This was a sight that brought a big smile to my face: the ’63 Dart Six Pack is still on the road, driven by its owner Richard. And he’s gaining on the competition, which shouldn’t be hard, as this Dart packs a six pack, although one of a somewhat different nature than you might assume.
I wrote up this car back in 2013, along with its stablemate, the slant-six powered ’53 Ford, which I haven’t seen in some time. Back then, the Dart looked about…six years of regular driving younger. Ok, enough of the preliminaries: you want to know about that six pack.
Here they are: six Mikuni carbs in a row, on a homemade aluminum manifold. Isn’t that a delicious sight for you slant six lovers? A genuine leaning tower of power. This car has seen a bit of time at the drag strips in the Northwest, but unfortunately I’ve long forgotten what it was capable of. Surprising a few V8s, in any case.
Like all good Mopars, it’s backed by a Torqueflite, but with an aftermarket shifter. And some genuine bucket seats. For those that don’t know where the term originates, look no further.
And here’s evidence: I shot twice quickly, and in this second shot Robert is clearly gaining on the black Kia and will undoubtedly shut him down. Or something like that. Makes for a study in contrasts, anyway.
Those carbs look like Mikuni BST constant velocity, or constant vacuum carbs. A more modern version of the SU, if you will. On some motorcycles, it’s quite common to replace them with flat slide and/or pumper carbs, with throttle rather than vacuum actuated slides. Nevertheless, so many bikes used them (and some still do, even in this fuel injection era, that parts are very available.
Amongst my favourite appearances on CC. Every car has a story – this one is eccentric, somehow humorous, unlikely, and unexpectedly clever. And, like its creator, long lived, it would seem. Many more miles to him.
I had forgotten about this one, but I love it all over again. A setup like this would have been fun in the high-revving 170. I would love to see what this does with the power and torque curves from the much longer stroke 225. I’ll bet Daniel Stern would have a good idea.
High performance 225s undoubtedly outnumber 170s by a large margin. The 170 will rev higher, but “there’s no replacement for displacement”. But that’s not to suggest that the power increase will be the same % amount for both; undoubtedly the 170 will make more per cubic inch by revving higher. The greater torque of the 225 makes it a great street engine, especially with the TF behind it. I think a hot 170 would really scream for a 4 speed manual, at the minimum.
Doug Dutra, the king of slant sixes, has even built himself a 270 inch stroker 225, with a 4.5″ stroke and overbore. And others have stroked 225s too.
There’s lots of ways to play with the /6 that way. One of Dutra’s favorite racing /6 engines was a 210 incher built by using the 170 low deck block, which is 35lbs lighter, and using the 198 crank and Vega pistons. He shifts it at 7,000 rpm. Sort of the best of both worlds.
There’s also the trick of using the longer 198 connecting rods in a 225 with some Mopar 2.2 turbo pistons, which improves the rod angle considerable.
Lots more here:https://www.slantsix.org/articles/articles.htm
Paul’s answered you well; I’ll just make a note that Doug Dutra’s bored-and-stroked-to-the-max motor is a 260-cube item as described here.
The Hyper Pak Valiants that shut out all competitors in the ’60-’61 NASCAR compact car races (the only two years those races ran, for some strange reason…hmmmm…) all had 170s which, yes, were screamin’ along at high revs that wouldn’t be attainable or sustainable with the 225.
The official ratings of the Hyper Pak-equipped engines were 148 horsepower for the 170 and 196 horsepower for the 225 (vs. 101 and 145 stock, respectively), but these numbers really aren’t a reliable basis for any conclusions for reasons including the bogus/fudged stock horsepower numbers, the likelihood of the Hyper Pak horsepower figures being at least as fanciful as the stock figures, the question of just what any given Hyper Pak install comprised (mainly: high-compression pistons, yes or no?), and otherwise like that.
Reminds me of this…
Correct shot..This is the Dart driven by Ron Root for a win at the Winternationals in the C/FX class. Among it’s modifications was an Offenhauser intake and a four barrel carb, backed by a four speed. The door reads “Dodge Towne Pamona”, and on the front fender, “Pamona Valley Timing Association”. Is Ron still around ? Does the car survive ? I think the photo was taken in ’63.
Not quite Jonathon. Runner up to Joe Ritters fuelie Impala in C/FX – but Ron won Little Eliminator.
https://skunkwerkssuperstock.wordpress.com/1963-cubic-inches-rule-ok/
Wow, just based on that car’s outward appearance I never would have expected anything interesting under the hood. If I saw it on the street I’d just think it was a worn out old beater still plugging away, providing basic transportation to someone willing to keep it on the road. In actuality, this is the very definition of a sleeper car.
It’s the automotive version of the Q-ship. More power to Robert!
While my preference would be for a ’64 Valiant hardtop (don’t much like the frog-eye Dart), this is still a very cool ride. Particularly noteworthy is how there’s no lame hood scoop, which is a testament to the rationale of the slant-six’s angle to one side.
And then there’s the original steering wheel and those bare steelies without so much as a single chrome lug nut.
That must be fun to drive, but I’ll let somebody else tune those carbs.
Going back to Vince’s earlier article, it looks like this is running some sort of aftermarket electronic ignition.
About a month shy of a decade ago, I got to hang with Robert and fellow Slant-6 fiend CJ at CJ’s place in Oregon. We were working on my ’64 Dart (couldn’t fix it; half the cylinders were on the wrong side of the engine bay, and there were two too many of ’em), and that sextuple-Mikuni-carbureted ’63 made for real quick runs to and from the parts store!
Robert let me stand on the driver’s side for this pic:
The shifter in the Dart is actually a factory piece from a ’66 Dart which was the first rod-and-lever shifted Torqueflite. If you look closely the shifter lacks the cable of almost all aftermarket units. I know because it used to be my shifter.
And his name is Richard.
Derp. Richard. Yeah.