'73 Challenger with Hotckis - Restomod

[moparmaster]

Feel free to feast your eyes and comment on my project.  This has been a 3 year project thus far and I decided to farm most of the assembly and paint work out to a great local shop in Lewisville, TX.  This has been an expensive project but I can't wait to fire it up and drive it home around Christmas time.  I would definitely recommend Dusold Design's since the quality of their work speaks for itself and they are great to work with.  I researched shops for three months before going with them. 
The run down on the car is that it is a numbers matching 318/727, 8 3/4 car with with a floor shifter.  Triple white with body side moldings.  The Hotchkis TVS installed in the net couple of weeks and receive custom forged wheels.  Dr. Diff and Hydraboost will supply braking.  The colors are a dark Gray metallic matte finish on top and in the engine bay / matte black on the sides.
Eventually, the car will get a late model 392 / 426 Hemi.  A Gear Vendors overdrive will have to wait till next year. 
Enjoy!

[moparmaster]

On the rotisserie a few months ago.  This is after it was blasted and all the rust holes were discovered.  Keep in mind, I combed over this car to rule out rust issues.  The paint had to come off before any holes were revealed.  This has been a Texas car its whole life but must have sat under a tree for years. 

[moparmaster]

Rust sucks!  Keep in mind that after this car was stripped, it needed new quarters, a firewall, fenders, trunk floor and extensions, wheel house repairs, etc.

[moparmaster]

After all the money I spent, I'm starting to get excited after seeing the progress.  This car is being built to much better standards than I could have done in my two car garage. 

[moparmaster]

I had a spray on bed liner applied to the inside floor.  The shop is going to get everything done in the next month or so and I'll just put the interior together.  I'm still looking into getting some cheaper wheels than a set of $4000 forged ones.  I did some research and Mustang guys sell their expensive forged wheels all the time for less than half of their original cost.  Does anyone know what offset and sizes would work for a stock wheel house Challenger with a 1 1/4" Dr. Diff offset spring kit?  I want to run a 305 - 315mm rear tire on an 18" wheel if possible.  Dusold Designs advised a Detroit Speed extreme offset spring relocation kit.  That would give additional clearance. 

[Street_Challenged73]

The car's looking great so far!!

[brads70]

Looks great!   Christmas time huh.... Santa was checking his list, you must have been on the "nice" list!

Don't rush it, take you time and do it right.

[moparmaster]

Thanks for the encouragement!  I went all out this year on this car short of a full cage, tubbing, and a crazy motor/trans combination.  It's being built to drive and enjoy.  I should have some pictures of it as a roller in a couple of weeks.  I'm working all of November and part of December to make extra money to pay for the thing to get done.  I've been working 7 days a week since May to pull this off. 

I thought someone would get upset since it is going so far away from a stock restoration.  The resto mod crowd has gotten much larger in the past few years and it's great to see how far some of the other projects on here have gotten. I'll keep you guys updated when I get more to show you.

[HP2]

Does anyone know what offset and sizes would work for a stock wheel house Challenger with a 1 1/4" Dr. Diff offset spring kit?  I want to run a 305 - 315mm rear tire on an 18" wheel if possible.  Dusold Designs advised a Detroit Speed extreme offset spring relocation kit.  That would give additional clearance.

You can fit a 10" rim easily. Offset will depend on if you keep the stock housing or swap to something else. If stock, 6-6.5" should fit, but verify first. Keep in mind that E body springs are splayed, so you have less clearence behind the housing than in front., so measure both loactions to verify.

I thought Detroit Speed only made GM parts? In any case, the Dr Diff offset  at 1.25" will get enough clearence for 305 to 315 without issue. Moving things in beyond 1.25" will require frame modifications.

Nice build, BTW. Congratulations and good luck!

[moparmaster]

Missed the Christmas deadline but things we are getting closer to a running vehicle.  The front is coming along nicely even though several parts were delayed by the holidays. 

[brads70]

Looking great!    What spindles and hubs are you using?

What brand of headers? Drivers side looks low?

Did you see this post yet? .... before you get to much further into yours?

http://www.cuda-challenger.com/cc/index.php?topic=89391.0

['Cuda Hunter]

Can't wait to see the paint !

 

[wiging19]

Looks very nice.  I like what you've done.

[Chlngrcrzy]

Coming along nicely and quickly too!  can hardly wait to see the next phase.   

[moparmaster]

The spindles are stock and the hubs were provided with the Dr. Diff. front brake kit.  Those hubs are heavy!  I saw those US Car Tool braces and may pull the trigger on a set.  Of course they come out once the engine bay is painted, etc. 

The headers are FlowTech pieces that I got to run in the engine and I don't care about welding O2 bungs on.  I wanted the TTI pieces but EVERYONE said to not use them on a brand new engine so I bought these for now.  Those FlowTech headers impressed everyone that has seen them.  For $279 from Summit, they can't be beat.  I might just leave them on there.  The header may look low since we just set them against the head.  They were not bolted in.  I'm still waiting on the Firm Feel box and putting the column back in to get everything secured. 

The paint is an issue right now since the color in the pics is technically gun metal gray.  It was supposed to look gray in the sun but it still looks like a matte black to me.  You can see a large contrast when it's next to gloss black.  I'm thinking I may do the whole car in gun metal ( no black sides) and do the shaker scoop and a t/a style side stripe in matte black.  This is something I can only afford to do once so I want it to look right. 

Attached is a pic of the Camaro Dusold Designs just finished.  It is the same gun metal paint that I have.  My jambs were sprayed first and they liked it enough to put on the shop car.  The trim and wheels are gloss black.

I'll keep you guys posted when some more progress is made.