58 Plymouth Savoy 5.7 hemi NAG1 dakota front clip build

Thought I would start a build thread on my 58 for those interested. As the title states, i started with a 58 4dr Savoy, manual shift, 318 poly, manual brakes, manual steering. After rebuilding the 318 and going through the gearbox, i decided to go with a modern drive train, power disc brakes and power rack and pinion. I found a 2005 magnum 5.7 and a 1990 Dakota for donor vehicles.

My plan was to splice the Dakota front frame, install the hemi and NAG1 and get it up and going with a wiring harness from hotwireauto. I thought I would try taking the wiring, computers and shiffter from the magnum and try to start the engine. I cut the wires to stuff like the back lights, wipers, doors, etc. When I hooked it all up and tried to start it, i got a "no bus" error. i think i messed up when i cut the wires going to the steering column. Even though the ignition is in the dash, I.m guessing the cruse control comunicates on the CAN bus. Anyway, it was just a trial. I then sent my computers and shiffter to hotwireauto so they could build me a harness.

Sounds like this will be a fun car!

We put a 5.9 Magnum into a 57 Dodge wagon for my son a couple of years ago. Its apart right now, hoping to get into the paint shop soon. We converter the original frame to 4 wheel disc and adapted the original steering to 5.9 pump.
I have also done a couple of Dakota frame clips and a full frame swap. If there is anything I can help you with, PM me or ask here.
Picture of son's 57 wagon, before paint! Gene

I took all kinda measurements before cutting the frames. I wanted the splice to look like it flowed together and not have a step at the splice. To help get the ride height I wanted, I rotated the Dakota section 2 degrees to lower the front of the car. Stock alignment for the Dakota is 2.5 to 3.5 degrees caster. By rotating it up, I should have about 5 degrees. Shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks Gene! I used a truck rear sump oilpan on the hemi. The magnum exhaust is to wide for the Dakota frame so I'm using truck exhaust. I'm planning on using a lokar dipstick. For brakes, the stock location of the master cylinder when adding a booster with the hemi would have been tight, so I moved it. Using the brake pedal assembly from the magnum allowed the pedal to install on the driver side of the steering column. Also in this pic, the steering is mocked up.

pedal arrangment

Looks good so far...

Thanks 5280Dart! Your thread provided lots of helpful information.
Before mocking up the brakes and steering, the engine was set in place, clearances checked, motor mounts tacked in place and ride height checked. Even after rotating the Dakota section, the front end looks a little higher then I want. Once everything is on the car, if it's still high for my liking, I'll use some drop spindles.

I am liking your work, I was wondering what to do with my master cylinder location. Your ideas give me inspiration to get back on the Plazakota.

Keep the updates coming and Thanks

Thank you challenger 73400 for posting (and 5280 Dart). I am so glad to have found this site and your posts.

I am starting on a similar project on ‘56 two door wagon (Plodge) this spring using a ‘92 dakota frame clip and magnum engine.

Do you think that if I (you) used the dropped spindles right off the get go, the front frame rails would be where you want them?

Please continue to post your progress and pictures, and once again, thank you for posting, You probably have a good idea of how invaluable and important posts of this kind are.

Yw, Hopefully others can find something that will help with their project. I know post like 5280 Dart and a few others helped me get this far.

Here's the Trans cross member modified to support the NAG1.

If I would have used 2" drop spindles from the start and not rotated the Dakota section, The front end would have ended up 1" lower then it is now. Rotating the Dakota section raised the K member about an inch in relation to the 58 frame. The front of the car appears to be about where the stock 58 front end was before I took everything apart.
I can't advise on you project but I'm happy about the direction I went on mine so far. Where you splice the frame and how you splice it together will also play into final ride height.

Made a little progress today. The cowl had some rust issues so I cut it off early on. The back lip was in bad shape. I ended up replacing most of it. The coated both sides with por15. You can't get that stuff off your hands!

Nothing seams to just fit together, the booster is a universal 8" dual from summit, the Dakota master cylinder bolt pattern is a little different so the die grinder come out. Also, the pushrod for the master cylinder was to short, It turned out to be a 6mm 1.0 so I made one from a bolt. Of coarse the pedal bracket wouldn't bolt up to the aftermarket booster. I wanted to tie it into the factory bracket anyway so it would have plenty of support when applying the brake. I made a backing plate, tack welded it to the new pedal assembly then braced it to the factory brake pedal/steering bracket. Also made a spacer for the engine side of the firewall. Still got to radius the corners.

Here's where I could use some advise. I got my engine wiring harness from hotwire but I need a chassis wiring harness. There seems to be tons of "universal" harnesses out there. Since I already got the engine harness, what harness do ya'll recommend? Having the engine harness may not matter, just won't use some of the wires.

I would start here....
http://www.ronfrancis.com/

If memory serves, this was the guy that pretty much pioneered the wiring kits.

