Hi All,
Picked up a '71 Challenger few months back and it's finally time to undergo some changes.
A quick little back history; my wife and I have wanted a 'muscle car' for awhile but we've always had a Jeep and that consumed a ton of time and money. Got a fair offer on it (never thought I would sell the darn thing) and away it went. I went a total of 3 or so weeks with hardly any sleep wondering what the heck I was going to do. We were initially looking for major project. Something we could build to be our own. I did that with the Jeep, it was back-halved, on D60s front and rear, caged, etc. I can post some photos if you folks are interested in that. I am surely not afraid to dig into a project. Yet after looking over some cars that needed a bunch of work and then adding up the cost of replacement panels I began wondering if it was better to get something that had the body "done". Similar, if not less, money and I could drive it while making changes.
I stumbled on this car from the south and made a decent deal on it. No rust is a huge plus.
It was originally a 318 / 904 car now with a 383 / 727. Someone put a 9 1/4 under it from, what I think, a c body so it is a bit wide. Also has some dinky 205s on it.
Plans are big (aren't they always?!) but to start:
- New Grant 246 wheel (got it)
- Shifter from quapman (got it)
- Seatbelts. None in the car but the driver’s side has a lap belt. Need to find the location of the shoulder belt weldnut in the roof.
- Gauges, oil pressure works! Probably new units from SpeedHut
- +1" springs from ESPO (got them) to replace the old worn ones. Got to acquire some offset mounts or build them.
- .96” Mopar t-bars (got them) to replace the stock 318 units
- Shocks, still working on which ones, maybe RideTech RQs?
- Swap that 9 1/4 rear axle out. A great friend of mine hooked me up with an 8 3/4 from a b body. So I have an empty housing and an empty 489 case. I'm up in the air to what I should do, build out the 8 3/4 or just suck it up and get a D60. The bonus is I have all the parts to build a D60 (setup bearings, shims, yada yada) but finding one isn't easy nor is paying for a new unit from someplace like Strange. The 8 3/4 is probably cheaper, can’t be any harder to setup than a D60, and fine with a 383 even if it gets a bit more hot. Or am I nuts?
- New wheels and tires, would like at least 285s out back and 235/245s up front. Probably 17" for the wheels.
- Engine - we'll leave that to later but the Edlebrock 1406 carb on it now needs a tune or a swap for a Holley. She runs a little rich. Any advice would be helpful here, it is my first carb motor.
As for the title name, I had my Jeep called 'Downward Spiral' because every time we did something to it we used the "well while we have it apart / or while we are in there" and things sometimes got out of hand.
On to the pics:
(Yes, I am aware the strips are wrong for a '71 and was initially going to change them but now they've grown on me.)
