Here's probably the only picture of my old ride, my '70 Roadrunner 440 sixpack, which I had for something like 7 years and put over 140,000 miles on. I tossed a rod bearing, went through the original engine, later "lost" the engine all over I-5? N around Sacramento. Later, ran a used 67 440 for awhile, then swapped in a 340. Still later, while rebuilding the 340 to install in my !!Landcruiser!! the Roadrunner was driven with a used "318" which turned out to be a 273!! This was a 2bbl stocker, but I used the 340 headers. "All" of us were amazed at how good that 50 dollar junker ran!! Later, later, I dumped a 360 short block in the car, with !!273!! heads and 4BBL intake, headers, and sold it.
This picture was taken either '73 or 74, just before I had it painted a gorgeous dark green with silver/ gold metallic, very subtle. The mags were on the car the entire time I owned it. 15's in the rear, 14's in the front.
One night, the "new" owner was telling "his guys" how the car "ran 12's" and "pulled wheelies."
I told them the only time that car EVER had the front tires off the ground was when it was jacked up.

These were fairly heavy. With an aluminum intake, and headers (the six pack on the '70 was cast iron, and very heavy) this thing weighed 3860.

When I bought this car, in the summer of 71 or 72, I at that time had a '69 RR with 383, headers, Edelbrock, Holley. It ran pretty good "I thought." This damn thing made it seem like a slant 6. The torque and acceleration of these damn things --back then--were simply awsome. Most of the time I owned it, it had an Edelbrock, and either 700-750-800-850 Holleys. I experimented some. I think I even dredged up and old 3- barrell Holley for a week.

This thing, in street trim, with a Dana 3.54--would run 13.0's all day long.

The very first day I owned it--the first owner was stationed up by Sacramento--I was driving it from Sac back to San Diego--NAS Miramar. A bunch of chopper riders came buy. Here I was in my "new" ride with the windows up and the AC on. One of them motioned "do I want to." I shook my head, and he flipped me off. There was no traffic, so I cranked 'er down into 3rd and off we went. That guy was so far back I couldn't even see 'em. Bet it was an embarrassing time around the 'ol campfire that night.

Believe it or not, with the 800 "double pumper" I ran, the thing would get just shy of 14mpg. I never could break 14, but it would get 13.8-.9 on a long drive. After I put the 340 in, the thing would get over 17mpg.


This car had a basic black interior, no console, 4 speed. Power disk brakes, Dana 44 rear, and the heaviest suspension you could order. The first owner had installed "hang on air"
It had Cyclone headers, and when I bought it, LOUD steel pack cyclone mufflers, with HUGE side exit (look in the picture, you can barely see one of the pipes in front of the right rear tire. I THINK I'd just broken a hanger in this picture.)

Also, this was a "non California" car, which means that it did NOT have the gas tank/ carbon canister vent system.

This is an old, poor, faded picture. The car had the blacked hood, and "air grabber." It had the Rally ("Charger") dash. I THINK the Chargers had "real" padding, the RR's had "fake" hard plastic padding. The factory tach/clock gave trouble, and the first owner had cut that out, and put a Sun tach in from the rear. Fit right in. That tach gave me trouble, when I started playing with Cap discharge and electronic ignition. I bought a Jones/Motrola cable drive tach, and scared up a rare hemi tach drive distributor. These had a ball bearing in the top, and were a much better distributor than the Autolite dual point. (The six packs came with cast iron dual point Autolite, the 4 bbl 440's and 383's came with Chrysler aluminum distributors)


Much of the time I owned it, I ran "4537" landing lights in the high beams. This was before the advent of all the hi power off road lights you can buy now. I nearly forgot. If you look, I'd intalled turn signals out of some other Chrysler up in the grill, and the landing lights are now down in the bumper, where the turn/park lamps "used to be." This is because, before I left San Diego, I got a ticket from a CHP for those lamps. He knew EXACTLY what they were. "Sir, you have illegal aircraft lamps installed in your high beams. You are going to have to remove them."

During the "gas crunch" of '73, I'd bought an Evinrude/Johnson outboard tank, and installed it in the trunk, and used an electric pump to "dump" the reserve into the main tank. I had a part time job, and the damned station operators would leave their big signs on, even though they were out of gas. You could see these from down in the freeway ditch. I'd get "off" go up, and no gas!!! There were at least two times I can remember pulling into an open station and BOTH electric pumps were chattering away sucking air!!!


I ran the living HELL out of this car. I'd love to know what happened to it. The brother of the kid that bought it was less than helpful, and I've lost track of both of them.

Pretty much:

http://www.musclecarcalendar.com/SuperbirdDrive.wmv

 

Thanks. I am starting to forget, here and there. I haven't done any serious (Mopar) mechanical work for years. Most of what I know was done the hard way--by doing it.

When I was stationed at Miramar--in San Diego, I had a part time job at the auto hobby shop, and part of my job was running cars through a 'scope tune-up machine and helping diagnose problems, mostly ignition and other engine problems.

That job "branched out" and it always amazed me that young guys could

Get an engine apart

Get it re-ringed, bearings, put it all back together, and

Could NOT get the distributor in right and get it started. I learned early on how to install a distributor. By pre-oiling the engine with a drill driving the pump, then except for fuel, most of my "new fireups" would start up just like they'd been parked overnight.

One time a then friend was trying to fire a 396 he'd installed in a '57 chevy. I was off work that day, doing my own thing. He finally came over, after borrowing a coil and other bothers, and informed me "I needed to help."

He explained that they were using "that Pepsi can" to prime the engine, because the pump had not gotten fuel up yet.

I checked and smelled the "Pesi can" to be sure they weren't dumping Pepsi down the engine. THERE WAS JET FUEL in the can!!!!

I gave him the can and said "go get me some gasoline."

 

I think if you lined up a bunch of mechanics, you'd find that many opinions on pre-lubing an engine on startup.

Most cam manufacturers have standards for using certain grease for cam break-in. A new cam is especially vulnerable. When I built a couple of different engines, into which I was going to install new performance cams, I actually broke in the engine with the old cam, then tore it down and installed the new cam.

This is because cam break in recommendations (at least back then) were contrary to engine break-in. The cam guys want you to keep the engine above a certain RPM (I've forgotten, seems to me that my old Sig wanted "not below" 2000RPM.) This of course is not exactly the recommended procedure for the REST of a new engine.


Now, as to cranking---that's probably better than running the engine, but you are still turning it over. It is VERY important to liberally lube everything.

I used to lube "all I could" and then use the oil pump shaft to make sure I actually had oil flow. You have to bump some engines over to get oil to the rockers, because the cam must rotate to line up the oil transfer holes.

I'm a big believer in a drill driven primer. You can make SURE that the pump/ filter is delivering oil, and that the oil is getting clear up to the top end.

THEN you can concentrate on watching for other problems, like leaks, etc, get the timing and idle set, and so on. You can keep a wary eye on the pressure guage, but you don't need to worry, then, about the top end/ rockers.