AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
1972 dodge dart drop center link4/29/2024 ![]() Advancing 10 degrees or so would take you from the retarded smog setting to the pre-smog setting, and yeah, you betchya, the engine would run a lot better and more efficiently. Compare that to the pre-smog settings on the same 225 engine: between 2.5° BTDC and 7.5° BTDC. Depending on the engine configuration and emissions package, timing settings were from 0° (TDC) to 5° ATDC, that is after TDC. The stock timing settings were very late in that year range, a cheap and nasty way of detuning the engine to squeak the cars past their new-vehicle emissions type-approval tests so they could be legally put on the market. ![]() It wasn’t the double-stacked carb gasket that worked any magic for you, it was that timing adjustment. There’s usually enough adjustment range in the kickdown linkage to compensate.Ī longer choke pushrod can be made from brass rod stock, too, but there’s little point to the extra work. I hesitate a little (see what I did there?) to rain on your recall parade, but double-stacking them doesn’t change the flow dynamics measurably or work any other magic, and it makes problems: the choke no longer closes completely because the choke pushrod is too short, and on a car with automatic transmission the throttle pressure (“kickdown”) linkage is also inadvertently adjusted way too short, causing early/soft shifts, lack of kickdown, and rapid transmission wear. The correct carb gasket was about 11/32″ (9 mm) thick. That still doesn’t stop me from really wanting a 1968 GTO 400/4-speed though! And every time I get into a new car, even the cheapest, basic econobox rentals, I marvel at how good today’s cars (even the really bad ones, by today’s standards) really are in comparison. As much as I love old cars, I find it hard to get too nostalgic about most of them because I am old enough to have driven and worked on them quite a bit. It was also harder to work on the points in the distributor with the engine leaned over the right side, as opposed to a straight six like GM and Ford used.įor all I know, it’s a survivor car out there somewhere even now. My favorite part was the italian tuneup on the bypass highway around town, kicking it down into second gear at about 50mph to blow all of the carbon out of it (it never got driven on the highway). When I was old enough, I did all of the maintenance on it for her since she was in our church (and we were allowed to cut through her back yard if we were late for school). While growing up, our elderly widow neighbor had one of these for the last 25 years of her life. There were no other structural safety standard changes clear on up through the end of the A-body in ’76, so there weren’t any safety standards written on the wall to drive Chrysler to discontinue the 108″ wheelbase sedan, either. The other major structural change (requirement for side impact guard beams in the doors) took effect in ’73, and besides, the 108″ and 111″ wheelbase 4-door cars used the same doors. ![]() Pretty good coverage of this (with an apposite photo I provided years ago when I used to edit Wikipedia) in their bumper article.Īll the other changes for ’74 - the unitised front lap/shoulder belts, the ignition/starter interlock, etc - didn’t cost any differently to install in a Valiant-shaped Valiant than in a Dart-shaped Valiant. The only difference in safety standards between ’73 and ’74 that would’ve affected the body/structure was that the bumper performance standard now applied to the rear bumper, too, not just the front. Rebadging the Dart as a Valiant was a cost-saving move, for sure, but safety standards really didn’t present some kind of cost wall. Remember, we don’t have a type-approval system here. Not nearly so much as you might have in mind. ![]()
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |