Here you go on a couple of photos of that Challenger. The original owner bought it as a body-in-white and put it together as a PS car in 1971. The car wasn't too successful and had alot of breakage problems with transmissions. I found the car for sale in 1978 and told a friend about it and he purchased it. The car had a 426 +30 Hemi in it with steel rods and 12.5 trw pistons, a racer brown roller cam, and a Milodon oil pan and system. It had a Weiand tunnel ram (aluminum) and a pair of 6214 dominator carbs.
The trans was a slick shifted red stripe with 2.66 first gear, and the dana rearend had a posi and 5.13 gears. The body was all steel other than a glass hood and *maybe* a glass decklid.
When my buddy took the car out for the first time after some serious clean up and tweaking, the car acted very strange on the launch, almost like it wasn't really shifting from first to second, even though the Vertical Gate shifter had moved. This weird behavior had us baffled for a week or so as we pondered the shifter for issues, and we finally decided to pull the trans. Once we had it on the bench it was easy to see what the problem was. The previous owner, for whatever reason, had decided to mount the shifter higher than the Mr Gasket mounting bracket called for. However, it was so high that they just turned the shift arms 180 degrees to get a better alignment of the shift rods. This also put the trans in second gear when the shifter was in the first gear position! It was going 2 to 1 to 4 to 3 as you banged through the gears!
The pictures I attached were probably taken in 1978, and the car had a few mods done by then. The slotted mags had been replaced with Super Tricks, the early pro stock hood scoop replaced by a snorkel, and the air horns milled off the carbs.
As I recall, this car was running in the low ten's at this time at 4500 feet altitude.
You know how hindsight is 20/20? This would be a nice period-correct PS car for 1971. I should have kept it when my friend consigned it to me to sell in about 1985. Oh Well, eh?
Mark
