Pro Street '68 Dart in Hot Rod

Some really nice looking work on this car. I'd like to see it in person. Looks like the guy did a ton of stuff on this car.
https://www.hotrod.com/articles/1968-dodge-dart-first-love/

Beautiful car. Wonder if they really did make it a "long-tail", or if it's actually a reference to the rear wheel-openings, which would of course make sense?
Interesting that it's 344CI, too.

Very nice!

He posts on instagram under RM23U0A.

Lots of good vids on there.

Really nice car, tastefully done. Love the stance and the look.

I'm glad people are still doing this instead of the Pro Touring deal with custom body mods, fancy interiors and 22s.

Very nice car.

How many zeros in the cost, 4 or 5?

How many zeros or how many digits? Says he did a lot of work himself and much of it was done years ago. Still, I don't see how it could have been done for 5 digits. No junk on that car. Never get close to that today.

He said he did a lot by himself but read the article. Most of that work was done by others. What does it run I must have missed that. I’m going to have to take a closer look on my desktop computer but something looks fishy on the funny car cage. Looks like small tubing on my phone.

My monitor is 30" HD (stole my wife's TV out of the house for the shop computer), cage looks ok. Inner bars can be 1 1/2". My concern was how hard he's getting after it with twins on that stock block 340.

I like that it is just a 340

Very well built car ,but stock block, twin 64's and no et's .Hmmmm.grudge car maybe?

Wasn’t he trying to run Drag Week with it. If so everyone would know what it runs. I think I would be buying a Ritter block in the near future

Hey all, this is my car. Thank you so much for all the kind words. Its really been a long road and with lots of twists along the way. This car represents friendship and the brotherhood of drag racers. I can't take credit for everything but my good friend and I put over 1000 man hours in this thing. The things I farmed out were the back half and cage, the trans, machine work, and the actual paint spraying. I was going to paint it myself but when it came down to it my cousin owns a body shop and I rented his booth to paint it and his painter talked me into letting him do it. I am glad he did because it looks amazing. However, Gary and I did the body work including all the panel fabrication and untold man hours into making it straight. The chassis was built by Hansen's Racecars and he is one of the countries best chassis builders. This car is actually set up like a SS Hemi Dart. The chassis has been certified by the NHRA and passed with flying colors. It was built in my 3 car garage and a strong majority of the other fab work was Gary or I. I read the article and one thing is glaringly wrong and thats who built the motor. I built the engine myself. I take pride in building my own cars and I try to do everything myself. This is an all out effort street/strip car for me to take to Dragweek. We built this car in 10 months. I work 96 hours a week and I have a young family. Sleep is something I guess I don't need Haha. Anyways I have been to the dyno and it has seen 18psi with no problems. This weekend we are heading out to Fontana to get my license and do some easy runs to get a handle on suspension adjustments. As most of you know drag racing is the greatest sport full of the greatest people and these cars are a labor of love.

Yeah the stock block is quite the conversation piece. In the 90's I built a 340 with W2s and twin turbo. We put it in my buddies car and it ran mid 8's at 13 psi. It also made 900hp at the wheels and it went 150 passes with zero breakage. You are very right an aftermarket block is in my near future and if I could go back I would've bought one, that is if I could've gotten one, but I know what the stock block can take and I am going to be nice to this one but it has been tasked with successfully making 4 digit power.

Fantastic build!!!!! Good luck with it and hope it does what you built it for

Awesome looking car.

REALLY NICE CAR !

LOVE THE LOOK AND COLOR !

Nice Ride! Looking forward to seeing the car at the track.

JcodeCharger,

Thanks for the updates and please keep us posted on your future progress.

Also, thanks for your work as a first responder.

Bill

You should be very proud. Good luck at the track.
Doug

Nice work Chris.

People that KNOW you understand what you did to build the car. Well done.

Get that license and a bunch of arrow straight passes!

Will it be at Drag Week this year?

Very cool car! Good luck with it!

Awesome...

Thanks again guys. We attempted to run it Saturday and it lost second gear on the way to tech. It passed tech easily but unfortunately couldn't run it. Spent the morning trying to fix it but the trans had to come out. Yesterday I pulled the trans and found the second gear band lever broken. Turns out that it has an adjustable line pressure regulator and the pressure was about 75-100 psi too much and that caused the lever to break. The parts are coming and I will adjust the regulator and get it right. Hopefully the weather will hold out and we can get to the track this weekend. Come hell or high water I will be at drag week this year, hopefully with a sorted car that will last the week.

