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[Technical Specs]
History
$2002 Challenge 1964 Plymouth Valiant Signet 200 Car #55 Owner: David Elder Driver: Jason Ernst Story by Jason Ernst and David Elder
The heart of the car came into our lives before the body. A 63 Dart GT (in primer) was found in a backyard near our neighborhood. The car was bought cheap and given necessary attention to turn it into a reliable driver. For a year it was driven daily as a college commuter vehicle. This was done in part to preserve the expensive paint on the Top Bananna Yellow Barracuda featured in the December issue. During initial rehabilitation the head was pulled off the engine on suspicion that the engine may have been rebuilt at some point. These suspicions were confirmed, as a nice crosshatch in the bore and pretty pistons stamped .040 were revealed beneath the head. As the Darts commuter duties ended, the engine was yanked and the remaining unit body sold for the initial purchase price.
The 64 Valiant Signet 200 was found at a Mopar show and swap at Bob Williams Dodge in Rome, GA. The car was being offered for sale by Mike Williams, Bob’s brother. Mike had acquired the car from a friend but knew nothing of its history. The decision was made to purchase the car for parts, but being a factory A-833 Four Speed made the rusty hulk of a Valiant worth saving. Adding to weirdness of options, the car was a 225 Slant Six. This is a somewhat rare combination with a Four Speed.
Knowing that my best friend Jason Ernst was preparing his 64 Valiant for the Challenge added fuel to my fire to save the car rather than junking it. Many Mopar shows, swap meets and junkyard outings had left me with boxes of cheaply acquired factory upgrade and performance parts for which the Signet would be a perfect home. The car would ultimately become a performance oriented incarnation of its humble beginnings. All suspension and braking was upgraded using later model factory parts. Ideas were reaped from the What-Else-Would-You-Do section of past challenge articles. Many areas mentioned in the articles were addressed, proving it is always important to listen to your competitors.
Engine
The 225 CID block, now left homeless from the Dart, was again torn down. This time the end was modification rather than inspection. The short block was treated to healthy dose of Clifford Research cam, (.464”, 276 degree) and a Mopar Performance double roller timing chain. The head was milled .060” to raise the compression while retaining the low mileage .040 pistons. Compression was calculated at 9.5:1. The cam kit also came with Duel Spring valve springs and Aluminum retainers which were installed on stock valves. The bottom end of the motor was sealed back up and the head was reinstalled. The Clifford Research headers came from someone who had given up on their Slant Six project. They were purchased at a fraction of what they would have cost from Clifford. The aluminum intake is an Offenhauser piece picked up at a swap meet. Topped off with a brand new 390 CFM Holley, this combination seems to work really well. A drag-racer friend made a bunch of tuning suggestions. He had removed the choke before I could say three words, mumbling something about ‘kids these days’. Due to time constraints no real tuning was performed The carb remains as it came out of the box except for setting the idle and ditching the choke. Ignition is largely stock but has been upgraded with Accel components. The stock point-type distributor was treated to Accel performance points and Mopar 440 fast advance springs. The SuperCoil makes a bigger spark than I have ever seen! Eight millimeter wires, donated by the Chevy guy down the street transfer the spark. To save the weight of a large chunk of cast iron, a lightweight alternator bracket from a Slant Six Dodge van was used. This has the added benefit of mounting the alternator lower in the engine compartment. An electric fan was used to free up some HP. The hardest part of the engine buildup was the results of a Tipsy 3-wheeled engine stand which left a large dent in a metal garage door as the 225 crashed to the floor. Luckily no severe damage was caused, but heavy language was used.
