Rusty's not very quiet cuda progress

It's awesome that you still have that. What a thrill that must've been to order one new. I, on the other hand, had turned 3 years old a few weeks prior to that. They were all beat-up rustbuckets by the time I could drive. However, speaking of 1974 360 E-bodies, I picked this up over the weekend. It was pulled from a rolled '74 Challenger Rallye 360/4-speed in the early 1980s and stored since. It's never been apart. The flywheel, clutch, and throwout bearing are still inside the bellhousing.

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That is cool, what's the plan for it.

I'd love to find a dual snorkel air cleaner for mine but don't want to pay 8 grand for it!

you wouldn't have an old quadrajet laying around , another piece I haven't seen anywhere?
 
RUSTY Cuda said:
That is cool, what's the plan for it.
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No plan thus far, but being a 4-speed HP engine (and priced well) I thought it worthy of having in stock. All the "numbers" stuff is still on it--manifold, distributor, carb, etc.--so there's a lot of value to it. Have you seen what year-correct valve covers are bringing now? It's rather absurd.

RUSTY Cuda said:
I'd love to find a dual snorkel air cleaner for mine but don't want to pay 8 grand for it!
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I actually got one with this engine, but '72-'73 E-bodies never had a dual-snorkel and the '74 360 unit is kind of unique. The one I have appears to have come from a '71-'72 383/400 Magnum. I've been trying to find an inexpensive one myself for a long time, so I'm afraid it's not for sale.

RUSTY Cuda said:
you wouldn't have an old quadrajet laying around , another piece I haven't seen anywhere?
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The last QuadraJet I had came off the 318 Gran Fury cop car I parted out around 2003. I sold it on eBay at the time. I only have one "good" ThermoQuad. The rest are stuck in one form or another (throttles, mixture screws, etc.) including the one bolted to the 360--the secondaries and mixture screws are jammed.
 
I'm gonna have a ton of extra gaskets, had some left from the other car I never checked, somehow ordered 2 sets of splash shields, the firewall set came with all the ones I got in the heater box kit, door handles are on with new gaskets & I have at least another set & 1/2 I found so far.
Laid out some of the insulation that came in the kits...........
fire wall with the push pins I think & back of kick panels
20230704_132332.jpg dash jute, what layer does that go on? 20230704_132559.jpgfire wall set with all the repeat heater box gaskets20230704_132359.jpgfound a plate light set too, I had one & made the other already. 20230704_132625.jpg3 sets of ralley mirror gaskets20230704_132716.jpg
And the extra splash shields.
20230704_131649.jpgAny one need some odd gaskets, those are yours free, the splash shields I'll send at cost or maybe a tad less?
 
Just made a giant wish list at year on, carpet, rear divider, package tray, sail panels, all the paddings for them. looking for 2 ralley mirror screws, they only have the set of 4 with the nutserts more extra parts!
& a few other odds & ends.
Still have to do the entire exhaust system, someone recommended TTI what do you guys think?
 
I have no idea, I'll look in the book & see if there's any #'s there.
I have the rebuilt eddy, but I was thinking I could actually hook up the canister if I had the original type carb, yes I was told there not that good, but again, I'm not racing it.

went looking for a rear view mirror too, year one shows em, but unavailable.
Any used I saw the glass was as bad as mine, the rest I can clean up.
 
Are we talking QuadraJets or ThermoQuads? Chrysler didn't use Quadrajets until the 1980s, phasing them in as Carter tanked. By 1985 Carter was gone.

Any TQ from a 340/360/400 car from 1972-1975 would be OK, and truck 360 TQs through about 1980 or '81 would likely work too. The latter might be a tad lean, but not dangerously so. 1971 ThermoQuads are ridiculously expensive to buy and parts ain't much better (if you can find 'em). They're what's known as a "solid fuel" TQ, and the 1971 340 was the only production version.

The '73 340 automatic carb (list 6319S) isn't too hard to find reasonably. 1973 was the 340's biggest production year and it would be a good choice for your car. There's a restored one for sale here, complete with a '73 manifold and he's taking offers. It's in California, though, so the shipping might be murder.
 
OK that's my idiocy using the wrong name, don't know where I got it either, anywho, I was looking for what was in the car back in 74, to make the canister hookup complete.
Repeat to myself, thermoquad, even wrote it down on one of my 90 parts lists!

From 73 would that have the vapor port for the canister, I thought that junk started in 74?
He lists the carb separate 350 shipped.
 
I don't know am I'm getting crazy here, I just paid 200 for the eddy, should I scrap this dumb idea & just go with that?
 
RUSTY Cuda said:
I don't know am I'm getting crazy here, I just paid 200 for the eddy, should I scrap this dumb idea & just go with that?
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Below is what I've got. Not sure which number this one is but they're both basically the same

I would stick with the Eddy you've got.

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b-body-bob said:
I've got a 6090S and a 6322S
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The 6090 is a '72 400HP for Federal emissions unit and the 6322 is for a '73 440 truck, also Federal. Both are carbs worth knowing.
The large elbow on the lower right that points down is one of the connections to the vapor canister. The other is a vacuum port on the front of the baseplate.

