My brothers 69 Barracuda, 360 4 speed, J heads(supposed to be ported), small hydraulic cam, single plane intake, TTI step headers, 3.91 gears, 26" tall drag radials.
Ran a best of 14.70's low 90 mph in the 1/4.
When he had the engine rebuilt the FIRST time I questioned the low cost of it.

Lets just say the issues with machine work and assembly are too numerous to mention.

The car hasn't been to the track with the new engine but the engine dynoed at 411 hp @6000 & 426 tq @4200 if my memory is correct.

my first pass with my raodrunner was 17.20s, thats with a bone stock 170k mile 383 i thought it was a 15 second car.

i then move back to idaho and rebiult the 383 using a dp4b intake a 3310 holley, stock converter mp 484 cam stockish 906 heads with exhaust manifolds and 3.91 gears. the car ran a crappy 15.80 and with a little track side tuning i got it to run 16.0s lol.

over the years i was able to get the car to run [Email]12.49@109[/Email] the long block was never touched, infact in 10 years the valve covers only came off 1 time to be replaced with a mp cast aluminum set. most of the et was gained in getting the combo more suited to the mp cam, and learning a a little about tuning.

i do have a question for ya dwayne. i put a 4 speed in my 68 plymouth. it has a 3310 on it now, with 3.23s gears is a 3310 or a dp the best choice? i drive the car ALOT. its basically my daily driver unless the weather sucks bad.

I dont have the guys et's but when I owned my sons Dart back in the late 90's I got into a little street race with my buddies 440 65 Ply. He had ported 906 heads with the MP.528 cam. It used a TM7 intake with an 850 DP. I believe it was about 10.5 comp with the normal headers and it had 3.91's. Now this guy was one of the guys who thinks because his car has more in it then a car of less build that his car is automaticly faster. Because his buddies car had run high 11's with a very close built 440. So we got next to each other with alot of open road in front of us at the redlite. He eased out and laid into it and the 383 Dart put it all over him. I pulled 2 car lenths on him before I hit 60 mph and was still pulling on him when I let out. When we got to the Burger King my other buddy says to me..........you just rocked his world because he thought his car would run easy 11's. The best the .484 cammed 383 Dart ran was 12.31 @ 110 so I told him he dont have an 11 second car. It didn't run 15's but it may have been a low 13 car at best. And I agree if done right it could have been an easy low 12 car. Funny how some people really have no idea how good or bad a combo can run. Ron

When I got my car it had a 340 in it built by local machine shop, it had been run but never driven until I got the car on the road. Motor sounded stout until I put exhaust on it, tons of piston slap. It ran OK ended up going a 13.91 with stock converter 727 and 3.23 gears. The oil pressure really went downhill fast in the 1000-2000 miles I put on it. It got to where it had 60psi going down the road and 2psi at idle. I was 16 and didn't no any better so i kept on lol.

Well 1000 or so miles go by and the car gets hit hard so I pulled the motor when it went to the shop. My dads racing partner and long time family friend has a machine shop so we took it over there. It was .043 over on 6 cylinders and .044 over on 2. The oil pressure problem was........#3 main bearing in backwards..yup hole on the cap side meant no oil to that main and two rods, how did it last so long? They also RTV'd the cam plate just in case it might leak oil into the oil pan. I also pulled a 3" long RTV booger out of one of the oil passages.

The car got faster every trip to the track, I guess it was getting that much closer to fragging lol.

Dwayne..thats the lost art of blueprinting...
in your case your experienced eye..was keene enough to pick up on a few things that might have been missed by the untrained eye..
kudos for you to go the extra mile...it shows a concensious character..
this goes to proove when you do a set of heads its not for practice..
that guy just stumbled apon a good guy ..in this hobby..
what is it they say ?..luck is oportunity meeting prepariedness..?
really this goes along way...most of us guys use the bigger shops cause we feel we will get the job done right...
its a shame that this was work being put out and someone paid prolly good money for it.
as far as informing the offending machine shop. I would hope the owner of the engine atleast informs the shop.of the poor workmanship..
In my experience (the building trade) guys that put poor work out...wont change there ways unless the buying public reject it.
at the point in time the macninist that did this job...someone desided to let it fly...nothing came back to him...so he figured..."i guess i can skimp like this all the time...cause no one complained.".?
either way good read...thanks for the post.
makes alot of sense..
again in my trade...its hard to explain to a customer...there is a right way..and a usually more than one wrong way..the cheap way (and very often the regular/higher price) is usually one of the wrong choices..
cheapst.
ps. a buddy of mine had a (68 valiant)44o built by Barnett's (their machine shop is no longer) it ran low 12's
the guy that built it told my buddy it was just a 440 with the right cam...
he later put the same # cam in a junk yard 440 in a 69 dart and it ran high 14's
he couldnt figure out why it was so slow..
must have been this same deal.?

I had a set of heads like that on a 273 and would barely start when I was done putting them on or any time there after. It was a teribly slow even for a 273. I eventually pulled them off when it was backfiring like crazy, from burned valves , that was when I saw how bad the valve job really was. I slapped on some 318 open chamber heads I had layin around and got tons more power from them than the closed small chamber 273s even though it should have been the other way around

I have a good 17.40 B body 440 combo- '75 440, generic cast pistons .200 in the hole, stock heads for the '75 w/2.08's & MP springs for the .509 around 85cc, TM7 with a 2"open spacer & 850 holley DP, MP .509 cam not degreed with a $19 timing chain, Hooker SC's IIRC 1 7/8 w/3" exhaust & Flowmasters, 727 w/12" converter and Cheetah reverse MVB, 2.94 open rear, L60 MT I treads on 10" centerlines.