On my son's car, the Hotwire harness has a lot of feeds for a lot of stuff like gauge sender wires, cruise, fuel pump, and a bunch of other stuff you can use as an option. If you use the hotwire harness to its full extent, a very small body harness will be required for the rest of the car. The old cars have very few circuits, originally, Mopar only used 2 or 3 circuits, and the Hotwire unit only needs a few powered sources to run. I believe you will need fuses for: headlights, turn lights, brake/flasher lights, wipers, heater blower, and radio. My son bought a 10 or 12 fuse kit, and almost 1/2 we didn't use.

Also, don't buy the cheapest universal wiring kit you can find, there are some really cheap kits available. Stick with a name brand with tech support. If there is no phone tech support, buy from someone else. Gene

gene is spot on about not cheaping out on wiring. the most hated thing i get talked into is fixing someone's messed up wiring installs ! i could just kick some guys when they touch wires ! it seems their mission in life is to use the cheapest kit known to man, and those eleventybillion, $3.99 terminal kits with the supplied crimping pliers. then they come crying to me when the car doesn't start all the time, "xxx" doesn't work, or the "magic smoke" won't return into the wire[s] it came out of......

Excellent project! Will be interested in hearing how the Hotwire systems work out.

Thanks. I,ve received the wiring harness from hotwire. The quality looks good. I found a broken piece of one plug in the box, traced it down to the capacitor plug. It's different from my capacitor anyways so i'm not concerned. Mine is just a spade terminal i can change myself. My engine turned out to be not original to the car I got it from so year specific/correct plug is not the fault of hotwire. As a mater of fact, Chris probably saved me a big hassle by asking the right questions and getting the coil plugs right for my engine. I'm sure if I contacted him about the plug, he would send me a new one.

Been a while since I've posted progress. It's slow but still moving in the right direction.
I decided I would do the sheetmetal work before putting the eng and trans back in. It never looks that bad until you take it down to the metal! I've replaced patches in the floors down both sides, inter rocker panels and outer rocker panels.

Well I tried adding photos but I'm on my new computer and can't resize the pics. I'll have to figure out how to resize.

I think I got the pics resized and boy do I hate windows 10! Here's some of the metal replacement. I'm use to structural welding. this thin sheet metal and having to spot and move around don't feel right!

I didn't get all the pics i wanted to add, it's a pain!
anyway, all the metal work fwd of the rear tires is done. I've got to replace a quarter panel and the trunk floor and there's a few places around the trunk lip I need to address.

Mean while, I realized this project ain't going to be done before crusin the coast so the wife and I bought a running car we can enjoy now and take to crusin the coast. This has slowed progress on the 58 but we have had a blast with this thing! We take it to some local car shows and cruise ins. I love driving around in it and riding in it.

1948 Dodge D24 2dr sedan. Still running the 6 volt positive ground. It has the fluid drive transmission.

Nice work, keep going

It's been a while since I posted any progress but I'm making slow progress. All the metal replacement is done except the trunk weatherstrip channel. I had to replace about 80% of the metal behind the rear tires.

more metal replacement

In the trunk

more trunk

More metal work, sorry they have a poor order to them

Lots of parts I had to make. sometimes it took 3 trys to get on I was happy with.

I am the worst about not stopping and taking photos, my son gets on me all the time for that. I didn't take photos of after I fixed the rear window channel or replacing the package tray. The previous owner had a AC unit under the package tray and cut holes for the duct in the Package tray. The AC unit is cool (Chrysler air temp)but I've elected not to use it. I'll do a under dash unit.

Then it was on to stripping the car. I don't ever want to do that again! I used to aggressive sanding disk and have some deep scratches in some places.

Then into epoxy primer. I'm no painter but i don't like the way that stuff sprays (or more likely, didn't know what i was doing!)

Lifted the body off the frame, POR-15 the bottom of the body and the frame. Clean the motor up a bit, set it on the frame, Lowered the body back down on the frame with new body mounts. Oh, also painted the firewall the final color.

WOW ! I'm almost speechless, what a ton of work and well done. If nothing else it makes my project seem easy. Thanks for posting.

nice metal work ! slow progress is better than no progress [and i know all about no progress]. keep at it, and it will get done.

Very well done!!!!

A little more progress, got the steering and brakes done. Got the rearend built and installed. I used an e-body rear and the pinion angle is to steep. I ordered 6 degree shims to take care of that problem. There is not enough room above the tank for a retro fit efi pump. I'm going to use a low pressure pump to supply a surge tank with a efi pump in it.
What a pain it is to add pics.....I'll have to add pics when I'm able to resize them.

.....not sure if this helps, but PIXresizer is easy to use?

Wow, had this phone well over a year and just learned I could resize pic's on it.

I'm going to use a fitech command center 2 so I needed a return to the tank. I used a fuel cell pickup setup and have the hose in the tank where it is submerged in fuel, unless I run really low on fuel. My intention is not to introduce air bubbles in the fuel.

