1966 Plymouth Barracuda finally home

Checking on your progress!

...also because Evan has tempted me with two early Barracudas and I'm looking for any and all insight...

thanks, Stan

Hey Stan,

Progress has been a little delayed by uncovering hidden rust and other issues when I pulled the motor out. The inner wheel wells had been hacked up at some point and I never saw it because the exhaust manifolds did a good job covering it up. So once I pulled the motor, It was really clear both sides had to be replaced. Finally sourced a good clean set and have them blasted and primed. So I started to pull apart the front end to replace them and I found 2 more panels in poor shape. So back to the junk yard to find those. Texas Summer is also not helping encourage me to spend time out there hunting.

Good news is the motor is all built. I switched over to a forged crank from one of my spare 273's that I tore apart. I also added the forged Speed Pro pistons. I am at a 9.72 to 1 compression with a really nice dynamic compression at 7.81 to 1 IIRC. Sourced a classic LD340 manifold for it and it's at the powder coaters now. It's one of the original ones that was sold through Direct Connection. It'll be a good solid runner.

Overall, the early A bodies are fun but there is a lot of specialized parts compared to the later models so there is not a lot of options. Headers are a good example. $750 to get anything decent. Where you can get later ones for 350-500 range. Buy the best one you can get too as it's easy to get upside down on these cars quickly. I'll be close to upside down once I get the brakes, rear, and AC done and I got the car for free.

So it's been a while. There were some issues that held me up in getting the car titled and I didn't want to continue till it was titled.

Finally last week I got all of the right paperwork in place and it's full steam ahead now.

I have the 340 I got built up sitting in the wings ready to go and now I'm sorting through all of the parts that came with the car to have the best setup. I decided that my thermoquad I had was great but tired and the cost to rebuild it right was more than a new carb so I ordered one of the street demon 625 carb from Rob here on the board and will put that on.

I also decided that this is not a show car and I'm glad for that so Instead of getting in really deep and replacing the inner fenders, I just treated the rust and gave it a good spray of paint. I have the good body panels if I ever want to cut them out and replace them but I'd rather have the car drivable first.

I'm going to start rebuilding the suspension for Touring/Fun Autocross mode. My buddy and I are going to be those 2 guys that bring out the quirky but fun old car out and run it through the cones. Still going to keep it very streetable so I can take the wife to the drive in with it but fun enough to be able to toss it around some. So this weekend, I'm going to start to pull the torsion bars and upsizing them and putting some bilstien shocks on all 4 corners.

I'm glad this car is back!

Here are a few pictures:

Missing something:

Would you believe that is over 30 y/o paint now?

The work in front of me:

Those need to be in the engine bay....Soon:

And the Butt: I can't wait to get the garage empty of all of the excess stuff so I can have more room:

Here's some motivation for you. There's a '66 that came from Canada and he ran it hard on the big course at Willow Spring Fling Mopar meet at Willow Springs 2015

Cool Video. You know any specs on the car? He was mixing it up.

I saw this guy ripping it up at COTA earlier this year. His build is a little less grassroots than my car.

I'm a a-body guy from way back.

Suspension for a non-competitive autocross/toy car is shockingly simple. Subframe connectors, flip the rear shackle, add a leaf for higher rate and to raise height back up.

Big block torsion bars. Front and rear sway bars from helwig. Spax shocks. Firm feel stage three steering box.moog offset upper control arm bushings. Fresh bushings every where else. Skip poly.

Im also running fmj spindles now. No appreciable bump steer, but much better road feel.

Happy to have another mopar guy here.

I've got most of those. I went a little different route on the Torsion bars. Mine are the clocked 1.03 P-S-T set and I've got the bilstein shocks. It already has the big front sway bar, I need to add the rear. I also de-powered the power steering pump already from the instructions I think it was in Mopar Action.

Good to know on the FMJ spindles. They are a dime a dozen at the local pick and pull. Looks like I'll be making a trip back out there for those.

How do you like the ride of the 1.03 tbats? Bren thinking of upgrading. What tires are you running?

TBD on that. I'll let you know. Because of the title issues even before I pulled the motor I was only able to go around the neighborhood with it. I just got all that cleared up so now it's time to get it all back together and on the road. Seemed pretty good with the Bilsteins. Of course those shocks were made with the 1.00-1.06 TBAR in mind so it's a natural fit. Right now It's got 195/70/14's on it but those are going to go as there will be no way to hook up with that motor and those tires. I'm targeting something like a 225-235/45/17 Conti DW for it.

Im running 255/40/17 on the front of the duster on bullet wheels. Don't know how that would compare to an early a though.

Here's the thread on FABO "gold66cuda" is the owner.

Linky-link

Good stuff.

Well, The motor is all dressed out and ready to go in. I'm going to get the last bit of touch up done to the engine compartment this weekend and install the motor probably in 2 weeks. It should go pretty quick from there. Good thing about classic cars is there are only a handful of hoses and electrical connections. I'll post some motor pictures after I get it all dressed out.

