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68 Charger 440 R/T Restoration

68GTXNH said:
Motorhome heads are junk.probably the worst stafting point of any head. Ive yet to read anyone making them worth a damn. Because the motorhomes were all cabovers, motors tucked way up under, with no airflow, they have extra water jackets to try to keep things cool, this intrudes on intake and exhaust runner geometry and makes walls thinner so you cant even carve out and form them as you would in an old school port and polish. Its best to save up a little more and get any number of the heads people have recommended on the forum. The wasiest thing would be to get the performer rpm heads to match your whole top end, they are already made to all work with eachother. Find one of the free calculators online and play with the head cc's and headgasket thickness. 10.5 c/r is strong but if youre willing to run premium gas, a thinner headgasket can bumpnyou way up in c/r and in turn, power. Then once the heads are mounted, gasket portmatch the intake, it should be close but stupid little things like smoothing out a hard edge that causes turbulence on one cylinder frees up alot of free hp. Then when you get it on the dyno tune it for the biggest torque number almost ignoring hp and you wont be disapointed.
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Yes, I've read about the Edelbrock Aluminum heads but I was just having trouble justifying the cost. You are right about the stock heads though, they don't flow well.
 
68GTXNH said:
Motorhome heads are junk.probably the worst stafting point of any head. Ive yet to read anyone making them worth a damn. Because the motorhomes were all cabovers, motors tucked way up under, with no airflow, they have extra water jackets to try to keep things cool, this intrudes on intake and exhaust runner geometry and makes walls thinner so you cant even carve out and form them as you would in an old school port and polish. Its best to save up a little more and get any number of the heads people have recommended on the forum. The wasiest thing would be to get the performer rpm heads to match your whole top end, they are already made to all work with eachother. Find one of the free calculators online and play with the head cc's and headgasket thickness. 10.5 c/r is strong but if youre willing to run premium gas, a thinner headgasket can bumpnyou way up in c/r and in turn, power. Then once the heads are mounted, gasket portmatch the intake, it should be close but stupid little things like smoothing out a hard edge that causes turbulence on one cylinder frees up alot of free hp. Then when you get it on the dyno tune it for the biggest torque number almost ignoring hp and you wont be disapointed.
Click to expand...
Plus i wanna say they are only around 7 or 7.5 to 1 c/r i have a 79 beaver motorhome im turning into an oldschool rsmp truck with the 440, damn thing couldnt pull itself up anything a degree over perfectly flat when i drove it home. Granted it was pulling a 9,000lbs box but the torque shouldve helped. The way it revved you can tell it just couldnt breathe strong enough to get the rpms into that strong part in a big blocks torque curve. And given the smog b.s. that was thrown at manufacturers in the mid 70s, the motorhome 440a were automatically the weakest powered ones you can get, although strangely enough in the top the strongest built because of the 6 bbl parts.
 
Dan Simmons said:
Yes, I've read about the Edelbrock Aluminum heads but I was just having trouble justifying the cost. You are right about the stock heads though, they don't flow well.
Click to expand...
Heres a thread going on now thats good but its new so there should be alot more good info shortly. http://www.forbbodiesonly.com/moparforum/threads/big-block-aluminum-heads.125581/
But there are a bunch of other threads too. In Gtx..t stand for tentanus, threewood shares a bit about his headchoice
 
oh, and do a little more research on the long tube headers. they look cool, and work great on gm and ford motors but for whatever reason, the stock hp manifolds out flow and put up better dyno numbers. assuming your motor came with stock hp manifolds. in which case if you can find them easy enough then you gotta compare pricing to new headers.
 
68GTXNH said:
nice, i stand corrected. goes to show what real testing reveals
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Hot Rod magazine has done it all with their test 440. They did a nice one with different intakes, different carbs and I think one with stock heads that get ported and tested again.
My favorite was testing headers, maybe it was a video I can't remember. They sttart with pristine headers and get horsepower from the dyno. Then they start denting the pipes to simulate making clearance. At one point they are beating on the pipes with a hammer with llittle to zero effect in hp. At one point the dented headers made more lol.
 
threewood said:
Hot Rod magazine has done it all with their test 440. They did a nice one with different intakes, different carbs and I think one with stock heads that get ported and tested again.
My favorite was testing headers, maybe it was a video I can't remember. They sttart with pristine headers and get horsepower from the dyno. Then they start denting the pipes to simulate making clearance. At one point they are beating on the pipes with a hammer with llittle to zero effect in hp. At one point the dented headers made more lol.
Click to expand...
haha i saw that one, rememebr their conclusion? its simple geometry, ya a perfect circle should flow more evenly, but with motors firing its a pulse of flow not like a hose of even flowing exhaust gas, so flow doesnt really matter, its the area the flow has to pass through to get rid of those gasses. but if you have a 1 7/8 pipe, thats pipe material stays the same, so the length of the outer edge stays identical. doesnt mater if the pipe is a circle, or has one side caved in making the cross section a C. the area the exhaust has to move through is identical. resulting in almost identical effectiveness for moving the gas out.
 
