This is my first visit to this site and I'll need a lot of help. I have a 63 Dart GT (225 motor) that my father gave to my son before he passed away. Now my son is driving age (16) and uses it as a daily driver for school. As any high schooler he want to turn this into hot rod but I don't know the first place to start. Car is all original (89k original) interior/exterior in excellent condition shape. He wants to keep it as original as possible but tweek the motor and suspension/brakes etc.
PLS HELP!!!

Probably most people on this site will tell you we need a little more information before we can help you. What is your budget? What does he want out of the car?
Some good places to start are in the articles section of this site, specifically the super six conversion, which can had completely from a local junkyard for under $200. A Dutra dual exhaust conversion and the HEI conversion is another good place to start (use the site's search feature to find these, i don't have the links off-hand, sorry). If you wanted to spend a little more money, there is the Erson cam group buy (search it up), as well as getting your head rebuilt with some rather reasonably priced Engnbldr valves off ebay.
As for the suspension and brakes, a shock upgrade is a good place to start (KYB's are good, about 35 bucks apiece at summit), and sway bars are nice (search for addco).
As for brakes, there's the Kelsey-Hayes discs, but i hear these are getting harder to find. SlantSixDan recommended some parts to upgrade your drums to self-adjusting a while back, search for that. You could also get some discs off a 70's a-body, but you'll have to change bolt patterns. Master Power brakes and Stainless Steel Brake Co. also make conversion kits (SSBC will let you keep your old bolt pattern), but these are fairly pricey.
You could change the rear end to a higher ratio, that'll give it a little more pick-up, but i would think that if you're gonna do that you might as well change to 4.5" bolt pattern all around, i bet 4" rear ends are a little tough to come by.
If you do all of that you'll have one nice Dart, good to see more high-school age kids like me reppin' the old school and not wanting to put lambo doors on their ricers.

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1962 Valiant V-200
170 C.I. Super Six, HEI, Dutra Duals

Welcome on the board. There are lots of ways to upgrade just about every aspect of that car's performance — better going, better stopping, better steering, better seeing (lights), better staying put (seat belts), better tunes (radio)...the problem is there are a lot of ways to approach any upgrade that'll degrade the originality and "niceness" of the car, but it takes thoughtful effort to upgrade a car like that without spoiling it. The first thing to do would be to buy the three books described in this thread. Then draw up a list of upgrades (at the conceptual level, not specific yet) and prioritise it. It's fun to go faster, but it's best to be able to stop faster first! It's also very easy to fall into the trap of "feature creep", wherein an upgrade to one system requires an upgrade to a related system, which requires a modification to a certain component, which can't be removed without disassembling some other system, at which point why put it together without upgrading the rest of that system, etc. etc...until the car's in pieces all over the yard and garage, a great deal of money's been spent, and there's no realistic hope of ever putting it back together again.

See here, and here, and here. Then come back with more questions!

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Oh yeah, i should've mentioned that a tune-up with quality parts should be your #1 priority.

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1962 Valiant V-200
170 C.I. Super Six, HEI, Dutra Duals

Anti sway bars, good shocks, wheels and tires... I like a car that handles, that keeps me out of trouble.
Next comes the brakes, you want the car to stop well.
Power up-grades are the last thing... especially for a younger driver.
DD

Why is it that the first thing a 16 year old kid wants to do with his first car is modify it for "increased performance"?
The first order of business is to make sure everything is working like it should. For a 44 year old car, and little or no experience, this should take up most people's time and budget for years and years. About this 66 Dart I just got... the reason I wound up with it is that the 16 year old kid whose first car this was couldn't in the year and a half he owned it be bothered to get the 273 engine running right because he "wanted to put in a 318", couldn't be bothered to have the stock wheels attached to the car with the 5 lugnuts each they were supposed to have because he "wanted to get custom rims", and in the final few months couldn't even see to it that the tires stayed inflated despite the fact that the police & city code enforcement officer were writing tickets for a derelict vehicle, because he "wanted to get new tires for the rims". And on and on. Just something to think about seriously.

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1964 Dart 225 1966 Valiant 225
1966 Dart 273 1966 Barracuda 273
1969 Dart 225
'64-170 engine '66-170 engine
(two) 198 crank/rod sets in custom-fitted wooden boxes

wooden motor scooter with hybrid-electric drive

So us young people are making you salty .....Troll.....

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Even in moderation i am excessive!

Well said Doc

This 68 Barracuda of mine - a nearly 40 year on the road survivour - was treated to a complete brake and suspension rebuild - even before I GOT THE ENGINE RUNNING...

So at this stage I goes like a scalded cat , handles corners and STOP

If you were used to more modern cars and start playing around with the old ones you are in for a rude shock the first time you pounce on your brakes and it sorts of lets you now like relax dude we wil stop............at some stage

#1 - The super six upgrade ( Two barrel carb & intake off newer slant six) is a real help for the amount of effort & money.

#2 - Then installing a 2 1/4 exhaust system with a high flow muffler kicks them in pretty good for very little money also.

#3 - Then recurving the distributor advance & setting the timing with extra base advance also is a big help for little money & effort.

#4 - Then removing the head and shaving it .100 thous and having a good multy angle valve job is a very good low cost power adder. Even though the engine may run good the new valve grind with the multy angles to help flow can make very nice addition to the power at both low & high rpm levels. The extra compression from shaving it will help gas milage plus the power.


These four things can really just totally change a slant six. It will not be no race car, but it will be much more enjoyable & get better fuel milage. As already meantioned and for good reason, once you get these cars running a little better the brake system becomes very important. The rubber hoses that go to each set of brakes you will find that they will break/rupture when the extra pressure is applied when trying to stop from the extra power. So even if no upgrade like disk brakes be sure & replace the three rubber hoses ( one at each front wheel and one going to the rear end) and go over all the metal lines & check for rust as well. A disk brake upgrade is really kinda needed, but if the old drum brakes are in good shape and speeds are keep below 80 mph, they can be livable, but will still leave you wishing you had better. A young driver that is not thinking ahead of what they are doing can get in trouble very quick.



Jess

Using a one barrel slant six never dissuaded me from drag racing on the street when it wasn't frowned upon, way back when... (of course knowing the limits of your car sure was a top priority too, and having cops that thought that old 'granny car' couldn't do those things helped too...)



-D.Idiot

It's not like I did not get "in trouble" as a young driver.... and I won't say that I was any different as a teenager, I wanted "more power"... the more the better.

Truth be told, as a young driver, I wreck the first 3 out of 4 cars I owned, and the 4th did not get smashed because I bought it to fix-up and sell, to earn mony for a "faster car". I only had that "flip" car for a month.

It was all a good learning experience and tought me the importance of a "well balanced" vehicle set-up. I feel lucky that I am here today to talk about!
DD

What a response... I love it!!! Thank guys for all the valuable information (and comments) Since we didn't know what is required for such mods so we really didn't have a budget. I'm not going to dump a ton of dough but within in reason to make it a much sweeter ride:D

It seems like a lot of kids have been wanting to hop up their slanters lately. I think I've said this once already, I built my enigine when I was 18 and just finished it with efi a little bit ago. First rebuild suspension / brakes. Next change out the rear end ratio by putting in a 8.25 if you plan on keeping the slant pretty mild. You can do the super six which I have a set up for cheap, however, I only ran it for 2 months and wanted more he probably will too. I completely went through the engine, however with better gears and intake / exhaust he should drive that for a while before pulling the engine, most kids would rather have a v8 instead of rebuilding a slant, which is fine, however, slant are cheap to learn on.