Project Demon Spawn: the rebirth of my 70' Duster-efi, 408ci, t56, dana 60

[ALLstrokedOUT]

I told myself I wasn't going to post anything else on the Hotchkis springs, but when I saw this I couldn't stop myself. after 6000 miles, maybe a year old and the bolt that holds the spring pack together is sheared off! I'm sure this was my fault too somehow, I'm just glad to get these things far, far away from my car.

Old and busted:



New hotness:

[ALLstrokedOUT]

I got everything mocked up finally, my only concern is how low the coilovers hang, and how little compression I have left at this position; the bracket hangs 8" from the centerline of the axle at ride height (if this is where they'll rest with springs)-what do you guys think about this? I'm half considering relocating the springs to behind the axle because of this...The tubes for the links are cut and are within 1/8"-1/16" of their partner-I'm very happy that things ended up this symmetrical with my relatively crude measurement/locating techniques for the brackets.

I pulled the axle out to finish welding everything. I'm going to cut the old pinion snubber out and a few other things before welding the crossmember in for good...I had a few 'casualties' as in pulled the axle since I just tacked the brackets on, but i can easily relocate what got knocked around.

[72BBSwinger]

Yeah that is TOO low. Roll your upper tabs higher up and/or move the lower mounts outward a couple inches.

[ALLstrokedOUT]

Yea, for some reason I think my upper link crossmember is lower down than most others I've seen on a bodies. I can gain 2-3" by moving the springs to the back of the diff where the stock shocks were.

It may me a mistake but tonight I'm going to weld a crossmember back behind the diff and weld the coilovers mounts to it.I don't want to put the diff back under the car, so I'm going to try my best to position re brackets by measuring, no mocking up. My dad will be up at my house this weekend, I'm trying to finish weld everything that's going to be gray so he can paint it saturday. Even with this setback I should be ok on time.

[ALLstrokedOUT]

We'll take two: tonight I got the new coulover crossmember welded in for good and the coilovers located (at least according to my measurements). Tomorrows goals are to gusset and finish weld everything and clean the underbody of any unnecessary tabs.

[Justin@EntropyRad]

Cant wait to see it re-born

[ALLstrokedOUT]

Thanks Justin! Im lookin forward to it too, unfortunately after the suspension I still have a bad 2nd gear synchro I need to fix...

I Got everything welded in and my dad helped me paint the underbody. I'm hoping that I can get the differential mounts gusseted and the links welded together this week, maybe get it on the ground in a week or so if there are no hang ups (still need to press in/out new axle bearings and seals too)

[ALLstrokedOUT]

Well I made good progress this week, it's almost all bolted up, I just need to set the pinion angle and center the axle under the car. I also need to run a couple new brake lines and put in new bearing and seals on the axle.

[RMonte]

Looks good. Clean install!

[ALLstrokedOUT]

Thanks RMonte!

I finally got it back on the ground this weekend! I drove it a couple miles and everything went great. I took some video of the suspension too, I'll be uploading it later.

The next step is to find a good tuner to get my efi where it needs to be, and before or after that I need to rebuild my transmission.

[ALLstrokedOUT]

Just a quick cruise and easy 2nd-5th acceleration, much more than this and it starts popping (efi needs a lot more medium/heavy throttle tuning).

[ALLstrokedOUT]

Well, it's been a couple months, but I finally found time to rebuild the transmission, so now it's a true Frankenstein of parts...it's a viper input and mainshaft with a viper midplate and camaro housing. I replaced all the synchros so no more grinding into gears. Luckily I kept the yoke from the a-833 4spd that used to be in here, because the viper is the same 30 spline!

I drove it 2 miles to test the trans and it worked flawlessly, but I stalled twice idling in neutral. So today I'm going to start chasing that electrical issue that caused me to park it the other month. I think it's the 12v going to the ignition, a bad solder joint or connector, that's where I'm going to start anyways...

[ALLstrokedOUT]

Well, I changed a couple connections and tested the car three times today, but the third time it wouldn't start! It looks like my switched 12v is going to 0 only when cranking, in the start position it reads 12v though. The other weird thing is that I pulled a spark plug for fun and I'm still getting spark when cranking, just no power to switched 12v and therefore my fuel injection. I don't know what changed from my first two successful tests, Any suggestions are welcomed at this point because i'm at a loss.

[dusterbd13]

Switch failed? Check at harness connection from column to dash harness.

[ALLstrokedOUT]

I figured it out, I'm still running a ballast resister in my harness and it failed. I bypassed it and I got voltage to the circuit while cranking and it started right up. If it runs good after work tomorrow I'm goi to start driving it to work more often.

Cleaning up from the project, here's a pic of the old vs new 5/6 gear to show how much the splines have sheared.

[Asphaltanarchy]

Man, For some reason I cant see any of the pictures on these threads, but your duster is the car that got me committed to the idea of getting one. I'm going to get started on mine and begin a thread shortly. I just bought a 75' but I'm getting a 70' front clip with it. LOVE the cars man...glad to see the crash didn't get you down too far.

[ALLstrokedOUT]

Man, For some reason I cant see any of the pictures on these threads, but your duster is the car that got me committed to the idea of getting one. I'm going to get started on mine and begin a thread shortly. I just bought a 75' but I'm getting a 70' front clip with it. LOVE the cars man...glad to see the crash didn't get you down too far.

Thanks for the compliments! Looking forward to seeing your progress on the '75.

I'm putting as much time as I can into my tbird project at the moment, but I'm getting really depressed on the Demon. I thought I fixed the clutch pedal issue (would lose pedal as things got hot like there was air in the line) but didn't. I reshimmed the pedal for more travel, but during the test drive for it th car stalled on me again...I thought I resolved this issue by replacing a bad distributor sensor, but the new module is shorting too.

So now I have two non working vehicles in my driveway, not sure when I'll get around to fixing the demon, I don't want to throw away another $130 on a dist module BUT I'm now thinking of an even stupider idea that I'm going to do a hemi swap after the tbird (getting rid of the distributor is really the main reason I can think of at the moment, but I still like the idea), thoughts?

[ryeguy2006a]

Nice work on the 4 link! I have been thinking about doing something like this with my Camaro down the road, but instead using a torque arm setup. Can you comment on your current setup for the street? Anything that you may have done differently looking back? Possibly your total parts cost for the project?

[limegreen70]

Love your car. Its all attiude. And no fluff. I have been thinking on Doing my Duster in a Flat or satin color. Wanted to ask what size wheels and tires are you Using? And what do you have for front door panels? Looks great

[ALLstrokedOUT]

Hey guys, sorry for the delayed response, I think I only have ~$800 in the 4 link work, I can provide a list, but it was basically a bunch of Johnny joints, and qa1 shocks (metal I got a good deal for locally).

I'm running a 225/45/17's up front and 275/35/17's in the rear. Wheels are just a stock cheap set of cragar steel wheels.

The next big purchase for this car is a set of badass wheels and tires...I've read that these cars can run 275's up front with the right offset, and I've minitubbed the rear, so I'm looking to run 275's front and 315-335's in the rear. But before I do that I need to replace some ball joints and might adapt some bigger brakes in the front.

Been driving the demon a bit more to get it tuned in, it's running way better than it had been, but I'm still running out of fuel at the top end, which on paper I should only be using 60-70% of the injectors capacity as is.