A little trivia... Did you know the 426 Hemi was put in an Swiss made exotic car in 1970? It was intended to be a direct competitor to the top of the list super sports cars of Lamborghini, Ferrari and Maserati. Called a "Monteverdi Hai 450". Only 4 were ever built. 2 built originally as prototypes and 2 were built form spare parts in 1990. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monteverdi_Hai_450 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urcNqs47JII .
I also know the big block 440 was put in a small import car. It seems to me it was an English car, but I can't remember the name. I should because I almost bought one. There were a few of them made and they were torque monsters, they are rare now. Now I remember it was the Jensen Interceptor. http://www.antiquecar.com/gc_jensen_interceptor.php It was even offered with the 440 6 pack. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jensen_Interceptor More trivia. The Jensen was driven by Simon Templar in the 1989 TV show "The Saint". http://www.saint.org/jensen.htm .
That 440 engine is in there like a sardine in a can. I can only imagine what that 426 "elephant motor" looks like crammed in the Monteverdi Hai 450
My son and I saw the exact same car (well same color ) at the Mopar spring fling last year. Very cool!.
Now I remembe rthe Interceptor well. Back in about 73, when I was running my "69 Diodge Dart 440 6-pack, I was looking at an Interceptor with a blown motor to put my engine and tranny in 'cause I was actually ripping the front shock towers out of my Dart (did it twice) on launch with a 3200 TC. I was going to transplant my motor to it, but it looked like way too tight of a work space. .
There's one or two other European cars that used Mopar engines, one was older using the old 392 HEMI. How does the engine mount in a '73 A-body? I know that the older cars used a K-frame, where the engine mounted to.
If you are talking about my Dart, it was a 69 not a 73. Remember the Dart GTS? It was a 383 and used a diff K-Member. When I did my Dart, it was hard to find this part.
Ooops, '69 GTS. I'm sure big block A-body K-members were hard to find. Just cause I'm curious, how did you rip the shock towers? Was the engine twisting into the towers?
The GTS was a 383 big block. The car launched HARD (when the tires would hold it). I don't think it ever pulled the wheels but it would litterly leap forward. I was running drag shocks which were "90/10" in font and "50/50" in rear. So tthe front end would come up easy to plant the power into the rear. As you know... suspensions in ealry muscle cars were not really built for even stock power. My car ran 11's in the early 70's and was a "daily driver".....sort of. The 440 had forged internals at 11.5 compression. It had a set of P/P and CC'd heads csutom done by Racing Head Service, also a Crane hydraulic roller cam that required a stud gridle. It ran Hooker 1 7/8" fenderwell headers. The 6-pack was swapped from the original 355 cfm center and 255 cfm outers to 3 500 cfm carbs. They were on mechanicl linkage so I could do 3/4 throttle on the center carb and the last 1/4 brought in the outside carbs. This car would break the L60 (remember those) tires loose n any gear. Oh..yea...the tranny was a Fairbanks street/strip 727 Torqueflite with an fully manual reversed valve body that fed a Dana 60 rear with 4.10 gears. I had to un-cork the headers coccasionaly to let it breath good enough to "clean it out". I loved that car and throughly regret ever parting it out.
I see, duh. The shocks were pushing on the towers, causing the damage. I just haven't heard of many issues w/shock towers on torsion bar suspension. Now today using some coil overs in place of shocks has had issues, I've read anyways. Buy this 340 GTS & drop in a 540ci stroker! http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/e...=260337303888&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:PIC&ih=016
The shock towers could have been ripped by another stunt my budies and I used to pulll. There was an isolated road that had a "quick" hill on it wiht 3 sets of railroad tracks on the top. We used to "launch" off this hill at a high speed.. going airborne. (duke of haazrd) I was one of the oly ones that could clear all 3 sets of tracks. I am sure the "missed" landings were not good on the shock towers eiither......lol. I wasn't always going fast enough to get a smooth landing, you had to learn just how fast you needed to go to land more level and with enough forward momentum.