Retrofitting a modern engine into a car whose overall design was more-or-less stuck in the 1950s is never going to be a cakewalk. Trying to get the work done in the snow and cold will leave even the most durable mechanic a bitter, short-tempered version of their normal self. Outside of immediate fixes that are required to have one functioning car that runs and drives, you won’t catch us dead working in the snow. Sorry, there’s a limit to what we will put ourselves through for this hobby, and that’s kind of where we draw the line. Even Lohnes, our Boston native, has his cold tolerance limits.
Fuel Injection Sucks has been busy preparing a 1967 Checker Marathon to accept a Vortec 4200 inline-six and automatic transmission. It’s an interesting option for a powerplant and the fact that they are turbocharging the 4.2L six is even better. But with snow everywhere, and apparently melting enough to be slushy, jamming the six into the engine bay just seems…well, what is that bit of insight about suffering for your art? Because we’d easily classify laying down in melty, snowy slush while bolting up the transmission crossmember as a form of self-torment.
LANGUAGE WARNING: You’d be swearing like a sailor too if you were laying on your back in the snow trying to put the good tugboat Checker together. Might want to find the headphones first.
I’v restored a bunch of these , Very cool swap .
I love the odd engine choice.
Biggest problem I see with unusual swaps though, is people not paying attention to drive line angles. Case and point, I rode in a ’67 GTO with an LS3. It had the nastiest vibration at 60, and the U joints were howling like a banshee!! I stacked about an inch of washers under the tranny mount before the noise and shake started to go away.