This ’63 Dart GT packs a surprise under its hood. Of course, that shouldn’t be unexpected, given that its owner also owns a ’53 Ford with the slant six under its hood. No, it wasn’t an engine swap between the two, although a Ford flathead V8 in the Dart would be something truly different. This man is a slant six aficionado, obviously. But it’s what he did to his that makes it extra compelling.
Patience; we need to savor the ’63 Dart’s front end first, eh? Love those big Turbine-car-esque headlights.
Now that’s a sight to bring tears to a lover of in-line sixes, especially if they’re leaning over a bit. Six carbs in a row; Mikunis, in this case. I shot this some two years ago, but never used it, so I’ve forgotten the source of these carbs. Robert, the owner told me, but you know how it is with the aging memory banks. Maybe someone will recognize them.
Robert fabricated the intake manifold himself, and possibly the exhaust too, but as I said, it’s been a while. It also sports a hotter cam. Robert pulled it out of the backyard garage for me, and it made very lovely sounds indeed. Hard to beat a warmed-over six for making ear music.
As well as the TorqueFlite automatic, which makes for an excellent companion on the strip. I’ve also forgotten what this thing will do in the quarter mile, so I’m really blowing it. But at least the pictures tell a good story.
Slant sixes can be right quick in the quarter mile. Naturally aspirated cars run from the low 11 to mid 11s range. On nitrous, knock that down to 10.5 sec. A drag strip in Woodburn, OR is a gathering place for fast slant sixes.
Im going to guess those are motorcycle carbs. Not sure, but willing to bet on it.
The final shot shows how good these cars looked from a rear, 3/4 view. These were handsome cars.
Contrary to popular belief, Exner was responsible for the styling of the entire 1963 Chrysler line-up, and the results on this car, the Valiant and full-size Plymouth were quite good. One wonders why Chrysler management wasn’t demanding designs like this for 1960-62, instead of approving the strange vehicles it did produce. Once Exner got the directive to clean everything up and make it more “mainstream,” he did a nice job of it. Which suggests that the problem was with management as much as with him.
Cool car and not a body style we got dammit the exhaust is kind of hampered in a LHD bodyshell we can run sweeping headers but I like it, A toploader 4speed will fit this should you want manual, Valiant adopted the V8 spec Ford gearbox for the hemi but it retrofits into the slant 6 cars easily enough. Very cool companion to his Ford.
I saw many a 4 speed MOPAR and own a few never saw a 4 spd Ford box factory even in the hemi.
Chrysler Australia used the Borg-Warner “single-rail” 4-speed box behind “Hemi” 6s, and some 318s. This was the same box used by Ford Australia behind 6s and 302 Clevelands and some 351s (XB onwards). This gearbox was a “top loader” in design but not the familiar Ford box.
Nice looker no wonder they were so popular.I see lots of 67 and later Darts at UK shows and drag strips but I never saw one of these in the metal.My brother had a picture of one in a classic saloon car race at Goodwood(I think) a few years ago.
I also see a split system master cylinder Robert does things properly he upgraded the brakes to suit the extra ponies
I worked a summer at the car shows in Carlisle, PA. At the Mopar show, I recall a blue Mopar (could have been a Dart or Valiant) with a slant-6 with a turbo about the size of my head hanging off the side. I recall it was fuel injected as well. This was back in 2002 before engines like the slant-6 and Ford big six were getting mainstream respect in the classic car community. I think that particular vehicle, which I believe won the burnout competition, probably changed a few minds that day.
I worked every show that year, but the Mopar show was definitely the most memorable. There was a sense of oddball fun the other shows couldn’t match. As I recall, the twenty-something daughter of the owner of some megabuck Hemi won the bikini contest; partly because she was a stone cold fox, but mostly because her bikini bottom had a Chrysler Pentastar logo positioned on her right butt cheek. 😀
Now, I’m a little confused here. I’m no hot-rod mechanic or engineer; but I read things – and what I read was, the long runners on the Slant Six were part of what gave it such great potential.
Oh…kaaay…here we have six, count ’em, SIX carbs. With tomato-can intake plenums. Well and good…nothing here to discount what he’s done; but he’s just taken the most advantageous of the engine’s stock design and tossed it into the bin.
Instead, he now has six, count ’em, SIX, carbs…to sync and tune. Gawd help him…I get bilious just thinking about it. Today, at least, there might be some electronic engine monitors to help. To do this on a Saturday with a screwdriver and a case of beer….yuck.
Adjusting the runner length moves your power band up or down. Long runners are good for low end torque while shorter ones are better for high rpm HP. Of course the cross section of the runner is also a factor.
You have to keep in mind that on the stock manifold there a big difference in runner length between the center and end runners. So yeah they are certainly shorter than the stock end ones but I bet they are the same length or longer than the factory center runners. The other thing to keep in mind is that huge difference in runner length means a pretty significant difference in A/F ratio between cylinders which does hurt performance. Do you want the center cyls to run rich or the end cylinders to run lean. Neither choice is optimal.