Clutch
The stock Slant Six clutch was a 9.25” unit with nine light-duty springs. With thought that Slant Six to four speed bellhousings are rare, the decision was made to find a performance clutch in the stock diameter. Many parts houses were called but Zoom was the only manufacturer. The price? How about $285.00? No good. A little more research was done and it was discovered that there was a Slant Six Truck clutch available that measured 10”, had heavy duty springs and would fit the stock Valiant flywheel. The question of the day was "Will this huge pressure plate fit inside that Valiant bellhousing?" Everything was bolted to the back of the crank, the bellhousing bolted on. The engine was turned a couple of times. It clears, but it is pure luck, these pieces were never intended to be bolted together. A brace had to be made for the fenderwell when the first truck clutch that we tried ripped the pivot point for the Z bar out of the sheetmetal. Jason towed the car to a friend's Transmission Shop to use his lift. We had to swap the clutch for one with fewer springs that wouldn't tear the firewall out of the car due to pedal pressure. The second clutch proved to be the perfect combination of grip and feel.
Transmission
The tranny is the original A-833 Four Speed. The inspection cover was pulled to confirm suspicions that if these transmissions could hold up behind a Street HEMI, they would last forever behind a 225. This was the case, even after an estimated 200,000 miles. It is a heavy, early-style iron case unit. This may be replaced with a later model aluminum case shoved full of the same gears. The original factory Hurst shifter stirs the gears. Characteristic of this early A-833 is a flange at the tailshaft rather than a slip yoke. This is convenient because no fluid leaks out when the driveshaft is removed for flat towing the car to events. Because of the flange, the driveshaft features a Ball and Trunion front universal joint that allows fore and aft movement of the shaft in addition to universal rotation.
Suspension and Brakes
A friend with a very nicely restored Barracuda Convertible recently upgraded to disk brakes. I inquired about the recently rebuilt 10" drums he removed from the car and a deal was struck . This upped the drum size from Any-Stop-Is-A-Panic-Stop 9" to 10" drums. The setup also included a 67 and up style duel reservoir master cylinder and appropriate brake proportioning valve. With a little custom line bending on my part, the setup easily swapped onto the uni-body. Drum brakes were used because we had them, they had already been gone through and were lighter than using later model disks. Weight is always a concern when building an older American car with a Six Cylinder. The factory 3.23:1 7.25" axle ratio was ditched in favor of 3.91:1 cogs purchased from a Mopar Club member. A few more bucks changed hands and the rear 9" drums became 10". Hot sixes have been known to break this littlest of rear axles so I knew that care must be taken. But if you are breaking traction then you hopefully won't be breaking parts The stock front torsion bars measured 0.83" and were replaced with V-8 units measuring 0.87”. This may not sound like a major change, but it is, and it really changes the feel of the car. These bars have a wheel rate of 120 #/inch. I bought some really thick torsion bars at the Ocala Show/Swap Meet but they would have been way too stiff. I didn't measure them till I got home when I found out that they are the biggest any catalog offers, spec'd for cars that run banked ovals with the weight of V-8s. Adjusting the preload on the bars lowered the front-end about 1.5"-2". This allowed us some more negative camber. The alignment was set for basically as much negative as possible while still having good caster numbers. It ended up being about 1.5 camber and 3 caster with just a bit of toe in. An Addco front sway bar was added. On Jason's Valiant the mounting tabs for the same style Addco bar bent the edges of the K-frame. To reinforce the mounting points we drilled through both flanges of the K-frame and used tubing to bridge the center of the U channel. A long bolt holds all of it together. The rear springs have 6 leaves and were purchased at Chryslers at Carlisle. KYB shocks reside at all four corners and really stiffen things up. The steel wheels are the widest factory offering in the small 4" bolt circle, measuring 14"x5.5". They were sandblasted and sprayed with cheap Wal-Mart spraypaint. Jason's Valiant has been converted to the large 4.5" bolt pattern so he can run 15"x7" Mopar Cop Car wheels. Because of this he no longer had a need for the 14” BFGoodrich Radial TAs he had been using as street tires. His track day at Summit Point didn't seem to hurt them too much, so the painted steelies were shod with the BFGs. Many thanks to Jason and Gran Turismo East, Inc. for mounting and balancing the rolling stock.
