Duster engine choices

psteav wrote: The Passon stuff is neat, but if I'm throwing dollars at it I think I'd probably go Kiesler. Also, hasn't the five-speed Passon box been "just around the corner" for a couple of years now? I think that would have some serious appeal if the car had collector value or I had any other reason not to want to cut it up. But I don't.

Keisler's RS for A-body Mopars has been "just around the corner" for a couple of years now too. The TKO is readily available.

I know both Shafi and Jamie pretty well. A 5-speed swap for my Barracuda has been "just around the corner for a couple years" as well. I'll post what happens when it happens and with what transmission.

I really, really, really want to drop a LSX in my '75 Duster. I think I'd need to swap the K-member though. There is a TON of room under the hood in that car. Even a 4.8L lump from a truck would be a hoot. We'll see how the Ranger V8 swap goes before I get any crazier.

As long as you know you are building an orphan, knock yourself out. Later if you go to sell it Mopar guys won't touch it, and Chevy guys probably won't look at it either.

The K-member is the mounting point for the lower control arms, steering box & idler arm as well as the engine. You probably could cut up the stock K to make it work as long as you box it/reinforce it afterward.

FYI, the torsion bars will make exhaust routing a challenge, unless you plan to scrap the stock front suspension.

Rob_Mopar wrote: As long as you know you are building an orphan, knock yourself out. Later if you go to sell it Mopar guys won't touch it, and Chevy guys probably won't look at it either.

Agreed. While a sound idea in principle, chances are the only ones willing to buy it would be the nutty folks on this board. I'm guessing you could probably just cut the existing motor mounts off and weld on LSX mounts from one of the various vendors who sell them to put these engines in... whatever.

But in the end, the resale value would likely be about 1/2 the sum of the parts vs. a more common swap.

I still have hope the cross-flow slant 6 head will eventually become reality.

Turbocharging a Slant-6 is not difficult at all. The FWD Mopar fan in me likes the idea of a 2.5L turbo with a hybrid DOHC head. The V8 fan in me says modern 5.7? or 6.1L hemi, though.

This post was absolutely of zero help, wasn't it?

I also can't get the image of triple side-draft Webers on a /6 out of my head:

http://www.piercemanifolds.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=K9114

I'm sure there are a dozen reason why they're a bad idea... but damned if they wouldn't look cool.

Ian F wrote: I still have hope the cross-flow slant 6 head will eventually become reality.

WHUT???!!! that would be tasty.

I really want to like the /6, but for the money and engineering you have to put into one to make it put out decent power, you 'coulda had a V8 making A LOT MORE power. I love them as indestructible daily-driver lumps, though...I did my best to destroy the original motor in the Duster as a 16 year old and failed miserably.

I'm just going to leave this here.

psteav wrote: WHUT???!!! that would be tasty. I really want to like the /6, but for the money and engineering you have to put into one to make it put out decent power, you 'coulda had a V8 making A LOT MORE power. I love them as indestructible daily-driver lumps, though...I did my best to destroy the original motor in the Duster as a 16 year old and failed miserably.

There was a rumor floating around that Classic Inline (a Ford I6 vendor) might get into the slant6 market, but it appears to be dead. From some limited reading, it appears there is an Aussie-market 2V head that flows better than the US /6 head.

Yeah... the $/hp never works for the /6 vs a V8 which is why it needs to be a labor of love instead of any rational choice. My pet-dream project would be a custom-forged crank, the lightest pistons and rods I could get made, then blueprint-balanced to rev as smooth as possible much higher than normal. Silly? Sure... but my pet dreams usually are.

(SBF - whatever pic your linking doesn't work...)

The other slant six crossflow head rumor is that the Jaguar 4.0 six has the same bore spacing, although it would take a lot of work to get the bolt holes and coolant passages (not to mention the cam drive!) lined up.

If I were going to go batE36 M3 insane and put in an inline six....I would probably take a Jeep 4.0 HO, put the 258 crank in it, twin-turbocharge it on the cheapish, and piss off Mopar guys AND AMC types. Could be fun, until some fanatical AMC nut murders me in my sleep.

Another option is to take a 2JZ-GTE, grind any toyota identifying marks off, paint it whatever color would be correct for a stock engine(always wanted to do this in a Nova painted chevy orange), and pass it off at car shows as some ultra rare DOHC kit for whatever I6 should be there. Good trolling, even better power.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: Another option is to take a 2JZ-GTE, grind any toyota identifying marks off, paint it whatever color would be correct for a stock engine(always wanted to do this in a Nova painted chevy orange), and pass it off at car shows as some ultra rare DOHC kit for whatever I6 should be there. Good trolling, even better power.

An amusing thought... but I think the only non-Mopar engine that could pull off that ruse would be a BMW I6, since they both of the "slant" variety. A straight-up I6 engine in a Mopar would be obviously not original.

Ian F wrote: An amusing thought... but I think the only non-Mopar engine that could pull off that ruse would be a BMW I6, since they both of the "slant" variety. A straight-up I6 engine in a Mopar would be obviously not original.

I've considered that one myself. I think there may be a Mercedes engine out there that is tilted to one side as well.

There's a LeMons team that put a slant 6 into an E30, so I'm sure the reverse would be possible.

I like the concept of a hot turbo /6, but by the time you build it all up and it's running tops, you'll be just about head to head with a 318 with some 340 heads, 4bbl intake, a decent cam, and dual exhaust.

slantvaliant wrote:

What's the rest of the story there?

volvoclearinghouse wrote: There's a LeMons team that put a slant 6 into an E30, so I'm sure the reverse would be possible. I like the concept of a hot turbo /6, but by the time you build it all up and it's running tops, you'll be just about head to head with a 318 with some 340 heads, 4bbl intake, a decent cam, and dual exhaust.

But that is soo boring. Is there a cheap fuel injection manifold for the slant 6? I have a crazy idea of a Turbo 300 in my Ford galaxie.

Rob_Mopar wrote: What's the rest of the story there?

From what I recall, it was someone's project where the guy cut up a couple of the smaller Hemi heads and welded them all together.

slantvaliant wrote:

Funny, these pants fit alright when I left the house this morning...

... cut up a pair of heads and welded them back together to bolt to a /6 block? So an easy weekend in the shop I take it. Something else; with that kind of fab abilities, why did he not get a port fuel injection setup going? I have no abilities like the guy that did the work in that shot and it's pretty amazing to look at, but look how different the tube lengths are from the shortest to longest. I think there would be some weird distribution problems.

As for a "cheap" FI manifold for the /6 and a stock head, there's something from Offy and I think Clifford that have cast-in NOS bung locations that can instead be drilled for injectors. Then we're back to the FI injector rail issue. All of which can be dealt with but it's custom work.

In reply to pres589:

Because a lot of the guys with the skills to do this sort of thing may be a master with a welder, but seem to avoid fancy thinking boxes...

I'd also love to know more about that engine...

If you're cutting up usable hemi heads, you should be able to find someone to help you do that sort of thing.