Mopar Muscle Cars and Fast Volvo's

[MoparWade]

I'm betting someone here is a Mopar guy too. Have a '70 Roadrunner that I'm building yet another, and hopefully the last, engine for. Going to be an aluminum 590 Hemi. That's about all I know for certain about the engine at this point. It will be 1000HP which is tricky to get to without overshooting or falling short. Ideally I want to stay under the hood and be all motor. Thought about twin turbos but that is prohibitively expensive and not reliable enough to drive on a regular-ish basis. For the time being I have a Keith Black block and Lenco ST1200 transmission sitting here waiting for me to make a decision.

Aside from the Mopar muscle I thoroughly enjoy fiddling with my '98 Volvo V70. I'm currently assembling a new engine for it that will be making somewhere around 400HP with 25psi of boost. Should still get pretty decent mileage out of it as long as I can stay out of the throttle. Had Ross Racing Pistons make a set of custom pistons for this build that just showed up a few days ago so now I can start assembling.

[Ritchie200]

That is not going to be cheap endeavor!  Naturally aspirated you are going to have to turn some ripums...  That means steel crank, nice steel rods, big compression pistons with room for roller cam bumped titanium valves with a lot of lift and overlap.  Big port heads and intake. Dominator sized carb to feed the beast.  Idle at about 1500?   I would love to hear the end result!  Unless you are going all out in a straight line, that may be a real bear on the street - especially yanking handles on the Lenco.  Pics and soundclips/videos please - that's good porn!

Jim

[MoparWade]

No, this will be an expensive build which is yet another reason to skip the twin turbos. A decent twin turbo build will run about $80k. I'm sure I will be into this for around $50k+ anyway. It will be a Callies crank and Venolia pistons for sure. I should be clear that this won't be a street car in any sense other than I'm going to drive it on the street anyway. I've been running 750 on the street for a while and now that I'm comfortable with that I figure it's time to kick it up a notch. Yes, you are correct, it's one thing to be rowing through gears on a 1/4 and a completely different thing on the street. I will post updates as I have them.

[PRR]

> turn some ripums...

8,000+ RPM isn't too high for short bursts on a forged crank that size. NASCAR engines (much smaller, true) do it for hours.

Unless he reserves Daytona, short bursts is all he gets-- there's hardly any place on the planet you can put 1000HP in a sedan long enough to sip your beer. Bonneville is only 12 miles long, which is hardly over 4 minutes (if he has traction). Nevada highways are too crowded to do 190MPH today.

[MoparWade]

Yeah it's usually just grabbing a light here and there. Some nice stretches outside of town but it's not exactly the kind of car you want to drive at sustained high speeds. Really the hardest part is keeping it cool. The engine I'm running now is an iron block and barring stop and go traffic she will stay at an acceptable temp. Should probably do fuel injection on the new engine but I really like to avoid electronics as much as possible.

[DummyLoad]

MOPAR = Mostly Old Parts And Rust...    


--pete

[MoparWade]

That's because the old parts still work and old cars get rust. Much better than all the Fords and Chevys sitting in scrap yards with new parts and no rust.

[Ritchie200]

oooooooo! The gauntlet has been thrown - like a rod in a small block chevy!

Jim

[MoparWade]

LMAO!

[DummyLoad]

or a rod in a 440 B wedge...   


it's the rust that holds the mopar together...


--pete

[MoparWade]

440 is an RB.

[PRR]

> Chevys sitting in scrap yards with ...no rust.

Ex-cuse me??

My Chevy has as much rust as you could want.

Don't pick on Ford neither. Had a Falcon and the only thing holding it together WAS the rust.

[DummyLoad]

440 is an RB.

yes, a taller B wedge. still a POS. 


--pete

[MoparWade]

It's quite a bit different than a B block, but thanks for your constructive feedback. Honestly guys I was just sharing my other hobbies didn't think it would start a war. I'll just keep quiet.

