Keith's 1973 Cuda

this page was last updated Sunday October 30, 2005

 

 

 

 

This 340 car is going to receive some attention to the floors and frame rails to repair some old damage from years past. There are going to be many changes to the Cuda as the project develops, How about a fresh 440 engine to begin with.

The new 440 Engine
     '71 440 block (not HP),

'71 steel crank, six pak rods, entire rotating assembly balanced, crank ground .010, .010

 Rods have been  resized, quality cap studs and nuts. Rods checked for straightness,

rods and block magnafluxed,

oil pickup has been resized to hemi size,

 .040 oversize bore, honed with hone plates,

Keith Black hyperutectic pistons, 9.5 compression (these are great pistons for Chrysler big blocks: they are a slight pop up design which decreases the huge piston to head clearance (they are heat treated cast pistons and would not hold up to a blower), yet only 9.5 compression),

quality moly rings

 heads have been magnafluxed, pocket ported, stainless valves, bronze guides, new matched springs, new retainers, hard exhaust seats,

I measured piston height on every cylinder and the combustion chambers have been spot faced for .04 piston to head clearance,

mopar chrome rocker shafts, roller rockers. A quality local machine shop did the block (and its components) machine work.  

 Dave Hughes of Hughes Engines in Chicago recommended the head, cam, and piston combo and rebuilt the heads. He promised 480 to 520 horsepower on pump gas (ten year ago pump gas)
With the engine block back from the machine shop we are going to degree in the cam shaft. After several hours of work I found it necessary to order some off set bushings to move the cam a few more degrees to get the cam to come up on the recommended 107 deg. @ .050 lift on # 1 intake. After we get this done the remaining pistons and rods will be installed in the block.
The 6-pack rods and KB pistons are ready to be installed in the engine block. Once we have the Huges cam degreed we will fill the block with the remainder of the rods and pistons.
With the sheet metal removed we found some prior damage to the frame rails which was repaired years ago. After some serious consideration we decided to remove the frame rails, aprons and core support and replace with solid rails. We set the Cuda up on the frame rack and anchored down the body and set up the measuring system to see just how straight the car is before we remove the old aprons. Only a few pulls will be needed to square the body before we began removing the old frame rails.
We were fortunate to find an entire clip from a 70 Cuda with rails and fire wall intact. After hours of clean-up to remove the undercoat and seam sealer we found the aprons and rails to be virtually rust free. Next will be the tedious job of cutting the rails and aprons from the fire wall and cleaning up the parts for welding to the Cuda.

After cutting the aprons from the cowl we had them sandblasted to remove all of the old paint, now they will be prepared for primer and paint before we fit to the body of the Cuda.
The fire wall will be smoothed with a new piece of 20 gauge.

 
We are welding in new floors we received from Hardens Muscle car. This are a very nice pieces.
The front clip is fit and welded in place and the k-member and all  of the suspension parts are under the car for us to move the Cuda on to the next phase. The 2003 B5 blue color was applied as a base coat and we will color sand and paint all of the work we have done at a later time.