68GTXNH said:
haha i saw that one, rememebr their conclusion? its simple geometry, ya a perfect circle should flow more evenly, but with motors firing its a pulse of flow not like a hose of even flowing exhaust gas, so flow doesnt really matter, its the area the flow has to pass through to get rid of those gasses. but if you have a 1 7/8 pipe, thats pipe material stays the same, so the length of the outer edge stays identical. doesnt mater if the pipe is a circle, or has one side caved in making the cross section a C. the area the exhaust has to move through is identical. resulting in almost identical effectiveness for moving the gas out.
Click to expand...
I also saw a video where they were doing Dyno testing on a 440 and tried 1 7/8 tube and 2.0 and the 1 7/8 gave better numbers on both HP and Torque across the entire rpm range. Sometimes bigger isn't better . Anyway my goal for my 440 is streetable dependability and not to squeeze out every ounce of HP possible.
 
Blasting guy coming tomorrow to give me a quote. Never realized how many holes are in the floor until now!

IMG_20170215_154058553.jpg
 
OK everyone,
I have discovered some damage. Looks like someone drove over something. The drivers side front frame rail has been pushed up about an inch and in a little. How would you tackle this? I was thinking I need to take it to a frame shop and have them straighten it first, then replace the damaged rail. What do you think?

IMG_20170223_172710326.jpg IMG_20170223_172303085.jpg
 
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Dan Simmons said:
From the front

View attachment 399011
Click to expand...
if its bent out of shape sideways, squarewise with the whole car, a frame shop should be able to square it back up (assuming they have the right drawings going back that old(alot of modern shops unfortunately wont touch our cars, gotta find an oldschool guy who does it on the side at home) it may actually be worth having af rame guy look to see if it is out of whack before you make a decision however, if the frames are straight but only crunched up like that, ive never seen a frame shop have the ability to pull down on metal in a way that would straighten that out. its thick so studs and a slide hammer it probably out of the question. how well restored are you going for?

i see two options. if the cars not square, find some one who can make it square then, maybe get one of those saf-t-cap frame repair patch that slips over it and weld it in to reinforce the crumpled area (youre hiding metal though so grind prime and make sure its tight so you dont pack the gap with sand and water or itll rust out) keep going on the rest of the car, you cant see that area anyways, drive the car and have fun. thats the non perfect restoration but quicker cheaper and easier.

the other option is AMD makes all that metal, replace the frame rail and the inner lower cowl/fender piece that has the little damage in your last picture(although its a small crinkle you can probably hammer out that piece and save it) replacing it seems like a big job, but remember the whole car is a big job, so in reality this one piece is small potatoes. put the car on maybe 6 jack stands, nice and level on the flat parts of the car, rockers, the long parts under the other front frame rail and across side ways, use a long level across the rear frame rails, and (inner fenders near the coal if the car is straight there). use different thicknesses of sheet metal to get the jack stands the right height. if you take your time, and find the Chrysler frame drawings on google, a quick search will turn up plenty, get some 1in square tubing, cut and weld and brace up that front corner of the car. supporting the inner fender, and the rad support, and that side of the cars door gap also one from that corner lower door near the rocker up to the roof straight up and diagonal to the back of the roof. I snagged a pic of a shell offline its a challenger but was at the right angle and disassembly to show you what i mean. green lines are where id tack in supports(probably overkill), red lines where to cut. then cut the inner fender and rad support very cleanly off the frame rail, as well as the spot welds to the floor. and cut a few pieces to the proper length from those drawings, weld it to the other frame rail nice and square then you have yourself a spacer to butt the new rail up against get the frame rail level and straight to the rest of the car before you weld anything, if youre pulling the rail with a clamp to hold it straight, it wont be straight when you finish, the rail needs to be completely relaxed sitting where it needs to go with nothing more than one or two tacks or clamps, zip screws etc (see my post about hanging quarters, work the metal to make them fit perfectly and you should only need to hang them with one zip screw top center) take your time and measure about 2 million times... youll have no issues

rail support.png
 
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here you go, the old scans from crappy 60s printers arnt the best but you can kind of make em out its for a 69 coronet but the front end frame dimensions are identical

69 frame.jpg
 
heres a better one green supports orange alignment spacer per drawing, blue arrows jack stands, red cut yellow arrow would be a floating jackstand, once it supports put a jackstand here out of your way connecting to the supports. yellow lines should all be level. also remember, the factory had a 1/4" tolerance.

69 level.png
 
Wow! Thanks for all of that information. I believe it is out is square but not by much. I want a clean repair, but it doesn't have to be show room quality. The rail is pushed up and in slightly and is slightly collapsed but not so much it can't be repaired I think. I am going to have a frame guy look at it first, I'm hoping it can be pulled back to square fairly easily. The pic you shared of the frame measurements will come in handy :thumbsup:
 
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