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moparmaritime@line.ca

When it comes to traction, more is always better. Though we’ve enhanced the weight distribution of our altered wheelbase ’63 Dart tremendously by moving the rear axle forward one whole foot, there is still the problem of getting large tires to fit inside its modestly sized factory issue wheel tubs, and that’s a problem that’ll become more critical once the Max Wedge goes under the hood.

Last month, we gained a ton of sidewall clearance as Dale Snoke of the Funny Car Farm moved the leaf springs inboard 3 inches using a Mopar Performance relocation kit. It was a huge step in the right direction. But while there’s plenty of sidewall clearance, the upper inboard edges of the 30 inch diameter Radir 10.00-15 nostalgia drag slicks are a little too close to the wheel tubs for comfort. There’s a sharp flange that looks ready to slice down into the slick surface during hard cornering or any other dynamic situation that causes the leaf springs to compress more than an inch or two.

So we’ll get Dale to open the Funny Car Farm once again to install mini-tubs on the car. Unlike full blown aftermarket wheel tub kits like the kind you buy for Pro Street applications, mini tubbing a Mopar can be done using 99.9 percent of the cars original structure. It’s a simple matter of trimming and filling while adding less than 6 feet of foreign metal in the form of filler strips. Do it with care, and the job is nearly invisible.

The mini-tub process eliminates the wasted space shown here and delivers an extra 2 inches of tire clearance on each side of the car. The pinch welded flange is where Dodge originally joined the wheel tub to the floor pan of the Dart. Most Mopars exhibit similar architecture in this area. If your tires exhibit mystery slices on the inner part of the tread surface, contact here is the likely cause.

A reciprocating saw and cut-off wheel are used to slice the stock wheel tubs down the middle and around their bases where they attach to the floor pan. If something looks “funny” about this picture, it’s because the rear wheel tubs (and entire rear axle and frame section) have been moved forward one foot on this altered wheelbase Dart. Fear not, the process is the same as on standard wheelbase Mopars. But remember, on a stock Mopar the package shelf and trunk hinge supports are welded to the tubs and must be separated –then rejoined - adding an extra touch of effort to this otherwise simple job.

Here’s what you want to see after the stock tubs have been sliced away from their stock resting places. All cuts must be as straight and clean as possible for a sanitary outcome.

Even on non-undercoated California cars like this Dart, you’ll find heavy sprayed-on sound deadener in the wheel tubs. It must be scraped away at the adjoining edges where welding will take place.

The 2 inches of additional tub are gained by simply remounting the wheel tub sections on top of the existing floor pan cut line. Light shines through the gaps when the tubs are pulled inboard. On this altered wheelbase Dart, the space usually occupied by the rear side window regulators has been gutted to make room for the relocation of the rear axle and floor module .

Here’s a close up showing how the flanged edges of the tubs are set down on top of the floor pan. With all sound deadener and undercoating scraped away, the two panels can be welded together.

Some areas of the tubs must be flattened to match the contours of the floor pan using a body hammer. Reducing the gaps allows better welds when they are joined together.

After making sure the tubs are correctly aligned with the floor pan, a continuous bead of weld is applied.

Here’s a look at the fully welded tub on the passenger side of the car. Notice how the 90-degree corners merge easily with the floor pan. Making the filler strips is next.

Dale uses a cut off wheel to trim a pair of 2 inch wide strips from a sheet of 0.030 thick steel.

The 2 inch wheel tub gaps are patched with the welded in filler strips. Dale went over the top with seamless welds to ensure water tightness and to prevent tire smoke from entering the cabin during burnouts.

After all the welding is completed, the widened wheel tub looks right at home. We’re not concerned with maintaining strict factory appearances on this altered wheelbase match race tribute car so we won’t bother with grinding the welds or smoothing the work with filler. In true funny car fashion, a liberal coat of Zolotone trunk paint will be applied later.

For the sake of comparison, here’s a look at the Dart’s wheel tub area before the altered wheelbase and mini tub treatments were applied. Notice how the package shelf and trunk hinge supports are attached to the top of the tub.

After mini-tubbing, you can barely get a finger between the wheel tubs and frame rails. Tire sidewall clearance has increased by 2 inches so there’s no chance of contact with the Dart’s Radir 10.00-15 nostalgia drag slicks.

Looking back at Chrysler’s Performance Clinics

11/4/08

In 1967 America, change was afoot. Fed up with Dodge’s being entrenched in the public eye as “the clergy man’s car” or “Father Dominic’s Dodge,” and in need of an aggressive new image for its division, Chrysler’s traditional marketing strategy was rolled up and smoked. Already high on horsepower thanks mainly to the success of the Plymouth line, the automaker’s first new tactic was to stir up its inter-division rivalries by plucking a plain-Jane car out of the Dodge lineup, offering a 330 HP, 383 V-8 as a standard engine, adding performance suspension and a few appearance items, and voilà: the Super Bee was launched as Dodge’s answer to Plymouth’s Roadrunner.

