All engine and trans work was done by my friend Mark Davis.The privious owner of the Duster.Some of the following was pulled from his website with his permission.
The old stock 360 being pulled for a rebuild. It was running ok, but it was blowing oil out of the breather. When I pulled the pistons I found that the top ring was broken on all the cylinders but one. It will get 30 over flat top pistons bringing the compression up to about 9.5 to 1, a Crane powermax cam, an Edelbrock performer rpm air gap intake, and the heads will get a little port work and 2.02 intake valves. The old cast iron intake weighs 53 pounds according to my bathroom scale.
The old starter is on the left, it weighs 16 lbs. In the middle is a 91 Dakota starter, the folks on the Moparts message board say that this is the best one to use. It does work very good and, it only weighs 9 lbs. The starter on the right is a Corvette starter. Looks to me like GM and Chrysler buy their starters from the same Japanese dude.
The Duster had a bad ball joint so, I just went ahead and rebuilt the whole front end. I added front and rear sway bars at the same time. It handles great now.
I have a whole new exhaust system now. The headers are TTI . They are the only headers that I could find for a Duster that didn't go under the steering drag link on the driver's side. I built the rest of the system using mandrel bends from Jeg's, just cut them where I needed to, and welded them together.I made my own x-pipe, and I put in collector flanges at the mufflers to make transmission work easier. I almost didn't put these pics on my site because of the sloppy welds. I'm not a great welder, but the system fits good, doesn't leak, sounds good, and it was a big power increase. Good enough for me.
While the engine is out its a good time to dress up the engine bay. You can also see the TTI headers.
Here is the B&M shifter that has been installed.
The transmission is now fixed the 360 rebuilt and everything is now back in the car. Notice the AC compressor, that is a Nippondenso compressor off of a Nissan. The AC hoses were custom made for this installation.
OK the 360 is back in. I got it running on Hemi Day 4/26/04. It sounds great, nice lope at idle and you can hear the headers now. While I had the AC hoses off I had new ones made at Tubes and Hoses. They did a great job. The High pressure hose originally came around the battery and to the compressor from the drivers side. I didn't like it that way because, you can't move the compressor out of your way when working on the engine, so now it makes a U-turn and comes in from the passenger side. I think it looks a little better under the hood than it did when I got it.
The old Mopar Ignition box was working fine, but I noticed the sealer running out of it onto the fender. I'm pretty sure it was about to go. I had this Mallory 3RLI, so I decided to use it. I had a hard time figuring out the wiring without a diagram but I finally got it. There is a dark blue wire that was hooked to the ballast resistor, this supplies 12v in the run position and, there is a brown wire that supplies 12v in the start position ( this wire also goes to the + side of the coil. When I attached these together and connected them to the small red wire on the Mallory unit it started right up but, my digital gauges got a feedback from the 12v being on the blue wire in the start mode. This caused the speedo to go into test mode. To fix the problem I put a diode in line with the blue wire. Now it can feed the Mallory unit with 12v but, the brown wire cant feed 12v back through the blue wire. If the diode ever burns out the car will start but, will cut off when you release the key. I shouldn't have a problem because there is not much current draw on this wire. I put this on my website for 2 reasons, to help someone else that might be doing something similar and, for my own reference. I'll never be able to remember this.
With the AC running the car wanted to run a little warmer than it should. To solve this problem Summit's universal fit radiator # SUM-380325 was installed.
I bought a set of Mopar performance valve covers and breather from Summit Racing. These really made the engine look better.
Here is a before picture of the interior.
Here is a picture of my finished interior notice the center console. My friend from work Mike told about the Humphugger console from Mustang Unlimited. This console is very well made and fits perfectly between the two front seats.
Humphugger console Item No: HH2BLK 01
Here are the seats that I want. These are Scat Procar Sportsman Racing Seats from Summit Racing. part#SCA-80-1605-61L.
Here are a few new gauges that I've installed. I still have the Tach. and speedometer to go. These are the Autometer Phantom gauges. This is temporary until I get the new dash bezel from Redline gauge works
Page 1) Intro
Page 2) The beginning
Page 3) The build
Page 4) Paint/Decals
Page 5) GM 700R4
Page 6) UpdatesPage
Page 7) Car Show
Page 8) My friends cars
Page 9) Random pictures
