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Let's hear about cheap fast cars.

SteveSS

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They don't have to be Mopars.


Can you build a 440 etc. and throw it in something for dirt cheap?
 
Okay $5K and under all in. It can be 1/4 mile or top speed. What made me think of this is 4th Gen GM F Bodies. $5K now, watch.

 
My friend has five 4th generation Camaro Z28 cars and Trans Am ram air cars. They are all convertibles. They are the best bang for the buck cars out there.
 
This one just did 165mph on the GPS this summer. " apparently "
20241108_150224.jpg

But it would go for about 25k CAD
 
I'm thinking mid 60s Rambler American 2dr post and a 408 / 727/ 8.75
 
A couple months before Hot Mag built their "cheap thrills" 440 Dart, I completed a near exact build: A 68 Dart I picked up for $500, put the six into a truck, and slipped in a used 68 440 (stock 906 heads) with used speed parts including 509 purple shaft, eddy single plane, Holley 750 double pumper, 727 that I had pulled from something in the past, and a 3.91 8-3/4 that I scabbed together. I also added an 8 point roll bar and used plastic racing bucket. All told, it weighed 3060lb with the six, and 3100 with the 440 after trimming weight down (still running steel wheels). It ran a 13.05 flat first time out with a slipping trans. .... and then I traded it for a decent 70 Charger before getting into it any more.

All in cost was $2000. Of course this was 20 years ago. Start with a light car and you don't need an expensive engine.
 
"Start with a light car, and you won't need an expensive engine"
Yep. A talented chimp could have put the engine in my Cortina together.
With me in it, and a full gas tank (5 gallons) it was well under 2500 lbs.
(Of course, stock it was about 1800, empty).
 
Are we talking factory maybe with some small mods? Or built?

Any 80's RWD GM car (or truck!)+ 6.2 LS swap. Ta-Da!
96-98 Ford Mustang GT + 5.0 Coyote swap. Ta-Da!
Dakota with a 360 crate motor. Or a turbo slapped on a 5.9 magnum. Ta-Da!

Factory fast? Depends on where you live. I always see people talking about their 5 grand Firebirds. Those things are 15-20 in WI. Or they don't run. You can buy a mint condition C4 vette for half what a crappy 90's firebird costs around here.
If you can find a Lincoln Mark 7, you can do old school Ford small block stuff to them. Sleeper-ish. Nice cars though, comfy and classy.

Factory Mopars for cheap? LOL yeah right. If you want to bend the rules you can find a 70's 4 door and drop a big block in. If you can't be seen in a 4 door, your loss then I guess. Otherwise even the Magnums and Cordobas are getting to the point of decidedly not cheap.
 
Fastest, cheapest car in the history of Man will always be a V8 Vega.
I built a V8 Vega. It weighed the same as my fox-body 302/5sp mustang, and there was hundreds of pounds I could have taken out of the fox.
Cheapest fastest used to be a fox with ANY kind of hi performance mods or engine swap. That is, until prices for foxes skyrocketed.
 
Did you see Cleetus McFarland's cheap car shoot out where he bought a POS 4th gen Z28 for $1500? It was F'in nasty but it still ran.

 
To quote David Frieburger, “its more fun to drive a slow car fast, than drive a fast car slow”
 
Dulchich has a great inventory of Mopar speed parts in his shop. And he knows what works. Plus they don't give a damn what the outside looks like.
 
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