you'll read more on this pic towards the bottom of the page

this is the 68 dart now owned by me again ! i got it back again from the madman andy neal from anl lighting . he is an englishman that moved to n.y. so he wouldn't have so far of a trip to ray barton's shop in penn.

andy had bought this 68 dart from me minus drivetrain .

it was a 440 /727 with nos plate , before that went easy 9's at 139 mph ! i had fun with the car and had built it for a friend named bryan holloway in california , when i lived there . after i was here in michigan for about 3 years i got a call from bryan saying he wanted to sell the dart so i bought it . i ran it with the all iron , 915 headed 440 and a nos plate . the best e.t. was a 9.85 at 139 mph on a really bad track with the nos and it was popping and farting all the way down . i had a problem with the fuel pres. reg. changing on me and it was way too high but i was worried about leaning it out also . after i learned where to set the pres. at 7 psi , i went down the highway in front of my house , man was that scary ! it pulled so much harder than it did on the 9.85 pass i just knew it would go a 9.40 or better .

the next time i took it out was the last time unfortunately. i made a pass on the motor to make sure it was okay and it went a 10.73 at 124 just like always so i was all set and backed the timing down and turned the bottles on . i pulled up and staged it , i left and it started spinning so i short shifted it hoping to kill some torque but it got worse and was heading to the guard rail , i had to lift at less than 100 ft out and get it back in the groove . i put it in high gear , i grabbed the nos again and it stayed straight in high gear , it pulled so hard i was in shock . then , it blew the gasket right in the top end lights with a big pop ! i thought the whole engine was blown apart by the pop i heard . even after letting off ,and putting it in high gear and getting it back in the groove , it still went an amazing 139.80 mph at a 10.01 , when it blew the head gasket . all that with a 1.69 60 ft time , it should have been a 9.40 at least hooking up hard .
i wish i had taken it to stanton to test . man , i was just getting it going good and i had finally sorted the nitrous out , but , it was too late in the season and i had "no" place at all to work on the car so it was parked in the back of a big box truck . i knew the 440 would need o-ringing and going through the engine again and i was actually wanting a station wagon to build worse than anything so i put the dart body up for sale .

i ended up running into andy neal on moparts.com when i bought some axles from him . we talked a lot and after quite some time he wanted the dart and wanted me to install the all alum. 556 inch k-b/ barton built hemi . it was a pump gas engine at the moment and dynoed at 791 hp at 6000 rpm and 741 ft lbs of torque at 5100 rpm . it was still a smallish (.540 lift after lash ) flat tappet cam even ! those #'s were with a single dominator and no power adders yet !
the trans was a lenco 4 spd. , the rear is now a dana 60 with the same chassisworks 4 link setup i put in it years before .we started with a mild 3.54 gear because of the low rpm it makes the stout horsepower at ! it has a 13.5 (11" tread) x 30 x 15 e.t. street tire and the wheelie bars "will" probably be needed ! it now has a parachute

i'm trying to talk andy into the cowl hood but he's stuck on the evil hemi scoop ? i like em both actually ! we'll see if it will come off at 170 mph ?

my bro built the hood and scoop and so far , knock on wood , the scoop has survived 140 mph .
i tried to talk him into the camo paint job i did on my computer to the dart but he again said no ! picky picky eh?

UPDATE 8-17-03
i have the hemi dart running now and tested it wed. night at a crap track and it was hot and humid air too . the car slipped the clutch real bad and in the below pics you can see it smoked the clutch . it went 10.26 in the heat shifting at 5500 rpm and went 132 mph with no tuning at all . the clutch was so bad i had to bring it home and i'm now putting in a sintered iron clutch disc for the big tork and high rear gears (3.55). more to come soon .

update : aug. 20th 03 , took the dart back to the junky hillbilly track with the new clutch in it . i had to rev it real hard to launch without bogging the engine and went a best of 10.01 and a 10.02 at 133 mph . this is still on the motor and i will be trying the nitous soon . i tried it on the street but it was popping and crapping out bad so we'll have to see why .

UPDATE:
THE dart went to stanton on friday sept. 5th we had changed the rear gears t 4.10 instead of the 3.54's since they were too high for the car . it hooked so hard it was on the wheelie bars super hard leaving at 2800 rpm . it went a 9.90 at 135 and shifting at 5800 and 6000 . it went a conservitive 6300 in the lights too. remember , the engine builder ray barton says the engine is good for 30,000 street miles too ! this is a fun car to drive for sure . it is in n.y. now with andy and now i have the car below here to work on .

and a pic from the front leaving hard

UPDATE : the hemi is now running a roller cam to get some higher rpm and more hp . it went up to 889 hp at 6700 rpm , that should make a big difference in the car now . it was plenty of power in my opinion but andy always wants more ! it should be good for low 9's or better now since it never had much testing done to sort it out yet . the car will be back out for testing maybe next spring

UPDATE :
andy has now sold the hemi we called DUMBO to a mopar nut in canada named rob . rob will be putting the hemi in his dart now and i will have some pics soon .
andy is now doing a wild small block with the big d3 procharger i sold him and that will be going in the dart now with the lenco . it should be one wild ride for sure . we are discussing bringing it back here to my shop to put the pieces all back together again . it should be one wild ride for sure .

more news as it happens :

and it happens:

i have the dart back once again . now i have the dart for the 3rd time !

i started a page just for the dart now , go here .
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2512251