Interior
Pulling up the faded, dry rotted, rodent infested carpet revealed a lot of swiss cheese where floorboards had been in the past. Much time was spent welding in patch panels on the driver's side. Later when we moved on to the passenger side, Jason cut and fitted large single pieces for the front and rear. When you run out of welding wire at midnight its good to know that the 24 hour Wal-Mart stocks it. So at 2AM the night we left for Fla. the last of the beads were run. The primer covering the fresh welds was drying on the trip down Interstate 75. Race cars don’t need door panels or a back seat, so those were set aside to be sold. The factory front bucket seats are heavy and offer little support for "Spirited Driving". Jason was poking around the attic where he worked, at Gran Turismo East, Inc., and came across a NOS seat for a 70's vintage Pantera. This was to become our driving seat, but to do so required the fabrication of a frame of box tubing to mount the seat to the stock Valiant sliders. The speedo was canned in favor of a 5 8000 RPM Auto Meter Monster Tach. An oil pressure gauge was installed to keep an eye on the engine when it was being twisted tight. The factory temperature gauge isn’t working, so at this point we are just keeping a close eye on things. There is an adjustable thermostatic switch kit that we want to add for the fan so it will turn on automatically. The steering wheel is a 3 spoke piece that came from a 68 Valiant parts car years ago. It seemed beefier and didn’t have the large horn ring like Per's Volvo to get in the way while flinging the manual steering about. The battery box in the trunk is from a Dodge A-100 Van. A trunk mount battery kit that was hanging around the house was used to move the battery to its new location just aft the right rear wheel.
The trip
Jason Finished welding at 2:00 AM then drove from Athens to Atlanta and back to pick up a tow vehicle. At this point the Valiant had been dragged behind many a vehicle including another friends 1997.5 Hummer Wagon, but hadn’t been driven much more than a mile. We knew it had a front brake issue as the right front was very touchy and would lock up with any sort of pedal pressure. The shoes were adjusted one last time and we set off down the road. An hour south of Athens we stopped in a parking lot where we decided to pull the driveshaft just to be sure no gears were damaged during the next eight hours of towing. With the flange type transmission it was held securely at the front, so the rear of the drive shaft was just tied up and to the side. !Note to those who tow! This was the first time we have used a drop hitch. It made for a much more enjoyable ride. With the tow bar being level, the braking force was transferred straight forward rather than at an upward angle. As far as I know we were the only team to flat tow our car, with all four wheels on the ground. Our tow bar setup goes way back to a racer from the 60s who had a 61 Valiant station wagon drag car. The bar is made from the front end of a 40s Ford and attaches to plates bolted in place of the Valiant’s front bumper. It is an easy arrangement for one person to hook up and compared to a tow dolly or trailer, extremely lightweight. I still didn’t want to calculate the Yukon tow vehicle’s gas mileage though. For lights, jumper wires were made that plug into the trucks trailer harness and connect to the cars tail light wiring. We rolled up to the Suddard’s residence Thursday evening with little to no sleep from the night before. Aside from the starter circuit not wanting to engage all of the time, the car seemed to be a hit. The car was immediately surrounded by people as we pulled into Tim’s backyard.
