Hey! I need some help. I am a owner of a 1970 dodge dart custom, yeah i know its not a swinger but that is the main reason i fell in love with it and bought it. I bought this car in almost mint condition. It has no body rust, the paint is amazing, the headliner is fully intact and not drooping, the dash is not dry rotted, the carpet is super clean, it has about 108,000 miles on the 318 engine with a brand new eldelbrock 4 barrel carb, there is absolutly no rust on the underside of the car, the list goes on and on. This car was garage kept but now it is my every day driver, and i still havent had one problem with it (knock on wood). But of course there is alot i want to do to this car. I deffinetly want to turn it into a sleeper. but make it look real nice with some new rims and stuff. But was wondering if parts, finding stuff on summit and jegs is dang near immpossible. What i want to do is re do my front end and my rear end. Whats the best rear axle i can put on it, with fat tires and posi track. I think i want to keep my engine and soup it up with a new cam, heads and other stuff. But is it possible to bore a 318 out? and by how much can i bore it out? with more power im most likely will need a new tranny. whats a good transmision or is there a good re build kit that i can get? I need some input because this is my first project and i am very excited to start. can someone please give me some web sites i might be able to order alot of this stuff from? Oh and sorry about all the questions, like i said im new to this. oh and is there any place that i can get custom bumpers?

 

Nice Dart! Put a 8 3/4 rear in it with 3.55 sure-grip, for the front end, PST makes a kit to do the entire thing in urethane. There are lots or resto parts places, start with year one, places like Jegs and Summit are mostly bowtie stuff. I'd say .060 over is max for the 318 block, you might save some $$ by picking up a 360 with a 727 trans and just do a quick swap in, it's all bolt in. The possibilities are endless....

 

Many of the local and national events have a show class called "survivors" this is cars with original paint original everything and must be in very nice condition (like yours appears to be) You might want to keep this car as is if it is really that nice. Looks great!

 

X-2 !!!!!

 

but i don't like spam!

 

what are your plans for the car?
racing?
i would use an 8 3/4 rear end
look at year one for front end parts
i wouldnt bore out the 318 too much

 

Did you learn this in "how to alienate 101" or did you come up with it after a 10 martini lunch?

 

great looking car, good luck with your plans for it, my advice: keep it #s matching

 

I like the 360 swap idea, put the 318 aside and you can always swap it back if numbers matching 318s ever get to be worth a bunch. Just have fun with it.

 

numbers matching 318's will be in demand one day, the day before the numbers matching gremlins have theirs...

 

hey sorry i havent been able to get to a computer in a while. thanks for all the compliments and advice, i realy apreciate it. i dont exactly want to race it, but i do want it to have some power to it. ive seen darts with a 440 swap and i think that would be freakin awesome to put in it, but i dont know if my engine bay is big enough for something like that. But i really do like the 360 idea also. Isnt the 360 the biggest mopar small block? As far as rear axle gears, ive seen alot of builds where they put a ford 9inch in the back, is that possible? I hear the ford 9 inch is a monster, but i deffinetly want possi track.

 

Oh man nice car and wow a survivor. I think I would let this be and either sell to someone else and get a Dart that is in good shape either two or four door.

They are only original once and to do a street car to something original and needing nothing is........well I just wouldnt do it.

I would almost trade my 70 Coronet R/T project for this car to cruise around in and take to shows.

I would leave this car the way it is and buy something else to mod out.

I think you can get Hemi heads for a 360 and a 318 that gives 1.5HP per cubic inch.

 

A 8-3/4" rear will be plenty good and you can get one that'll drop right in. A Ford you'll have to change spring perches and width and driveshaft ect. not worth it unless your looking at very big hp, and the 9 inch has more drag than the 8 3/4.

As far as numbers matching goes, I couldn't care less. As far as I'm concerned the only good thing about a # matching car is if you can get some sucker to pay thousands more for it and that just doesn't happen with a 318. Swapping in a 440 will take alot more money and might be a bit much to take on for your first build. You can get 408 inches out of a 360 pretty cheap.

And corentetguy is just jerkin your chain about the hemi heads.

 

the upside is you have a great looking car, the down side is, ounce you start building this thing, theres no ceiling. you ll want more and more power, then more and more again. If the thing runs great leave it alone and enjoy driving it, if you want a little more and can be satisfied with that, then build a 360 and do a mild build on it, i think youll be very happy with that motor in your dart.

 

Um on what part about the Hemi type heads. This was in Mopar Collectors guide a few years back.

They made 1.5 HP per cubic inch. They made them for 318, 340, 360 and I think the 440 from what I remember.

Good luck on the build and if I find a link to the heads I will post it.

 

Here is the link I can find with some info on the Hemi heads

http://www.thehemi.com/news.php?id=20030801-1

They hare really high I see 8000.00 for the setup.

 

Interesting but did they ever get past the planning stage, it says a projected price? I see it's from 03, I imagine the new hemi made them pointless when you could buy a crate engine for less. Somebody did make a conversion head for the 440 but when mopar started making the new Hemi block they also became pointless, you could buy a block and a set of hemi heads for the price of their heads.
But in general I stand corrected.

 

Wow! Flashback time for me! When I was in high school, we had a 72 Dart 4dr in that same color with the black vinyl roof. 318 2bbl/727. I can remember going across country on more than one family vacation, and cruising along when my mom would wake up from a bit of a nap and ask my dad, "Hey, how fast are you going?". Dad would say something like "about 125 ... just blowing the soot out of it a little, but it's running smooth ain't it?". He used to brag to everyone how it had over 100K miles on it, still ran like a new one and never had the valve covers off.
Those were great cars!

Congrats!

 

Hey polyspherical that sounds like the story of my dad and mom as well. My mom woke up one night on I-81 my dad was going over a 100 in his Dart Swinger racing a Road Runner. I really like this car and like its an original one at that.


Toad I think they did go into production but not sure how many. I did see someone talking about it on the Dakato web site for their truck and said the price for the whole setup was 8000.00.

What about a 400? Im not sure how big the block is on the 400 vs the 383 and 440.

There used to be a wagon here in town that (I was told) didnt sound like much and an old guy drove it. The car would make a lot of victims at the red lights out of a lot of brand X guys. I think he was running a 318 in it from what I was told.

 

Coronetguy, heads are interchangable between the 393, 400 and 440. 8 grand is alot to pay for a set of heads, it's no wonder they didn't catch on but if you had the money it would of been very cool. I wonder what they flowed.

 

393???

 

I'm thinkin he meant 383...

 

I didnt know the heads where interchangable in the 383, 440 and 400 thats good info and will keep that in mind.

Yeah the price I guess kept them from catching on.

 

eh i really dont care about the whole matching numbers thing mainly because im keeping this car and i dont ever plan on giving it up. I figured the 440 would be to much work so ive been doing alot of research on the 360 and found several fully built 360's for about 5k. As far as the 8 3/4 rear end, where could i get one? Also my tranny, do they make rebuild kits that have overdrive?