I do agree that I wouldn’t want to try and synch 6 carbs, but there I can think of that sound even less tempting.
But at least now the runners are equal length – the lack of same on the stock manifold was an issue for performance applications, IIRC.
The different length runners make for different power range for different cylinders. This was also done on “The High And The Mighty”
Love it. Even KiwiBryce likes it. A definite win.
Bryce is a gentleman who has taste when it comes to cars,I agree with much of what he says(apart from his dislike of Falcons and the Mk4 Zephyr 6)
I like how he solved the problem of the long intake runners on a /6 but I would have picked a different bodystyle to showcase it in. Imagine a turbo on that little monster….
Proving once again that if more is better, too much is just right.
Oh that’s just too ridiculously fucking cool. My jaw just fell out of my skull and shattered on the floor like in a Bugs Bunny cartoon… please excuse me while I go clean up.
Whoa, is that a real Cutlass Calais in the background?
My thought also–“check out the classics in the background!”. Leave it to Carmine to be the only other one to bring it up 😉
Fascinating. That would have been fun to listen to.
I was always intrigued by Dodge’s thing for really, really big headlights in the early 60s. They were styled for maximum size and impact, making for an almost cartoon-like stare.
Agreed that these hardtops were attractive cars. Shame, though, that this guy chose to ditch the pushbuttons. 🙁
I agree – here’s the most extreme example of this, the 1965 Dodge truck.
Weren’t Mikuni carburetors of the ’60s a licensed Solex design? Or am I thinking of something else?
They don’t look like Solexes – the round plastic top looks much more recent.
“This ’63 Dart GT …its owner also owns [a] ’53 Ford….”
Does he by any chance have a twin who lives in the Worcester, MA area?
Over the past several months, on my morning commute, I often see a Dart of similar vintage. Sometimes it is parked on one side of a city street; sometimes it is in a small parking lot on the other side of the street. It’s a 4-door sedan in nice shape, a dark bluish-green color, wearing dog dish hubcaps, the kind of “typical for when these cars were new, rarely seen today” vehicles that the regulars on this site celebrate. How this car got here, I have no idea. Cars of that vintage have been virtually extinct as daily drivers in these parts for at least 20 years, so I’m guessing that it came here from someplace with a climate more conducive to its preservation. Even at that, this doesn’t seem to be the type of car that someone would hang onto and keep so well maintained. Maybe it was the stereotypical old lady car that ended up in the hands of someone determined to preserve it.
Sometimes, the Dart won’t be there. On those days, there is usually a circa 1952-54 Ford present. It’s a red two-door post coupe, and looks like a lower-line model. A lot of the trim is missing, leaving visible the holes for the mounting brackets, but it is otherwise in pretty nice shape. Again, you just don’t see cars of this vintage randomly parked on the side of the street that often around here. I have to think that these cars belong to the same person. He or she must sometimes drive the Dart, sometimes the Ford.
The neighborhood where I see these cars has a couple of colleges nearby. There are a lot of shops and eateries that cater to the college crowd, as well as a couple of nicer restaurants with a more general clientele. The owner of the cars may own or work in one of these establishments; there is a tatoo parlor right by the place where they are usually parked.
The owner, Richard (not Robert), lives in Eugene, Oregon. The carbs stay in tune quite well and the fuel economy is better than most stock cars manage. The A904 automatic is in the car for bracket racing consistency. The pushbutton transmissions are not as strong and are more complex. Richard writes: “That is my “Six pac to go”, those are Mikuni carbs from a Suzuki bike (2 sets with one carb removed from each set).”
Do you have by a chance a video on how that engine sounds?
Nice. Always interesting to see peoples’ “shadetree engineering”.
A tuning nightmare, but those engines will really run! I’d love to hear it – nothing sounds like an inline 6 with dual exhausts.
Chrysler’s approach to the Canadian market may have been the most chaotic of all the Big Three. The car pictured is a ‘Canadian Valiant’ from the rear, with a ‘what planet are YOU from?’ front end (thanks to Laurence Jones for one of my favourite CC posts ever).
This web site captures the chaos quite nicely (recommended only for true geeks with superior attention spans).
http://www.valiant.org/canada.html
Slick setup.
I always wonder how one of those would look with a JDM-style turbo setup. Polished aluminium intake and all.
My uncle used to drag race a 4dr Dart with a slant six when he was young. Then he swapped a 340 in. I sat in the car with the V8 when I was about 5.
That’s my dad’s car (well, one of). The first car I drove was the ’53 Ford. He now has a new project, I have pictured it. He has called it “Retirement Toy” and it also has a similar setup to the ’63 Dart. Runs 114MPH in 11.4 sec. Not too bad for a man who’ll be 78 this year, eh? 🙂 Built from the ground up, including the trailer he hauls it on…