Day 2: Friday/Rain
We showed up at the dragstrip Friday morning only to find that adjustments hadn't helped the brake situation. The car went through tech and was photographed. Then we went out looking for a tarp or a dry place to work and parts. An out of business gas station was found with a dry area and there are more junkyards than we have ever seen off of one road. We used this awning to get the truck out of the rain and apply Rainex. We have so many bottles of the stuff. It seems we only ever realize it is needed when you are far from home. Wal-Mart to the rescue. We got back to the soggy track to find the Drags had been canceled. So this time we left with the car to see what it would take to make things work right. I attacked the drivers side first, pulling all of the brake hardware off, then opening up the wheel cylinder. While I was disassembling guy pulled up and started to clean off his own windshield like we had earlier. He asked if the car was a Slant Six to which Jason replied, Hell Yes. (History Lesson: 1964 was the first year a V8 was available in a Valiant. It was the least expensive V8 car in the USA.) He told us of the 2 Slant Banger cars he had; one of them has factory Kelsey Hayes 4 piston calipers. “Like a Vette”, he commented. Bang, bang, bang came sounds from the Valiant’s front end. (Working on a car and making new friends all at the same time.) There was a little bit of slime inside the wheel cylinder but nothing terrible. Moving to the right side I handed Jason the hammer. What’s this for Jason asked? On the other side I simply bent the tab that keeps the piston from coming out of the wheel cylinder bore to expedite removal. Sure, why not Jason thought as he wailed away on the impact extension. This side was a bit different; we found scale and rust inside of the dust boot. So apparently this was just an old cylinder with new guts. Sure enough, the bore was pitted. Good thing I thought to bring my cordless drill. We had bought a hone on the earlier scouting run. With things cleaned up and put back together we started to bleed the brakes. The nasty fluid was soaked up from the master cylinder with paper towels. Starting farthest from the MC, I bled while Jason worked the pedal. I moved to the Driver’s side and went through a lot of fluid in a short time. “How could that be?” I thought. It turns out that while releasing the pressure at the bleeder screw the passenger side wheel cylinder worked fine. But when under pressure the fluid went past pistons and the seals. The wheel cylinder itself had been honed too much. Well Sh*t. We cleaned everything up and loaded all the tools back in the Yukon then started making phone calls. Discount Auto Parts was no discount. They wanted $49 for a wheel cylinder and couldn’t get it that weekend. Back to the phones. We went through the phone book and every place we called the price came down. Finally we got to an Auto Zone that had one in stock for $17. I made the girl go get the part in hand before I would hang up. The store was conveniently just up the road. Once inside the store the Auto Zone Commercial Specialist who happened to be at the store that day tracked us down to talk about the car. He had had several old Mopars back in the day and was currently looking for another 64-65 Cuda. One of the neatest items he had had was a Hyper Pak Slant Six. This was the factory Nascar Kit for the short-lived Compact car races. Very rare, Very cool. We exchanged information with the guy, bought a wheel cylinder for each side just to be safe and headed back to the hotel. It seems everyone has had a Valiant or Dart at some point in their lives. Stan the Saab Guy was nice enough to share his motel room so we took him to Hard Rock in Orlando for dinner. It was a longer drive than we thought. Universal Studios was a mess in the parking department. Cones everywhere sending us up the road the wrong way through a maze of parking decks David Copperfield couldn’t decipher. The Yukon picked up a 2 second penalty and dragged it up 3 levels of the parking deck. This netted us many glares from the parking attendants. Dinner was good and on the way back a quicker way to the dragstrip was found. It dumped us out directly at the hotel. The Fla. backroads were nice and empty so we could finally use the rally-style Hellas mounted to the front of the Yukon. Back at the hotel, we pushed the car under the stairwell in hopes of finding a dry place to work. The time? 11:30 PM. The chicks at Universal were worth the late night… Once we got into it again it was evident that the car had to be taken farther apart than we thought. The wheel cylinder bolts couldn’t back out due to the upper ball joint being in the way. So the backing plate had to be removed. This left the spindle just hanging there held only by the upper control arm. Everything went back together fine Bolts were torqued and the brakes were bled again at 2:00 AM. We seem to see that time a lot ever since I got this car. I was falling asleep in the driver’s seat while Jason packed all the tools back in the Yukon. We hoped it would work, but would have to wait till daylight to find out since cranking a car that loud at 2:00 AM would only result in beatings from sleep deprived travelers.