Very nice car! Interesting that you chose a 727 instead of a Powerglide with the power you have available. If it hooks it should be a beast off the line.

Very nice Dart! Two thumbs up!

If it were my car and I was going to street drive it, particularly for Drag Week, I'd put some screens over those turbo inlets. Wouldn't want to get a pebble or any other road debris sucked into them.

any chance its coming to MATS?

I kinda regret not putting a Lenco in it. I chose the 727 because I truly believe they are strong enough and I like using the stock mopar stuff. A turbo 400 or glide would cost double of what I have in the torqueflite. Oh, and the reason for a 3 speed is that we thought it would be 3300 pounds or more and guys who are that heavy really benefit from the low gear in a three speed. Now that it’s done it weighed 2869. We were kinda off I guess haha.

For the street I use turbo guards on the turbos and we have had street cars set up like this before and haven’t had an issue but for safety I use to use a piece of house screen with a hose clamp 😂 but now I’m high tech because the turbo guard has a screen and a larger wire mesh to provide protection for larger rocks or trash.

I’m 50/50 on going to the MATS, it would be pretty expensive for me to go and it would have to depend on if I can get some solid passes before then. I’d hate to drag my stuff out there and break a small part.

Love it.

Hey guys, after quite a few ups and downs I think we have the car ready for the track for my license passes. Tomorrow we are heading out to Irwindale and if all goes well we will be at Fontana Saturday. The list of problems have been quite comical but one by one we have gotten it close. Between rain, transmission issues, brake issues, a rebuild of the wheelie bars, and finding a track thats open on a day I don't work its been frustrating. Also, the magazine came out and I am stoked, man what a dream come true. I hope to see some of you guys out at the track or at CPW's Spring Fling.

Good luck!

Yep! Get after it!

NIce ride!

Went to Irwindale last Thursday and had a great night! 6 passes with no breakage. It drove smooth and straight but the converter is still way too loose. We killed as much power as possible and it allowed the converter to work better but still had 45% slippage. I was able to finish my license! So the converter is back out and a new one is being built. We are heading out to Irwindale next week to see if it'll turn a decent number. Its a process as most of you know, brick by brick.

https://youtu.be/Bli8WX1RMQ4

https://youtu.be/sKshYDhGMxA

It was good to see the car, nice ride. There will be a test and tune Saturday 4/6 afternoon/evening after the Summit series race, if that makes it easier for you.

A very impressive ride. One quick question, tell me more about the oil-less turbos. That little detail popped out to me, I'd rather here(read) from someone with actual experience rather than marketing hype or uninformed speculation. Thanks

Thank you very much for the kind words. I originally took my T60 Turbonetics turbos in for a rebuild to Comp turbo because I had oil leaking out the exhaust side of the turbo. They sold me on the idea of oil less because of the location of my turbos and the fact that the scavenge pump didn't do the trick and the tubonetics turbos weren't in that bad of shape. So it was either relocate my turbos or use the oil less ones. These things are triple ball bearing as well and spool up fast. I don't do any tricks to spool them on the brake and it'll make 8 pounds on the brake in 1.5 seconds. So far I have been really happy with them. The response time and re-spool time when you pedal it is instantaneous. They use grease for the bearings and use coolant to cool the turbo.

Really nice car and my FAV year too! only things I would change.... it would sit about 4 inches lower, and it would have a gen3 hemi in it.

Thanks, although it won't go any lower unless you put a tube chassis under it. The front is a 1/2" off the bump stops. Gen3 Hemi? No way.

Went back to Irwindale and this time the converter is TIGHT! So here are some low boost passes. Time to start adding in timing, leaning out the AFR a little, and shifting higher.

https://youtu.be/jkImQugkxGM

https://youtu.be/HfOHDGZ351w

https://youtu.be/zrDFHCcoanQ

https://youtu.be/7vGTN6O75AI

How much boost and what are the 60 ft. times now?

I left on 6.9 pounds and the high was 10.6 with most of the run around 9 psi. The 60' was a 1.30.

My guess miss on your 60 ft. times a bunch those times are good with a lot of room for future improvements

I think there is. I am short shifting it at 6500, the timing is at 24 degrees, and the target AFR is 11.5 to 1. Next week I am going back to the dyno to lean out the tune up and find the optimal timing as well as see if it'll continue to make power up to 7500 rpm. I still also can leave on much higher boost. The suspension isn't tuned all the way but its pretty close. So there is still a lot of R&D to do. This is so much fun. I am also planning on taking my freshly dyno'd set up to Irwindale the following Thursday May 2.