Take all this and put it in a '70 Coronet R/T and it will get you into the 17's at around 80mph.

I knew it was pretty sick but didn't know how bad 'til he took it to the track.

Another good one was a early B body with a cross ram Hemi that ran 15.0's on race gas- I thumped that a few times with a all iron 360 in a '67 Valiant, only mods were a 280/.474 MP cam, 3310 holley on the stock intake and 3.91's- it was still going through 318 manifolds and was on street radials.

I had a set of 906's done locally by a guy that races Mopars.

When the 440 was all together I just took it easy on it to break it in its a streeter first.

While driving the car to the Nats back then I noticed it was using a quart of oil every time I hit the gas station. Got home and the plugs were oiling down had to change them "often"

Broke out the Vaccum Gauge and at idle in the driveway the needle would "paintbrush" so fast over a wide range it was a total blurrrrrrrrrr.

Needless to say the Mopar Guru didnt replace the guides he just knurled them. Not sure how this procedure should have held up but in this case it didnt hold up it just sucked major oil into the cylinders.

After that I sent out for a set of 906's from a better place. With a stock 6 pack cam, six pack set up, HP manifolds and full exhaust at 4000 pounds went 12.95 at 104.9 mph

Im sure it would not have ran a 14 with them bad heads.....................

Someone above mentioned calling the shop that did it and asking them about the work.

It has been my experience that, even if you call the shop out and accuse them of shoddy work, and ask them to explain themselves, they do not care.

MANY shops have a "get it out the door" mentality, and will cut corners to get the stuff out of the shop.

My only advice is that if you find a reputable shop that does great work, do you damndest to see that they get not only your business, but the business of your buddies!

Nick,
School of Automotive Machinists

A classic Fast68-like post. Excellent info.

I'm mostly a reader here, but man it is good to see you back in your old form.

Well Done.

John

I know exactly what you're talking about Dwayne, kinda gives mopars a bad name when a nicely restored car with a big motor puts up such a weak time . A local mopar buddy had a beautiful restored 69 hemi charger 4 speed, he borrowed my slicks to take it to the track for kicks. I think he ran a low 15 at like low 90 mph... it was.... sad

Good info Dwayne, and thanks for sharing with us. Its amazing how much can be gained from just a little extra work like you performed on those heads. Even if the heads were not worse than untouched stock castings, that would still amount to a substantial gain in power over your basic valve touch up. The resto guys should really be reading this too. Maybe its their pathetic 16 second time slip that keeps them away from the race section...

Thanks Dwayne and 440 jim for the comparision.
Damn I was looking for 30 yr old time slips with my 69 Super Bee 383 AVS, manifolds, recurved dist, 3.55 sure grip with 86,000 miles. IIRC it went 14.85 @ 92 mph? Not bad for stock and in a 3800# B body. Still got the trophys, gotta find those time slips, hope I didn't pitch em.

Now it'll do 12.18 with slicks and open headers, a true 10:1 cr, home ported 906, 440 six pack, MP 484 cam, 727 w/shift kit, 3.91 SG.
I'm sure if Dwayne did the heads it would be in the 11s!
Thanks again for a very informative post!! Don

Great post fast68, a real eye opener about the kind of poor work that can be done.

I can think of a certain '69 Roadrunner around this area that the guy installed the .509 cam, four speed, 3.91 gears and slicks and promptly ran mid 15's.

He wasn't happy when he found out my 9.5:1 440 with 3.23's, auto, factory cast iron 4bbl. intake and street tires and weighing in at 3,640 was running 13.5's @104.

Another guy with a '71 Charger didn't bother to measure anything when he assembled his 400 because he thought he was in a competition with me to see who could get their engine assembled faster (I didn't care as I build for quality and had all winter! He had been a little miffed that his 400 couldn't keep up with a 360 headed 318 of mine and had something to prove.)

After bragging about how fast his 400 was going to be for months, summer came around and I repeatedly ask him to take it to the track for a friendly race. He always come up with some excuse from the peg leg 2.76 to it knocking and hammering (running too much compression on cheap pump gas) to the distributor not working properly (rebuilt it for him) to transmission not working right (again, I rebuilt it for him.) I finally gave up when he couldn't even limp his new motor to the car shows anymore.

I never cease to be amazed at the number of guys that won't learn how to degree in a cam or re-curve a distributor yet whine when they run a 16 second quarter about the cam/convertor/gearset being all wrong!

Years ago I took my stock 69 charger R/T to the drag strip to see what it would do. Had 3.91 gears and fairly low profile street tires. Bone stock rebuild on the 440 (but of reasonably hiqh quality parts), with a six pack. Column auto car. I was figuring on at least a high 13 second pass. I had the look that Dwayne described when I could just BARELY get it into the 14s. Ran out of engine way before the end of the quarter mile. Very humbling experience. Learned a lot that day...

about 5 years ago I met a guy at the track
with a cherry 69 RR had slicks, 4speed,bb
with indy heads looked nice me and my 906
trw heavy slugs running low 12s he could only run high 13s at 100 mph he had more in his heads
than I had in my whole engine