I'm thinking about changing out the stock 7 1/4 (2.76 gear) in my 73 dart. Does anyone have any experience and or recommendations about what rear end and gear ratio to change to?

It depends on what you want to do with the car. High mileage, trailer towing and hauling heavy loads or drag racing.

Let us know.....

I went from the stock 7 1/4, 2.76 to a 2.94 for a few years, then a 3.23 for a few more. Mileage goes down and performance goes up! I was driving a minimum of 120 miles a day and tracked mileage for each fill up.

I had a 8 3/4 Sure-Grip built for the car and went back to the 2.76 ratio. Make a few mods on the engine and you get plenty of punch to spin the tires and great mileage as well! My Dart is 3600 pounds with me and a full tank.

The Dart weighs 3380 lbs. with a full tank, 3600 lbs. with me in it. Book specs show up to 3180 lbs. for a 1974 Dodge Dart Swinger.

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Aggressive Ted

http://cid-32f1e50ddb40a03c.photos.live ... %20Swinger


74 Swinger, 9.5 comp 254/.435 lift cam, 904, ram air, electric fans, 2.5" HP2 & FM70 ex, 1920 Holley#56jet, 2.76 8 3/4 Sure-Grip, 26" tires, 25+MPG

What Ted says is good. We also need to know what kind of front brakes you have... if you have drum brakes you will be stuck with wanting a small bolt pattern rear end, if you have disc brakes then you may be able to find an 8.25" rear as a bolt in with the desired ratio for a fair price locally.

-D.Idiot

I am just trying to get a little more umf out of the 225. I did a rebuild on it a few months back and had to get it bored 30 over because the guy who had it before me let it overheat causing damage in the cylinders. As far as what's inside, almost nothing is stock. It has a 252s comp cams camshaft and all of the cortisol ding parts for the valve train in it, it has a holley 390 CFM 4brl carb, Clifford intake and dual Clifford headers, and 2 1/4 dual exhaust. The breaks are drum in the rear and disk in the front. It also has the break booster so it's no longer manual breaks.

I won't doing any towing with the car or drag racing. I just want to improve the street performance of the dart. I'd like to get closer to drag performance while still keeping it street legal.

Then you have a couple of choices since you have discs, you can:

1) upgrade the gearing in your current rear with 2.94's (a little better but retain some gas mileage, or go 3.23 and it will feel great on the street but will be higher rpm at 65 mph (some people don't like the higher rpm sound for 1-2 hours going out of town)...because you have upgraded the engine, the 7 1/4 rear will need a sure-grip (look for parts sales or ebay for one), otherwise the 7 1/4 will be on borrowed time if you decide to do some "spirited driving".
2) Look for an 8 1/4" rear in your local craigslist, it will hold up to anything you can throw at it and some came with 3.21:1 stock (avoid 3.55-4.56 as you will have "fun" but your mileage will plummet greatly- those are for drag only)

-D.Idiot

Thanks for the input guys, now I have a little direction.