1966 Satellite restomod street toy

[bherman]

Your header work looks amazing. We built headers for my tube chassis Arrow & that took effort. Doing that for a stock body is really amazing. Best of luck with the results.

66Satellite47, Love the car on your avatar, please tell me about it. When I was younger I worked as a fabricator for several race teams in the Detroit area and I built lots of headers. Most were on tube chassis cars and yes they can be much simpler. The guy that owns this car has given me a lot of design latitude, so all they have to do is fit and flow decent. The vehicle will never run without the exhaust system and in my experience that pretty much negates much concern about tuning length/equal length. Most headers today are designed around tube flow and average HP in a desired RPM band not to a specific tuning length. The NASCAR guys' even have different cam lobes and rocker ratios on different cylinders to match up with the different primary tube length. Me I'm just getting the exhaust to the collector. Thanks for your nice comments, Brian

 

[Mike67]

Brian what toy are you speaking of??? That is a serious, "keep away from small children, may cause heart arithmia or death if used improperley, if you experience errections longer than 4 hours see a doctor, kind of MACHINE!!!
I can't believe I'm just now seeing this! You and your team are tier 1 for sure, wow! I can't believe anyone would give you grief about anything on that car, much less the color, love the gold, beautiful job!
Like Hemi-itis said, " you need to build a trophy room" for sure..!!!.
Wicked cool car!

 

[Riverdawg]

Hi Riverdawg, I like to go to car shows and look at all the cool vehicles but I haven't owned a toy car since I was a kid and I have never shown a car. I can see myself going to a small show that you can drive your car in, sit in a lawn chair for couple of hours and then leave. Autorama seems like a big commitment in time and effort.........I'm a lazy guy. Heck you only live in Lansing, if I ever get it done you could come down, I'll buy you lunch and we'll go for a cruise. Brian

That sounds like a great idea. I've got several Mopar buddies up here in the area and I bet they would really enjoy a cruise like that. I know my wife has made some suggestions along that line also for when I get mine on the road. Also that car would be a big hit at the Autorama. If gives you a break from all the cold weather and gets you anxious for spring. I Maybe you could get some of you friends at the shop to help you out and I think you might enjoy it. Can't wait to see the build progress. Ken

 

[bherman]

Brian what toy are you speaking of??? That is a serious, "keep away from small children, may cause heart arithmia or death if used improperley, if you experience errections longer than 4 hours see a doctor, kind of MACHINE!!!
I can't believe I'm just now seeing this! You and your team are tier 1 for sure, wow! I can't believe anyone would give you grief about anything on that car, much less the color, love the gold, beautiful job!
Like Hemi-itis said, " you need to build a trophy room" for sure..!!!.
Wicked cool car!

Mike67, around the shop any vehicle that's not used for transportation receives the designation "toy", if you say I've got to put brakes on my car, you're talking about your road car, not your toy. The guys' in the shop are very talented and certainly do help me out but I'm not sure I'd tell them that they are part of "my" team. Around the shop it doesn't pay to be thin skinned, if you're not catching grief they're probably not speaking to you.....LOL. Thanks for your generous comments, Brian.

 

[66Satellite47]

bherman, my current car a '66 Satellite that I bought a few years ago. The guy I got it from built it as a street driver. It seems like it had been a mid '70's drag car, roll bar from that era, narrow Dana, moved springs. Had 500" EDE RPM head motor & a "small" Comp Cams solid cam. Performance was not what I expected from a 500" motor. I changed the cam to an antique Cam Dynamics piece I had from the old days & upgraded to Victor intake. Much faster. I'm in the process of having a new 512" motor built by pro. Hopefully it goes great.

 

[doublekrossd]

Bherman, your work looks amazing! I'll be following this thread closely because I'm anxious to see this thing at a show! Where abouts are you in metro?

 

[bherman]

Bherman, your work looks amazing! I'll be following this thread closely because I'm anxious to see this thing at a show! Where abouts are you in metro?

doublekrossd, I live on the north side near I-75 and work on the "hanger queen" in Livonia. Love your Satty in the photo garage, sweet car. Thanks Brian.

 

[doublekrossd]

Thanks, it's a belvedere... I'm just off 75 in grand blanc. Looking forward to seeing yours out someday! Holly has a nice cruise in every Wednesday... not a ton of mopars, I'm sure you'd be the queen of the ball there!

 

[bherman]

Thanks, it's a belvedere... I'm just off 75 in grand blanc. Looking forward to seeing yours out someday! Holly has a nice cruise in every Wednesday... not a ton of mopars, I'm sure you'd be the queen of the ball there!

Sorry doublekrossd, I in no way intended to disparage your Belvedere, it's a sweet car. I guess I'm just attracted more to the body lines than the trim levels. I was always puzzled why ma-mopar made multiple vehicles in the same brand, that would seem to be competing for the same sale. I'm retired from Chrysler engineering and we always referred to the body designation rather than the model name, often we didn't know the official name for the vehicle until well into the program. Besides the Mopar faithful know that a Belvedere is just an underachieving Satellite............LOL, Brian.

