I have owned this car since Mother's Day of 1986 and actually drove it regularly until 1996 when I took the engine out and put it in my 1971 Demon. I pulled the engine out of the Demon in 2001 when I sold the car and just recently dropped it back in the old, rusty Road Runner. I will update as I take more pics, but yesterday, I dropped the radiator in the car. The radiator is out of a 1987 Nissan 300ZX Turbo and has two big ol' honkin' 12" fans on it. I am going to hook one up to a thermal switch and the other will be on a manual switch. Not too bad of a fit... Here's my Rust Runner...
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Ron's 1969 Road Runner
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I used to work at a local machine shop called "The Rod Shop." The proprieter, Rodney Meyer, was a dyed in the wool Mopar guy. When I went to work for him, I had a 1966 VW Beetle that had been slightly modded. On a trip to western Kansas, I beat the main bearings outta the Bug and limped it home. Rodney helped me get the thing back together on a budget, complete with some higher compression slugs & jugs, a VERY healthy TRW camshaft, a Holley Bug Spray manifold and a Carter BBD carb. After we got it all tuned up, we took it to the 1/8th mile dragstrip in Manhattan, KS and laid down some pretty good numbers. Hitler's Revenge pounded out consistent 8.40's @ 85 mph and sent many new Mustangs home on the trailer. Driving that VW whet my appetite for more power and I started looking for a B-body Mopar. I found this car in a barn, just outside of Wamego, KS. It had been there since 1976 and was retired after a life of traveling back country roads as the owner helped build the Jeffrey Energy Center power plant, just north of St. Marys, KS. When I bought the car, it was sans the hood, front bumper, grill, valance and carburetor. The original 383 had filled with water and was frozen solid. After a bit of searching, I scrounged a 400 block in decent shape, honed the cylinders, stuffed in the forged crank from the 383 (necessary with a 4-speed) and rebuilt the original 906 heads. Rodney talked me into slipping a Rhoades cam & lifter kit into the B-engine and I topped it off with the factory intake and a Carter AFB from a 1969 AMC SC/Rambler. That engine lasted 8 years and racked up TONS of miles driving all over Kansas and Missouri. It wasn't stupid slow, running low 14's at 98-99 mph with the 3.23 gears and P245/60R14 radials with me rowing the gears in the A-833. The best part about that engine was it knocked down an astonishing 18 mpg. The low deck bullet finally gave up the ghost during a very high RPM burnout on Christmas Eve, 1994. Ooops... The current engine is a 9.5:1 440 with some old school Silv-O-Lite pistons (circa 1978-81) Rodney had laying around in the shop. I ported the heads, added a forged crank, stuffed in a Mopar purple shaft with .484 lift and 284 duration, added a 780 Holley carb, a Mopar electronic ignition and a set of Hooker headers. With 3.55 gears and P295/50R15 BFG Radial TA's, it ran a best of 12.85 @ 105. Then I bought a 1971 Dodge Demon.... Out came the engine and into the Demon it went. After two years of playing with the A-body, I was able to coax a 11.33 @ 122 out of it with a NOS Power Shot helping to get things moving. That much torque finally shot out the cheap-ass Summit Racing converter I was using. Out came the engine and transmission and in went a bone stock 440 out of my 72 New Yorker. I sold the Demon shortly thereafter to fund a race engine for my then-wife's Valiant... Kids, divorce and buying a home made things difficult to get motivated to put the engine back in the Road Runner. I finally just decided I was going to take some "me" time and started working on it last fall. It's coming together, but it needs a shit-ton of metal replacement due to all the years it spent on gravel roads.Last edited by Ron Ward; October 24, 2014, 01:50 PM.It's really no different than trying to glue them back on after she has her way.
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Does that beer really need a coaster being on that car? LOL.Ron,Im glad you are working on it.Its good therapy.Hell you got the garage cleaned up of a Mustang. LOL.Be prepared for sticker shock.But you know enough Mopar people to get stuff.
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