Day 3 Saturday/Rain
I fired the car up and drove around the hotel just incase everyone wasn’t awake yet. The brakes were ok and didn’t pull. WooHoo! We hitched back up and headed to the autocross. We pulled into the field and unloaded the car in the ‘driving’ (HA) rain. Jason missed the walk thru of the course as he was off getting a feel for the brakes. During the first stop the car pulled hard to the left. That only happened once, but once was enough to make me nervous. The pedal wasn’t that easy to modulate, but it would be fine for now. It could be tweaked later. So we sat in line, in the driving rain waiting to be judged and finally got to talk to people. Luckily during the lunch break Jason was able to walk the course. It didn’t seem too bad, but with manual steering I could tell he would be busy. Jason’s first Auto-X ever was done without walking the course and he only got one clean run. The car finally made it to the judging tent. I overheard comments about the lack of paint. Then the hood came up. At once the entire gathered crowd went Oooh! as they saw where all the effort was concentrated. Every part we touched we detailed. I had decided to let Jason drive as he is lighter by almost 100 pounds (I am not fat, just big boned…) and had Auto-Xed before. The car was a blast for Jason to drive. I could tell by the grin coming from either side of his helmet. The rain prevented any power transfer from the BFGs to the tarmac. But the car still seemed quick. After the first run Jason’s knee was shaking so I knew he was having fun. On the second run he again missed a gate, it was hard to crank enough on the wheel to get the car to change direction in a hurry (quick-ratio steering boxes are expensive). The third run saw the casualty of a cone but he was entering some of the gates sideways, so I was happy with that. Time was up before GRM staff got a chance to drive the car, so maybe next year. The car was hitched up and again we headed to the hotel. Jason joked that we should have a wakeup call for 15 minutes. Luckily I woke up and we made it to the Lone Cabbage Fish Camp in time. Stan the Saab Guy was glad to be able to enjoy the nice ride of the Yukon instead of going solo in his Malibu tow vehicle. Awards were given and there was much talk of everyone’s 2003 plans. Team Mini Me was, as always, being secretive. We also talked about the One Lap and the Magazine editor that is entering his Valiant again to hopefully better his 3rd place-overall finish. Jason is proud to have worked on that car too, but that is another story for another day. With full bellies we went back to the hotel to rest for the rescheduled drags and the trip home.
Day 4 Sunday/Sun/Orlando Speed World-again
We unhitched the car and got it ready for more pictures. Jason’s 3rd -ever time on a drag strip. Once the car was off the line it had traction on the strip but was still able to chirp the tires shifting to second and third. The first run was a 16.7 @ 81 mph. Jason, driving again, held off on the shifts probably a bit too long, so for the second run he vowed to shift earlier. After an intermission of failed drag bike attempts, he was at the line again. This time he shifted a little earlier and picked up a few mph with a 16.33 @ 87. This was just a tick behind the Stan the Saab Guy’s Turbo Saab running nitrous. Jason remembered to get the timeslips this time and was headed to get in line for a third run when I flagged him down. He stopped and I hurriedly motioned for him to shut the car off. With the solitude of his helmet, with the electric fan going and the exhaust coming out just behind the drivers door he couldn’t hear the knocking. We pushed the car over to the truck and started it for just a few seconds to see where it was coming from. A rod is definitely loose somewhere at the back of the engine, probably Number Six. Oh well, at least it didn’t come apart. I took this better than one would ever have expected given Jason’s demolition history with cars. Time to go. We hitched up and hauled tail back to Georgia. The whole way back we spoke of next years Challenge We plan to have two Valiants there and maybe entering a tow vehicle too. Thoughts went to the sale of the many parts removed from the Valiant to return some budget money to the car….. See you guys next year….
We had a great time and wish to thank everyone at the GRM and these helpers. (Most are members of the North Ga. Mopar Club) Bill Elder: My dad who started us on Mopars at an early age Bruce Guzik: Even though he sold us a bad wheel cylinder Rueben Williams: For letting the car live in his garage for a while and having a sweet welder Scott Emard: For welding on the driver’s side Lawrence Roundtree: The Moparts Connection, for affordable parts and tuning advice. Gran Turismo East, Inc.: For the seat, alignment skills and balance Alan DeLancey: For having a heated shop and letting us use his rack Jim Johnson: For helping swap the clutch Lisa Geidel Doug Ahern Magic Muffler: For starting over on the exhaust that wouldn’t clear the clutch linkage Mike Williams: For delivering the car at time of purchase Sam Walton: For opening 24hr.-almost-anything-you-could-want-stores Debbie Garbers: Jason’s loving sister for letting us borrow the Yukon And the Bogart, GA community, for putting up with the noise and test runs
Watch out 2003 challenge, we’ll be back
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