Having assigned both units their own new big block-heavy marketing campaigns ­­––the “Scat Pack” for Dodge and “The Rapid Transit System” for Plymouth–– Chrysler then unleashed an inferno of drug-trippy ads that turned out to be big attention grabbers. Irritating to look at or not, performance buyers saw past the patronizing hippie graphics to the seductive ad-copy that dangled a delicious Mopar apple in the garden of speedin’. Reasserting the Mopar name at the drags via overkill and an appeal to the counterculture, it was reasoned, would help deliver us from Father Dominic and Sister Mary Elephant.

As luck would have it, Ford had royally bungled negotiations with the well-respected Sox & Martin racing team; the pair ended up signing with Chrysler instead. A crafty marketing  gimmick was born of the marriage shortly thereafter, and drag racing was made accessible to the masses like never before as user-friendly “Mopar Labs” targeted young customers, daily commuters, and both performance buyers and the performance-curious.

The program called for two teams of cars to campaign across America, one under the Plymouth banner in the hands of Sox & Martin, and the other as part of the Dodge division, led by the celebrated Dick Landy. In addition to weekly bouts of drag racing, the teams stopped at local Chrysler-Plymouth-Dodge dealerships along the way and shared their legendary experiences with drag enthusiasts and competitors. Between them, the two teams covered a lot of territory. More than 50,000 prospective buyers showed up for free instructions, tips, stories and, of course, cool stickers. (Thirty-plus years later, it was a marketing concept so genius that Apple itself must have taken a bite: though not transportable, the launch of their Mac-only stores followed a similar approach.)

Electronic Ignition Upgrade - Electronic Alternative

Want a simple electronic ignition system for your Mopar, but don't want an ECU bolted to your firewall? The Petronix kit might be just what you're looking for.

By now we all know that electronic ignition is more reliable and requires less maintenance than the older breaker-point style of ignition, so it just makes sense to perform this easy upgrade to our older Mopars. But with all the electronic ignition options on the market today, which one is right for your car? If you run a post '71 Mopar (as well as certain '71 models), you can optimize the factory Mopar electronic ignition that is one of the best OEM ignition systems ever made. In earlier cars, it's easy to install a Mopar electronic ignition system, if you don't mind the cost and the nonfactory appearance of an electronic control unit (ECU) box bolted to your firewall. If you're racing, an aftermarket high-voltage system is mandatory. But if you want the reliability of electronic ignition while retaining the stock look, a Petronix ignition kit may be just what you need.

Using a factory points-style distributor, the Petronix kit includes all the parts to replace the points with an electronic pick-up and controller. In addition to working as a stand-alone unit, this system also functions well when used with multi-spark aftermarket ignition components.

Our engine is a 383 that will be installed in a street driven, A-Body, big-block clone. Since we like to look stock and go fast, we had to decide what electronic ignition system would best suit our needs. While an MSD or Mallory system would certainly give us more than enough spark, our street car just didn't warrant the expense or complexity of these systems. We considered a Mopar Performance electronic ignition kit, but didn't necessarily want to drill holes in our previously unmolested firewall to mount the ECU. Since we had good luck with a Petronix electronic ignition system on a previous car, and it requires no drilling or external control box, we decided to use one on this engine as well.

The cool thing about the Petronix ignition system is that there are no external parts to install. All the parts fit inside a stock distributor, converting a points-style unit to a reliable electronic ignition. Because the factory distributor is retained, the engine bay looks completely stock with the exception of one additional wire. Since we were ordering some parts to complete our car from YearOne, we simply added the Petronix kit to our order and had it in a few days. To boost spark for our warmed-over engine, we also got the optional high-voltage coil.

This system should easily power our warmed-over 383 and will also have enough energy to fire the cylinders of a much hotter engine should we decide to upgrade in the future. Follow along as we show you the simplicity of installing this ignition system.

Electronic Ignition Upgrade - Electronic Alternative

 

As the graph on the box indicates, this system greatly improves ignition energy at midrange rpm, especially when the Ignitor II coil is installed.	After removing the points and condenser, and cleaning the distributor in the parts washer, we installed the metal plates that will hold the new electronic pick-up and controller.	Now the Petronix pick-up/controller can be installed on the plates, basically in the same position the points were located in the factory configuration.
The magnetic pick-up simply slides over the points cam of the distributor, then a factory rotor can be installed.	Using the supplied .030-inch feeler gauge, the air-gap was set. Then we routed the wires through the original provision in the distributor. One wire goes to the coil; the other to ground.	With the air-gap set, the distributor was ready to install. Externally, it looks just like a factory unit with the exception of one additional wire.
We opted for the Ignitor II coil as an upgrade for our ignition. It too looks like a factory coil and bolts right into the stock coil bracket.	After installing the distributor, we topped it with a set of Taylor plug wires. This system will easily power our mild 383, with room to grow. So if we decide to install a killer stroker motor in this car, our ignition will perform up to par, while basically looking stock.

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Thanks.

moparmaritime@live.ca