Here is my tone ring ring and u-joint setup on the nag-1. Now that I got the pinion angle right, I can order a drive shaft with a slip joint in it. Got new leaf springs also. I can't believe how much the old springs seam to have sagged until putting the new ones on. I've got 2 inch lowering blocks on it and it looks close to what I want. Will need to wait until all the weight is back on the car.

Wow! Time flies! July since I updated. I've made slow but steady progress. Got my drive shaft build and installed. Fuel lines run and fuel pumps installed. Inter fenders painted and installed. I welded up all the holes in the core support and inter fenders I don't intend to use. Cut some extra holes in the core support to feed air to the air box. (Not build yet, need to get the hood on first).

Got the exhaust run to the mufflers. I used walker quite flow 26" (I think that's what there called). I want it quite. Also got a griffin radiator, I was going to use the original but the hose outlet was not going to work. Got the transmission and power steering coolers in, the power steering hp hose is done, remote reservoir mounted. I'm down to wiring in order to start it. I looked at my paperwork, I bought the hotwire harness 2 years ago.

That really looks good.

that looks really good, and should surprise quite a few at the stoplights !

Car looks great!
So given your location, I assume you will not be using the original style of heater? Would it fit anyway? What are you going to do with the opening the heater assembly used to cover?
On my son's wagon, he filled the opening and will add a smaller heating/defropster unit inside the car, primarily for windshield defrost. We sometimes need that at the beginning or end of our cruising seasons up here. Gene

Thanks! The original heater won't work, going to put a block off plate over the opening. I'm going to use a under dash heat and air unit. Don't really need heat during cruise-in season around here but I do plan to drive this thing to some events states away.....could get chilly I guess, I'll have it if I need it. Definitely will need ac around here!

Not sure about surprising anybody at the stop lights, just a stock 5.7 from a 05 or 06 magnum. I would imagine the nag1 gearing will make it feel more powerful then it is. I used 3.23 gears out back and intend to run the tallest tire I can get away with. Looking at how close the rear tire on it now (26") is to the front of the opening, I think a 27" is what I'll need to run.

On the NAG-1 output, did you make the adaptor for your driveshaft yoke, or did you buy it. I need to do the same thing on my 64 wagon project.

I bought it from Oster motorsports. Searching the net I found you could buy both 4 bolt and 3 bolt adapters. My Nag1 already had a 3 bolt so that's what I used.

Oops! Ostar, not Oster.

Me also!! Man, I've been watching, impressive.

Thanks! Starting on wiring now. The hotwire harness couldn't be easier. The hardest part is finding a place for all the computers. I bought a 21 circuit painless harness, going through wires to figure out all the wires I don't need since the hotwire harness handles stuff like backup light, brake switch, ac compressor, starter solenoid, fuel pump relay.... Hope to start her in a couple weeks.

Excellent build! Love my 57 Belvedere

Thought it was time to update. She runs! And fuel injection is nice! Took it down the road to see if the transmission was going to shift because I was uncertain the speed sensor brackets where going to work but it shifts, only let it shift from 1st to second. Had a coolant Leslie to deal with. Here's the brackets.

I'll have to resize some pics tonight. Gotta get back to work

A couple of the sensor brackets

I first painted the firewall wimbledon white and never have liked it. Others tried convincing me it's fine and I tried making myself lik it but never could. So.....separate the frame from the body and repaint it. PW7 dodge white. Much happier! Was/is.

The final straw on changing the white was holding the blue next to it. The blue I choose is a 1955 ford aquatone blue.

Body back on frame and dash installed. Next is AC and gauges. I'm going to use vintage air under dash heat and cool unit.

I've been installing the vintage air system, I thought buying the individual ends and getting the hose local was a better option because I needed more fittings then came in the kit but now I know better. Local supply charged me 140 dollars for just the hose, I got another 300 in fittings. My suggestion, buy a kit then add additional fittings. I bought a manual crimper tool and it's easy to operate and crimps look good.

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Who made your driveshaft? I need one for my 64 Wagon project. It is a 5.7 with a Nag-1 too.

my local driveshaft shop, clutch products in Mobile, Al. I did supply the flange. They put the slip yoke in the rear, I don't know why I was expecting it to be fwd but they said that's where they normally put the slip yoke on this type driveshaft. Should work just fine. I would imagine most any driveshaft shop can make one for you. Let me know if you need the flange part number, I'll dig it up.

Great builds so far! I haven't gone the modern Hemi route yet, but did my first EFI using a 1999 5.2L from a truck I had. Lots to learn about making them work. Most people have no idea how hard it is to do hot rods, you have to engineer most things to work.

Mike

Thanks Mike! I sure didn't realize what I was getting into but the engineering part of it is something I enjoy. I'd love to see more on your swap.

building hot rods is EASY. it only takes a show or two to build one !
it's also a lot harder to "keep it simple" and make it look "right" than people think.
i agree Mike, it is engineering at it's finest, making things fit where they aren't supposed to.

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