There's a well-known affliction that all gearheads suffer from, and scientists have finally started to study. it's called monofoottofloorpressuruos (Mono-foot-to-floor-pressurous). It's an ailment that affects the mind, forcing the afflicted to push their foot against the throttle pedal and into the carpeting of any vehicle they are driving in hopes of gaining more speed. It's a contagious ailment, especially when two or more people are involved while driving their cars on the same stretch of pavement at the same time.
Sometimes, however, the ailment is met with disappointment when there is no response from mashing said pedal to the floor. Such was the case with our Dart Sport we introduced in a previous issue. The woefully underpowered Slant Six was able to move the car, which made it a driver, but if you planned on any spirited driving, that thought was quickly erased from your mind when the light turned green, and you had to slowly ease the clutch out to get moving-a sad state of affairs for the Dart.
But fear not, this problem can be remedied with some elbow grease, and a shopping list of parts that can be had with simple phone calls. There's no big secret about what it takes to swap a V-8 in place where a six-cylinder used to reside. You can either shop the swap meets, find the required parts in your buddy's shed, or you can make a few phone calls to the manufacturer that have the parts you need.
But how hard is the swap? Well, it depends on how nice you want the finished job to look. If you never plan to open the hood at a cruise night, you won't clean or paint anything, then work-time will be short. But who doesn't want to show off their engine at a race or cruise night? So we decided to take the plunge and make the underhood of the Sport look better than the outside of the car-for now.
Follow along, and we'll show you what it took to make a terribly underpowered car finally get out of its own way.
Rock the cradle
You're probably wondering about that cool engine cradle for removing and installing the engine we used. You can get one from US Car Tool for $399. The K-frame stand comes with casters and is fully powdercoated in a wrinkle black finish. All K-frames have jig position holes in the bottom that were used by the factory jigs when the cars were assembled. The K-frame jig is designed to use those same holes.
The two uprights with 4-inch-long threaded studs are designed to move side-to-side to accommodate the various K-frame widths. Some K-frames have holes in the top and bottom plates; some only have holes in the bottom plates. If your K-frame does not have holes that pass through both top and bottom plates, use nuts threaded approximately 1 1/2-inch down the studs to hold washers. The washers will be the resting mounts for the K-frame.
Each K-frame stand is supplied with a pair of "L" brackets and 90-degree brackets. These brackets are adjustable. The rearmost L bracket is designed to hold up the transmission. The frontmost L bracket is designed as a third mount for the K-frame to steady it when the motor/transmission is not in place.
US Car Tool
2013-H New Hope Church Rd.
Raleigh, NC 27604
919/855-8200
uscartool.com
CostEngine (used):$250Headers (new):$260Exhaust (new):$183Holley 650 carb (used):with engineOD transmission (used):FreebiePaint supplies:$75Engine mounts (new):$162Distributor (new):$250Steering box (new):$400Spec clutch (new):$286Shifter rebuilding:$95Aluminum radiator (new):$545Throttle cable (new):$50Brackets:$53 $2,609Selling engine and transmission:+$460 $2,149
