My electrician was helping me add a couple breakers in the garage today for the air compressor and welder...

He mentioned having an '86(?) cargo van with a Slant 6 and either a 3 or 4 speed in it... "It's just sitting there storing conduit..." It ran when he parked it...

Is that an unusual combo,... Or fairly typical,... Or likely someone swapped it in,...?

I told him I wanted to take a look just out of curiosity...

Hmmm,... Slant 6 tow van... Hmmm...

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Rob

I’m Mater
The Kentucky Poser

Not common, but not really rare. Get it!

Every so often the nearby junkyard hauls in a 1981-1986 Van with a 225 juice motor coupled to a long tailshaft A-833OD (shift handle is 'interesting').

Put a 4.11 in the rear, refresh the manual tranny, and put a decent torgue cam and 9:1 compression and you might be able to get to the drag strip towing the car.

-D.Idiot

Don't forget the HEI swap to ditch the lean burn.

Now that there is a HOOT!

You seem to forget your efforts to try and help me through this swap on my 83 Ram...

Yeah,... The one I never got running again that Dennis came and hauled off a couple weeks ago...

I'll go take a look at the van... He says his wife "wants it gone..."

If nothing else, I could use it for storage like he does...

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Rob

I’m Mater
The Kentucky Poser

well being 3.5+ hrs away isnt exactly close to just come help you with the HEI conversion. other wise I would. I think that when I get home and redo the passenger fender Ill redo all of my wires etc to relocate the coil and so on, Ill do a step by step write up (with pictures) and then we will be good to go. So if it doesnt swap right, Ill be home about july and will do the write up.

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225, Offenhauser, Holley 350, A833OD, 3:55, GM HEI,99 Durango starter
BOOSTED! WH1C, BIG FMIC, 10#
Operation Noble Eagle 03-05
Operation Iraqi Freedom 05-07
Operation Enduring Freedom 12- 13

I would be happy to walk you through it again. Really, swapping from lean burn to HEI is VERY simple. Use the (+) coil wire as the trigger to power the relay to feed the HEI unit. Then one wire goes to the coil (-) and the other two wires go to the distributor pickup. You don't even have to mess with a ballast resistor. This is how I did it on an 86 Dodge van I used to own and it worked great (I even skipped the relay).

It woulda, coulda, shoulda been a simple swap... Fer sumbuddy what ain't as stupid as me!

I probably gave up on it too easily. It started to snow and I lost interest... 2 years later and I still couldn't muster the enthusiasm to figure it out.

It'll make a nice truck for Dennis once he gets it sorted out.

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Rob

I’m Mater
The Kentucky Poser

Rob, could you punch out the sides of the van so WV's Piggy Valiant would fit inside,,
so then it would be perfect,,
imagine,,, RS storing a WV vehicle inside a non running slant vehicle,,,kind of like an oxymoron inside a pretzel,, or something like that

sorry could not resist

John that was close but not quite right. That would be Rob storing a non running Piggie inside a non running van! Now you talking!

Rick

Rob, The HEI only has 4 wires. I feel pretty certain you got them hooked up correctly. My guess is you had some other issue? Distributor maybe?

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2 Mopars come with Spark plug tubes. One is a world class, racing machine. The other is a 426 CI. boat anchor!

12.70 @ 104.6

Sounds like a cool van. If nothing else, save the 1986 motor and OD trans setup for someone. I am about to start hard performance testing of the 1985 Slant in the 64 Dart...

I have been extolling the virtues (name that 80s quote) of my "new" 1989 B350 extended passenger van (360/727/9.25", 1 ton). I have toyed with the idea of a 6psi turbo/EFI slant in this beast at some point. The 360 runs great, but I could really use more power and a tow vehicle I can race as well.... Can't imagine doing this swap/fab soon, since it just kicked over 80k miles and runs like a TOP.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2FmDysvDr8

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66 Lil' Red Piggie Valiant (Mater Crusher) - Thanks Zilla!!!!! 72 Demon (Number 1 Son's)

I thought it might be the same issue with the reman distributor as we had with the one in the new engine at Clay City in 2011, but never did get around to confirming that.

I'll post back if/when I ever get around to looking at the thing.

Some friends in MO have a 2001 Dodge 15 passenger van they never use anymore... We've chit chattin' about it moving a little further East...

It had/has(?) some sort of ECU issue that is apparently common. It seems to go into limp home mode randomly for no reason and limits the RPMs to 2500 or something like that... They had the ECU replaced, but once it started doing it again they just parked it. I drove it the last time we were there. Started and ran fine for me...

More to follow (on both vans... )

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Rob

I’m Mater
The Kentucky Poser

Two vans? Mebe I could talk ya outa one! I will need a tow vehicle someday, even if REDLIGHT RICK doesn't think so!

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66 Lil' Red Piggie Valiant (Mater Crusher) - Thanks Zilla!!!!! 72 Demon (Number 1 Son's)

RS and WV have so many non running slant vehicles it is difficult to keep em straight,,,
I know every dog has its day,,
hence if you have several dogs you will have several days ,, so WV seems to be OK with respect to that, as he has many dogs, some friendly some not,, not sure what that means or how it relates to the subject...but WV does have several dogs and that cannot be disputed,,, so everything stated must be fact