needed a rebuild so I got to show Josh how to rebuild a carb which was fun and Josh will be ready to do the next one on his own. Can't wait to see how the new and improved 318 works in his charger.

In the downtime, Josh has been working on the interior. He is slowly pulling trim pieces off and painting them black. Also put the old am/fm/casette from my 69 mustang in so he at least has tunes.

Will get some pics of the motor when we get it all installed but in the meantime, here is a pic we shot from a rare dallas snowstorm.

[lisiecki1]

I'll have to look ya'll up next time I'm up your way.

Have you thought about port-matching the intake and heads and exhaust manifolds?  It's fairly cheap and easy and helps the engine breathe quite a bit better.  Would make a great father-son project (my dad and I did my first set about 15 years ago - good times).

Unless, of course, you're having the shop take care of all that....

[oldrock]

shop is porting the heads and intake for us while they do the overhaul. Shop isn't doing any work on the current longtube headers because Josh wants to upgrade the entire exhaust system eventually. We are doing all the regular stuff to boost HP while being able to use pump gas and not have to beef up the rest of the powertrain. Sat down with the machine shop owner and Josh talked about all the things he would do and what impact they would have on performance. Was a great learning experience for Josh and his Dad 

Machine shop guy said he will easily get us 300/300 hp/torque. He said he could have boosted those numbers to 400/400 hp/torque but to do it, cost would almost double which Josh couldn't afford on a part time job. The setup Josh went with was a good balance of performance, reliability and cost. Shop should be finished this weekend so we are very anxious to get the engine back in the charger and try it out.

[lisiecki1]

sounds like a fun build 

i remember when my dad and grandfather and i built my 390 horse 360.....i loved driving the car to school after that 

[oldrock]

thought I should do a quick update to say the car is back from the shop and the charger is running great! We had to chase down some serious electrical issues in the install but got them all sorted out and Josh is back to daily driving his charger. The rebuilt motor now has gobs more off the line torque and great acceleration. With the porting and new intake, etc, it also sounds much better now with the distinctive american muscle car exhuast note we were hoping for.


runs great and looks pretty cool too imho

[Charger-Bodie]

 

[charger_cody]

Wish my dad was half as determined to help me as you are to your kid.

Nice bay. Lookin good.

Cody

[aone415]

Wow Super Job!!!! You and Josh should be extremely proud!

[FLG]

Looks good man!!

BTW,

Does this car look familair?

http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,69490.0/topicseen.html

I noticed you asked the seller a question (seems it was you as the same story/car) but i dont think you realized that the car in the auction belongs to a forum member 

[oldrock]

yep, i saw the post and saw the car was right by us so sent an ebay message seeing if my son and I could come look at it. Then realized it was a forum member so sent a message thru forum to follow up. That is a beautiful charger he has. My son's will never look that nice but he still takes alot of pride in the fact our 72 charger was just a piece of junk in a farmers field when we found it. We put alot of work into cleaning it up and still have alot to do but it is Josh's daily driver to work and school. We have both had alot of fun restoring it together. Now that the engine is all done, we can start working on cleaning up the interior. We still have to do some work on the floorboards and trunk which are rusted thru in spots. Also need to install a new headliner and get a dash cap. Lots of things to do but thats ok. Every little project gets it looking a bit better.

[FLG]

Hey its a driver, it looks damn good for one.

Mine is also a driver and hoping one day for it to look that good. Im sure well both have one like that eventually 

Keep up the work man. Little by little is better than nothing.

[oldrock]

took a short video to show what the charger sounds like now that we have totally rebuilt the 318. Take a listen and let us know what you think of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa_3TA74wAg

[ZSmithersCharges]

Wish my dad was half as determined to help me as you are to your kid.

Nice bay. Lookin good.

Cody

SAME!

You guys are doing excellent work!  He's going to be hooked on muscle for the rest of his life 

[chargd72]

Sounds Great! 
Hoping for the same sound when I finish my 318 rebuild.

[chargergirl]

You never know how it's going to come out. Many of these guys have had their cars since High School...only now they are restored to full glory...and right now that is one pretty vehicle!