Everything works good in the dry fit. Time to take everything back apart and paint everything the same color and get it back in the car.

Paint and minor rust repair today. Got most of the transmission painted. I'll hit it with another coat tomorrow. Still need to get the underside. I started to paint the engine too. I'll get it all the same color here soon. I'm not looking at a show finish, just something to keep it looking decent.

I pulled out the T-Bars and shocks to drop the front end down to the ground to make it easier to get the motor in. I'm not going to do the factory way and come from underneath with the K Member so I needed to get the front end as low as I can.

I was looking at the old T-bars and they are tiny. I thought they were .890 and they actually were .850 The switch to the 1.03 will be a big difference.

Other than that, I got the few small spots of rust treated and will get some paint on them tomorrow. It was a nice cool day and I got a lot done.

Well, I got the electronic ignition all wired up and ready to go. Instead of wiring in the whole Chrysler setup with the Ignition box and Resistor, I'm going with an HEI module on the original distributor. I have the whole Factory style ignition setup if needed but I'd rather not drill to mount it.

I have all of the stuff to put the front brakes on it coming. I decided to go with the SSBC setup rather than trying to source and trust 35-45 year old Junk yard parts. I'll have the dual reservoir master cylinder ans 4 piston calipers. It gets here monday so that is next weeks work to get all that installed and ready to go.

I'm halfway through all of the paint work on the motor. I should be able to have the motor ready to install soon enough.

Got a lot of work done over the weekend. Got the motor all together except for the front cover. I accidentally ripped the gasket so I have a new one coming this week. I couldn't get it separate without getting the whole timing chain set for $25 vs 1.60 for the gasket I actually need.

I found 2 mistakes that my engine builder did when assembling the motor. At least I found them now. I hope that is not a sign for the future. The lower end is all buttoned up on the motor with crank scraper in place and new high volume oil pump as well.

Got the brakes all installed and now I just need to run the 2 lines from the master cylinder to the proportioning valve and the distribution valve and I'll be all done with that.

So for those that are wondering, the SSBC kit is basically the front disc brakes 65-67 mustang. The Same K-H 4 piston setup they had for those cars. I compared everything to my neighbor's 66 Mustang and It looks exactly the same. All of the measurements are the same too.

I just have some wiring to clean up real quick and a few other small things to do in the engine compartment this week and I fully expect to be able to put the motor back in the car next weekend.

Been a while since I've updated this. Gees where do I start. The 340 I had built was garbage. When I put the oil pump on the crank smacked it so hard you couldn't turn it over. Then when I went to put the original cast crank in it, piston clearance was not what I liked it to be so for the time being, I set that motor aside and I'll build it out finally.

So I talked to a friend and he had a late seventies 318 smog motor that was recently rebuilt that I got for $300. The PO complained it had no power and wouldn't idle well. So I open it up and there was a big old 268H comp cam in it. Way too much for a 318 smog motor. So I took that out and put in a XE262 and swapped the smog heads with the 273 closed combustion chamber heads I had to get more compression so it should be up around 9 to 1 now based on my calculations. So, I finally got it back into the engine bay. For the time being, I'm using a set of ported factory exhaust manifolds. I may put the headers on eventually. I put my Performer manifold on there and it should be a good street cruiser.

Here it is in the engine bay with something in it eventually:

So the exhaust....Man what a mess that was. My dad got taken on that one. I think that may have been part of the running problem. It was bad. 2.25" crushed bend single exhaust with some of it less than 2" in flow. Thanks to Rob Mopar, he hooked me up with a great TTI setup that is 2.5" dual exhaust with an H Pipe. It's a lot better flow than what was in there. It'll actually breathe now.

So I'm getting closer to the finish line now. Need to dress out the engine bay, Lay out the whole exhaust, and put the master cylinder in and blead the brakes. Then it should be ready to roll. :) The heat of the summer is slowing down the progress some but It's still moving forward.

Looking great - sorry to hear about all the motor issues along the way...

Yeah, it happens. Lesson learned on this. Never trust an engine builder that doesn't regularly do mopar motors. Lot of mistakes on the motor. I did manage to get all of the labor charges back and only paid for parts.

Well, got to work a little more in getting the chassis squared away. Got to installing the new torsion bars. Little bit of difference between the old one and the new one.

It should start to come together much quicker from here. I have about a month and a half to finish it before the fall racing season starts to kick into high gear and I'll be busy.

Inching away at things. My goal is to install at least 1 item every day. If I can get that goal met, I'll be golden.

Last night got the alternator and radiator in. Tonight, it will be all of the power steering and the 90 degree oil filter adapter. That'll clear the way for me to get the transmission and driveshaft in this weekend. From there it's mostly smaller very manageable items and I think should go pretty quickly.

I got some new tires for those rims for the time being while I'm sorting everything out. I figure Chinese tires of an unknown age may not be the best thing out there. Maybe, I'll just turn them into smoke for fun. Kumho was having a sale on their new touring tires so I got a set of 4 215/70 r14 for $250 to my door.