 

[doublekrossd]

Ha ha ha, i might buy into that!

 

[bherman]

Hi Guys', I said I would post when I made some progress. I have the drivers side header tacked together and fitted to the collector, it's ready for welding and adding the slip joint retainers. The center tubes (3 & 5 ) run on the outside of the steering intermediate shaft and required slip joints in the tube to make them removable. As you cans see in the photos I elected to run # 1 down and away as opposed to running along the valve cover like most Mopar big block headers. I was never very fond of tube being right under my hands when I was hot lashing the valves and in this case it was a wash for difficulty and length. The passenger side will be a little more difficult to run #2 the same way and I think it will add an 1" or 2" in length but I still think I prefer it. While there's merits to running the plug wires under the headers, I always thought that it was easier to separate and retain the if the wires ran up. What do you guys' think?

The other condition that I was hoping to achieve was a removable starter with the headers in place. The starter is removable without taking anything apart, in fact even the stock starter can be used.

Ma-Mopar didn't give us a lot of room on the passenger side for headers. I wish the bends coming out of the flange didn't have to be so tight but it is what it is! In the photo it appears that lots of room is available but don't believe your lying eyes.

Thanks for looking and as always if you see an issue or have an opinion please share it with me, Brian.

 

[66Satellite47]

Again FANTASTIC craftsmanship! In the past I have had to run the plug wires under the headers, no big deal, as long as you can still get at the wire boots. Great work. Bill

 

[bherman]

Bill, thanks for your kind comments. I do like the appearance of the wires running under the headers, I think it makes for a cleaner package. I also believe it to be a cooler location, particularly on engine shut down. We'll have to see after I complete the headers what direction works the best. How did you locate/support the wires in that configuration? I know that it may be difficult to tell, but I've been told I'm slightly **** about some of these things. Thanks for your input, I appreciate it, Brian.

 

[66Satellite47]

I just used normal wire separators. In the day wasn't much concerned with appearance since it was a drag car. But they held them in place. As I recall, needed a combination of straight & angle boots. Easier to pull valve covers to adjust valves too.

 

[bherman]

Hi Guys', I've been working on the car but it's been very hot and humid here and progress has slowed. I realize that I have a great place to work on the car and I'm not complaining but the shop isn't air conditioned and the heat negatively affects my MS. I work in the morning until gets hot and then I shift into design and ordering mode in the office. I did finish fabricating the passenger side header and they are both ready to weld. #2 did end up a little long and it looks a bit like a plumbers pipe but it clears everything well. I made the slip joint tabs for the headers and I will post photos when the assemblies are welded.

I acquired a new in the box, aluminum, "direct fit" radiator from a well known manufacturer. I'm glad I didn't buy this thing, what a POS! You can tell that this radiator is supposed to fit this car but the bottom tank interferes with the core support, the mount flanges would need a 5/16 shim to get the tanks to clear and even the slots in the flanges are off enough that they would require rework to fit properly. In addition to the fit issues the welding and fab work are just terrible. Moving on, I purchased a core from Dewitt Radiator in Howell, Michigan. I've never used them before but have heard good things about them and they make their own cores so I know it's American made. Upon receiving the core I decided that it's the nicest radiator core I've ever seen, it's a work of art. I hope I can keep up my end fabricating the tanks and mount brackets. While I've been avoiding the heat I've been designing a cooling package. The package utilizes no shroud but uses two 1640 CFM (each) Spal extreme duty modified paddle style fans. Working with the engineers at Spal I believe that this system will provide enough cooling for idle and low speed on the fans (they cover slightly more than half of the core area) and allow pass-through air at higher driving speeds. I'm hoping that using a timer and fan switch will improve under hood cooling after shut down. We've used similar systems before with good success. As always if you see an issue please don't hesitate to share your opinion. Thanks for looking, Brian

 

[66Satellite47]

Your project and your execution is fantastic.

 

[bherman]

Hi Guys' It's time to build the exhaust and I would like to draw on your experience and get some recommendations. My thoughts were to run 3" from the collector to a 3" "X" pipe and back to a 3" muffler. I guess the mufflers are the component that I really need some advice with. I'm hoping to get reasonable sound levels for steady state operation but I'm not concerned if it's loud @ WOT. I would prefer that the vehicle doesn't set off car alarms when driving through the local city streets, or earn close examination from the police when I'm just putting. What is your experience with the different types and brands of mufflers? If you have a personal preference, why? Thanks for looking, I value your opinion, Brian.

 

[HYRDGOON]

I run 3" DynoMax ultraflos on mine and essentially exactly what you described. No real drone they aren't noisy till you get on it but sound great when you do. Also give a real low tone rumble at idle

 

[bherman]

I run 3" DynoMax ultraflos on mine and essentially exactly what you described. No real drone they aren't noisy till you get on it but sound great when you do. Also give a real low tone rumble at idle

Hi Goon, do you have the 24" or 20" case version, thanks for the reply, Brian.

 

[HYRDGOON]

Hey Brian, I have the 20". I actually bought the Flowmaster American Thunder exhaust system and just sold the Flowmaster 40's and bought the Dynomax