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My '71 Duster 340 pays a visit to Nick's Garage

PlymCrazy said:
Yes, it's a Duster 340 and believe it or not it still has a 340 in it :)
It's not the original.
The 340 that's in it now is dated February 1969.
It was freshened up and installed back in 2017 IIRC.

Edit: I just adjusted the title heading to include that little detail. Thanks Hawk :thumbsup:
Click to expand...
Sweet!

The 340 is one of those engines that punches way above its weight. They just run fantastic. When the original 340 in my 73 Road Runner threw a rod out the side of the block, I bought another block and then a stroker assembly and made it into a 416. Wow, does that little engine run with tons of torque and power! And it only has 9.4:1 compression, so it does well with pump gas.

Anyway, what a nice, nice, car! Get that A833 all fixed up and it will be so much fun!
 
Shortly after I bought the car a few years ago I had an incident where it nearly caught fire.
A portion of the engine harness had melted upon startup one day, bellowing smoke from under the hood.
That began my project that winter, a couple hours here and there when time permitted.
I'd spend the days separating the melted wires, splicing in small sections at a time trying to find the culprit and verify the integrity of the remainder of the wiring under the hood.
The culprit wound up being a loose terminal on the alternator causing an intermittent short.
With my wiring repairs and replacement of the charging system components, the car has run without issue for several seasons since.
I needed the electrical integrity to be proven reliable before investing in a pricy new harness.
I explained this to Nick and asked him to give me a price on installing a new harness while my car was there, but not to pull the trigger just yet. I still need things to tinker with in retirement LOL. Maybe I'll go for it. We'll see.
But having Nick get his hands on my car(s) is a big deal to me.

IMG_1555.jpeg



While under the hood, Nick and his guys were stumped by a component they saw on my firewall.
"What's that?", Nick asked as he pointed to it.
Could it be I knew something about my Mopar that Nick didn't?
I explained it was a Los Angeles built car and then it clicked to him.

IMG_0063_Original.jpeg
 
Last edited:
PlymCrazy said:
Shortly after I bought the car a few years ago I had an incident where it nearly caught fire under the hood.
A portion of the engine harness had melted upon startup one day, bellowing smoke from under the hood.
That began my project that winter, a couple hours here and there when time permitted.
I'd spend the days separating the melted wires, splicing in small sections at a time trying to find the culprit and verify the integrity of the remainder of the wiring under the hood.
The culprit wound up being a loose terminal on the alternator causing an intermittent short.
With my wiring repairs and replacement of the charging system components, the car has run without issue for several seasons since.
I needed the electrical integrity to be proven reliable before investing in a pricy new harness.
I explained this to Nick and asked him to give me a price on installing a new harness my car was there, but not to pull the trigger just yet. I still need things to tinker with in retirement LOL. Maybe I'll go for it. We'll see.
But having Nick get his hands on my car(s) is a big deal to me.

View attachment 1655491


While under the hood, Nick and his guys were stumped by a component they saw on my firewall.
"What's that?", Nick asked as he pointed to it.
Could it be I knew something about my Mopar that Nick didn't?
I explained it was a Los Angeles built car and then it clicked to him.

View attachment 1655490
Click to expand...


Don't keep us in suspense, what is it?
 
Manny and Niko offering Nick moral support as always. His flag collection is amazing!
 
Richard Cranium said:
Don't keep us in suspense, what is it?
Click to expand...

That thing has baffled many a Mopar folks after I took possession of the car. It's an NOX solenoid/valve. I have also heard it called an OSAC valve. It's an early emissions device on the California cars.
 
PlymCrazy said:
That thing has baffled many a Mopar folks after I took possession of the car. It's an NOX solenoid/valve. I have also heard it called an OSAC valve. It's an early emissions device on the California cars.
Click to expand...


Thanks, now we can all sleep sound tonight.

:thumbsup:
 
After we got the car into Nick's shop, he invited us to sit in on a dyno session he was in the middle of when we arrived.
He had a 427 Chevy on the test stand he was pushing to nearly 7000 rpm.
It was pretty cool seeing that test session in person.

 
That initial test maxed out the capacity of the 750cfm carb he had installed and was asking for more.
So I got a chance to get my hands on things a little while I was there.
Once the 850 was installed, the car pulled 774cfm and dyno'd at nearly 600hp.
I felt pretty honored to be invited to be a part of that small detail in Nick's shop, to say the least.

1714568913584.jpeg
 
This past Monday my son sent me a message saying that the Duster hit Nick's Instagram page.
I don't have Instagram, so they sent me a screen shot of the post.

IMG_1774.jpeg
 
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