[Ritchie200]

Haha! Wade, I wouldn't take it too seriously, we have hashed out our automotive allegiances several times here!  I used to have Ford blue running through my veins until a string of POS's pushed my every day driver offshore.  Now we have a Honda (with 240K), Toyota (with 140K), and a new Subaru.  Just got rid of a Lexus with 380K on the ticker that went through four family members (and two teens ) without a single problem.  The only domestic I have is a Chevy HHR that I bought for my daughter.  It just goes and goes - so far, knock on wood...... And an old '94 Ford IDI diesel dually.  I still insist on doing oil changes and filter changes on as many as I have time for, just to keep my hands on the wrenches and keep the dealers and other shops honest.  I do miss the old days of actually doing something under the hood.  Heck every manufacturer has bad days.  My supposed high end Italian play car of yesteryear was well known for having an empty bottle of Grappa as the source of a door rattle, or a handful of loose nuts or bolts.  Or weighing hundreds of pounds over spec weight due to the lead they used for body repairs.  The gauges were made by a company called Veglia - we like to call them Vague-liar.

What I can't understand is PRR's completely wrong and unfounded opinion of small block Fords from the 70's?!?!?

On another note, I find it interesting that Ford has chosen to go to a flat crank (ala Ferrari, Maserati) for it's new high revving GT350.  It's taken US manufacturers over 100 years to realize how inefficient cross plane was for performance?  Heck you would have thought an engine guy from Ford would have looked at that design during the years of total Ford Cosworth V8 domination in the 60's and 70's....  Besides, nothing sounds like a spun up flat plane motor!

Jim

Case in point @ 11,000:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKMQgcio114

Even better @ 19,000:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGVSL4AN904

[DummyLoad]

wasn't trying to start a war. just poking fun at mopar. i do all brands. i lean to POS fords and chevys. POS mopar not so much. IOW, to me, they're all shit wagons, as in they all have their faults. some more than others... like the 440. :p



--pete

[MoparWade]

Fair enough. I will say this much, it's embarrassing the crap Dodge produces now. I am a classic Mopar guy but the truth is if you wrench on your own vehicle it could be a Mercury Sable for all I care I still respect it. It would be nice if Mopars weren't 4 times more expensive than anything else to build. 

Jim- I love that sound too. Not in love with the exhaust note of these new F1 cars though.

[Ritchie200]

Jim- I love that sound too. Not in love with the exhaust note of these new F1 cars though.

Brother Wade, you are preachin' to the choir!!!  Those turbo 6's sound like crap.  Actually worse than crap.  THey sound like an old MOPAR!    Haha, just kidding!  Actually they sound like some of my old POS Fords....  The old v10 and v8 that used to turn 19K plus would make the hair on your neck stand up if you ever heard them live.  It could even cause other biological reactions that I will not get into on the this family oriented site....  The videos do not do them justice.  As much as I would like to blame the FIA and Ecclestone, I understand the teams were pushing for the new engine formula to cut costs.  The engine has the capability to turn higher RPMs but the gas flow restriction has them reduced.  I wish they would just give the teams an engine size and let them figure out number of cylinders, bring back refueling, and give everyone a tire that they can push with.  I HATE the current rules.


Jim

[MoparWade]

Couldn't agree more. Give them a weight and engine displacement and whatever they bring to the table either works or it doesn't. Was fortunate enough to hear one of the REAL F1 engines in person at SEMA a few years back. The only interesting 6 cylinders I've heard are the couple of them in the pro stock NHRA class.

So I have a tube amp question for all you guys. How do you resist the urge to just dump all your money into building amps? I find myself struggling to not just dump entire paychecks into supplies. I get started on a build and already have ideas for 5 more that I can hardly wait to do. It's quickly becoming an addiction. It's funny, I am a design engineer for the second biggest memory producer in the world and my colleagues can't understand why I am interested in such old technology.

[Ritchie200]

Hello my name is Jim and I am a tube-a-holic.


Jim

[Paul1453]

One way to cut costs on amps is to buy valuable parts at discount prices, on items that many people consider to be just heavy old junk on Ebay.

That can have it's drawbacks too, but I've got a sizeable stash of quality vintage parts, purchased at less than the cost of a quality new tube amp.

Now if I can just become competent at modifying and re-engineering great sounding circuits to use my vintage parts, I'll be set.

Is this the Tube-aholics meeting?

Hi, my name is Paul,
and I have a problem with buying old junk tube gear.