Few upgrades to my 69 Charger. EFI, Shocks, Exhaust

[Garner7555]

I have been doing a few upgrades to my Charger over the winter and it kinda spilled over into the summer. First I will give you a little back story and a few pictures of the car.
First picture is how I found it in the 90s
Next picture how it is currently

 

[Kern Dog]

Hey there....Glad to see you joined up here!

 

[Garner7555]

When I went through the car to restore it (just finished spring of 2019) I put QA1 front suspension and Hotchkis lowering leaf springs, torque boxes, subframe connectors, lower front brace, Borgeson steering, front and rear sway bars, 14" front brakes (shown) and 12" rear disc.

 

[Garner7555]

I put everything new as far as brakes go (stainless steel lines, master cylinder, vacuum booster, ect) but I was never satisfied with the brakes so this winter I put on a hydroboost booster. Wow what a difference. I would never consider going back to vacuum power brakes. I would probably just go manual brakes before I used vacuum

 

[Garner7555]

Hey there....Glad to see you joined up here!

Thanks. I have been around for a while, just haven't posted very much

 

[Garner7555]

When I was restoring the car I just put some "knock off" Flowmasters on it and dumped the exhaust in front of the axle. This winter I bought one of the complete exhaust kits from Pypes. The kit is stainless steel with a X pipe and the part # is SMB10. I also put Borla Pro XS mufflers on it as well. These are a straight through style muffler so they should improve performance some. I welded most of the joints rather than just using the clamps. I painted where the welds where to keep rust from trying to start.

 

[Garner7555]

When I built the 440 and installed it I used a FiTech throttle body EFI unit. It worked great and I didn't have issues with it, but I wanted to upgrade to true Multi-port EFI that was a little more customizable and offer more inputs for the timing map for spark control. (I had the FiTech controlling timing as well) I went with the Edelbrock Pro Flo 4XT kit. It comes with a lot of extras such as a distributor that works with the ec . I am very happy with this upgrade for many reasons, but one of them is hood clearance. I ran my intake plumbing over through the inner fender to draw in cooler air.

 

[Garner7555]

I also put KYB shocks on the car a few years back and this winter I ordered the Fox adjustable shocks that Hotchkiss sells. I have them on the car now, but haven't been able to road test them yet.

 

[Garner7555]

I had to relocate the A/C compressor due to the new EFI setup. I didn't like any of the offerings in a V belt setup and I didn't need to spend the money on a serpentine setup right now. So I just built my own A/C compressor brackets and mounted it under the alternator.

 

[CoronetDarter]

Very nice work. I like the fresh air plumbing off the inner fender. Are you using a Denso alternator?

 

[Garner7555]

Very nice work. I like the fresh air plumbing off the inner fender. Are you using a Denso alternator?

It is actually a tractor alternator. It works well. There was a member on another forum that suggested it so I gave it a try.

 

[Derwud]

Hey, nice set-up.. Glad to see you on here as well.

 

[Superbeemike]

Looks Great!!! I'm intrigued by the EFI setup. I'd love to ditch my 6-pack setup for something like that. How does the 440 like the port injection vs the throttle body?

 

[Garner7555]

Hey, nice set-up.. Glad to see you on here as well.

Thanks. I'm envious of your overdrive. Maybe one day.

Looks Great!!! I'm intrigued by the EFI setup. I'd love to ditch my 6-pack setup for something like that. How does the 440 like the port injection vs the throttle body?

I really need to wait and answer this after I put some miles on the car. I was happy with the FiTech, so I'm not expecting some drastic change. It does seem to have better/faster throttle response than the FiTech did.
One of the cool things about this kit is that the edelbrock software has the ability to change injectors and support up to 1100 horsepower. I will never need that, but if I ever stroke this engine to over 500 cu in then I may need to step up one size on the injectors. I like the idea of a customizable system that can grow with your new setup.
Another really cool thing is that Edelbrock has their own forum for customers to help with any questions and tuning. This is so helpful to so many people I believe. Here is a link to my thread on the Edelbrock forum :
https://forums.edelbrock.com/forum/...34433-xt-install-on-mopar-440-in-a-69-charger

 

[Kern Dog]

Have you ran it with the A/C on with this new belt arrangement? There isn't much belt contact on the A/C compressor. I'd expect some serious squeak and slippage.
I hope you don't but it be ready for it when the A/C comes on.

 

[watermelon]

im interested in that air intake routing setup. can you post more pics of the air filter itself and anything that is happening external to the engine bay?


thanks,

watermelon

 

[biomedtechguy]

I'm intrigued by the EFI setup. I'd love to ditch my 6-pack setup for something like that. How does the 440 like the port injection vs the throttle body?

Just a couple of points:
Why ditch the 6bbl?
Are you having problems tuning it?
For me, adjusting the outboard carburetors idle mixture screws made a HUGE difference, and learning how to do that was an EPIPHANY!
If you want EFI and a 6 pack, get the Fitech 3x2 throttle body EFI setup.
I would have one now, EXCEPT that I had just sent my ok running 6bbl carbs to Promax for a lot of mods and all 3 rebuilt, checked, and dyno "pretuned". The other, and biggest reason why I don't havd the FiTech 3x2 EFI is the 600 horsepower limit, as I have a 541 stroker in the works, and I hope to be around 700 horsepower.

 

[Garner7555]

Have you ran it with the A/C on with this new belt arrangement? There isn't much belt contact on the A/C compressor. I'd expect some serious squeak and slippage.
I hope you don't but it be ready for it when the A/C comes on.

I was sorta expecting it to squeal but it is actually doing great so far. I put good quality belts on it because I knew I was "pushing the limits" for a V belt. I plan to swap to serpentine in the future

 

[Garner7555]

im interested in that air intake routing setup. can you post more pics of the air filter itself and anything that is happening external to the engine bay?


thanks,

watermelon

I will take some pictures of that and post them as soon as I get a good chance. I am happy with the results, some people wouldn't want to use a 4" hole saw on their car though. HaHa

 

[Jarven1977]

Nice car! I have the same setup as you for the front brakes, 14" rotors and Brembos from a Ford Mustang GT500. What do you have in the rear?