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Here is the car in about 1987.I originally bought the car from a friend that blew up the original six cyl. I bought the car and put a low mileage slant in it from a local junk yard. I drove it to High School like this. It was a nice little driver. slant six push button automatic and that was about it..
After High School I got a real job and started making decent money so I bought something a little newer and ended up selling the little valiant to a good friend that was looking for a nice driver. So a couple years go by and this friend is having carb. problems with it and decides to sell the car. well I just had to have the car back. we struck up a deal and I brought the car home. I could have just rebuilt the little Holley 1 bbl carb and drove it but that's not what I wanted. I wanted a V-8. I ended up getting a fresh stock 78 360 for it. I Found the proper motor mounts for it in a local junk yard (wish it was still that easy) and I found the 273 early exhaust manifolds at the Mopar Atlantic Nats at Englishtown. I ended up finding an 8 3/4 with a 4:10 sure grip in a Duster at another local junk yard (man the good old days). I ended up trading the 4:10's for a set of 3:55's and stuck the rear in the car. I have to say the car really ran good. It would run 14.2 all day long which wasn't too bad for a street car back then. I really had fun with the small block in it. I always want to put the hooker fenderwell headders on it but just couldn't come up with the $350 for them at the time...
Well after beating the crap out of that 360 for a few years I finally blew it up. The original plan was to build a 340 I had laying around and put that in. I had everything ready for it. I had X heads built and sitting there. All the machine work was done. Basically all I had to buy was a cam and headders and I could put the motor together. good plan don't you think? I thought so. Well here comes my good friend Tom Cangelosi and he says something like" you should stick that 440 you have in it." I say," yea right. all the magazines say it won't fit." he looks in the empty engine compartment and says ,"oh it will fit". I say ,"no one makes headders for it". He says," if you call hooker they will make them for anything".. So now my mind is racing. Over the next few days I put the big block 727 up in the car, then I dropped the bare 440 block in and bolt it to the trans. I had the front of the block sitting on a cinder block. Well guess what it fit in there pretty damn good. So I call Tom and tell him that it actually fit. He comes over and basically says," I told you so...lol". So one thing leads to another I have another Friend Howard Sofield come over and he looks at the engine and K-frame then writes a few things down and says I'll be back. Howard comes back a few hours later with modified C-Body mounts and the motor now sits in there without the cinderblock. So I end up building the 72 440 I have sitting there. I buy TRW pistons ,Arp bolts and studs, 292/501 comp cam, Wieand 8009 intake and a 750 Holley for it. I now have the motor and trans ready for the car and still no headders from hooker yet. Its been 6 months now. I finally give up waiting for Hooker to make them and goto Hannums Garage in Vineland N.J. He is a street rod shop. I guess he has the car for maybe two weeks and he made me a set of headders out of actual 2" exhaust pipe. I bring the car home and Tom And I spend a week putting the car together. I took the car back to Hannums to do the exhaust. 2 1/2 " that dumped in front of the rear. Let me tell you the car was just fun to drive. It ended up running mid to high 12's with the 3:55's on a small street radial and through the exhaust. looking back I wish I would have put more gear in it and a nice set of slicks to see what it would really run...
this is when I first put the motor in. Look fender well headders without butchering the fenderwells.. gotta love it.
After a few years I pulled the motor and freshened it up and painted it street hemi orange which I think looked alot better..
Here are a few misc pictures of me beating the hell out of the car. Man were those days fun.
A couple videos for you.
Click on above pictures for videos.