RUSTY Cuda said:
I don't know am I'm getting crazy here, I just paid 200 for the eddy, should I scrap this dumb idea & just go with that?
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If you just bought the carb and it's new, I guess I'd say run it. Edelbrocks are some of the okay-est running carbs straight out of the box. People who don't like to tinker love 'em. They're very simple carburetors to rebuild, and there's not much tuning possible, much less required. For cruising and ice-cream runs there's no reason not to use it.

If the Edelbrock is used, opening it up for inspection would be a good idea. Edelbrocks corrode badly if they sit with modern fuel in them for any length of time. The float-bowl baffles and float arms are made of the cheapest steel extant and they're very rust-prone. I had one back around '01-'02 that the rust had galled to the float bowls so badly it couldn't be cleaned. It even got past the jets. I ended up giving it away, and I think that person tossed it.

Personal experience: When I had my '73 340 Challenger, I listened to all the morons that said to get rid of the ThermoBog and put a Holley on it. It drove pretty well, but not as well as the small-primary spread-bore TQ. Under full throttle, though, it was night and day. The Holley simply couldn't feed the engine enough air--it started nose-diving at about five grand. The TQ would pull right off the end of the tach. The Holley also didn't have that distinctive four-barrel roar that's unique to ThermoQuads and QuadraJets (even a Six Pack doesn't do it). Fuel economy wasn't as good either, though 17-year-old me didn't really care about that so much. It's really a hard carb to beat.

Now, with all that being said:
ThermoQuads are a bit of a bastard to rebuild for the uninitiated, so if you buy one that's not already done it's not a fun job. There's a special tool required to get the secondary air doors adjusted correctly. It can be worked around but that's a tricky process. Plus, you have to buy a carb, an (expensive) rebuild kit and floats, then do the work before you even get to tuning the air-door opening or linkage adjustments. ThermoQuad = work.
Edelbrock Performers are a 2-piece design and extremely simple. The longest part of the rebuild is the soak/cleaning process. Assembly can be done in half an hour by a newbie, and there's rarely little that needs adjusting other than the idle mixture screws. Jetting is usually a fool's errand; at most you might need to fiddle with the accelerator pump shot if you have a stumble. Tuning and rebuild parts are readily available new and at reasonable cost, which is absolutely not true of ThermoQuad.

Long story short: If the Edelbrock looks OK inside or is new, it's probably the better option for your build.
 
Then I forced myself to work outside in the heat a while, kinda matched up the holes in the insulation to see where they go.20230705_122304.jpg
there's one more knock out near the round hole not sure if my car needs it in or out, wait till more stuff goes in to see if it's blocking anything? 20230705_122311.jpg
The one on the right I managed to knock off putting in the heater box, somehow after much sweating & cursing I got it back in.
heater box & defrost vent in! 20230705_144455.jpgSo that got me an almost clean bench, so I cleaned it up & sorted out a bunch of the new stuff on there so I can actually see it & don't order over again!!!20230705_150531.jpg
Oh yea, the guy who sold me that ralley switch offered 125 for it, I accepted, see if he buys now, maybe he has another switch & will ask 250 again?
& the old heater valve was in the box with the blower, so I compared it to the new, looks like I have more sheet metal work, the bracket is way different, the pipes & working section look the same.20230705_145014.jpg
 
heater box leftovers, 2 foam strips I could not figure out where to place, not mentioned in the list that I could find & an O ring & retainer, not sure where they go? 20230705_150231.jpg
 
The carb looks OK on the outside. I doubt he ran it, let alone letting it sit with fuel in it after rebuilding it. It wouldn't be that clean.

RUSTY Cuda said:
Oh yea, the guy who sold me that ralley switch offered 125 for it, I accepted, see if he buys now, maybe he has another switch & will ask 250 again?
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Probably. The switch itself isn't hard to get since it's not E-body specific. The buttons are available as reproductions if memory serves. That being said, in the used parts game many don't consider less than double your investment to be worth the time.

RUSTY Cuda said:
the old heater valve was in the box with the blower, so I compared it to the new, looks like I have more sheet metal work, the bracket is way different, the pipes & working section look the same.View attachment 25652
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That looks like a B-body valve to me. Good ol' Four Seasons, I'm sure they just superseded the Challenger part to the Charger one. The OE part number was 3502723, which crosses online to the one you have (Four Seasons 74643) but obviously isn't right. There are two listed on eBay with the right bracket, but they're not giving 'em away--especially the one in the Mopar box. The other does have the OE number stamped on it, though.

I'm not sure what the story is, but that's a bit of an odd duck. It only appears in the 1973 parts book, and only as very late production. My '74 uses a very different valve, which is what was also used prior to the one you have. It's also far more expensive, and in the case of the one I posted, it doesn't even include the mounting bracket! I have three NOS ones, which is good because I now have two AC-equipped Challengers.

I believe the your old valve is what was available from Four Seasons and the other aftermarket manufacturers to replace the one on my car. It's very possible the OE one failed and was replaced with a parts-store unit somewhere along the line. I have vintage Murray and Four Seasons catalogs at work; when (if?) I finally get back I'll try to find the numbers they used for the direct replacement of your valve.

If nothing else, you should be able to transfer your old bracket to your new valve. The two parts are just held together by those four tabs forming a circle around the pivot point of the cable connection. Not easy, but better than trying to fab a new bracket!

RUSTY Cuda said:
heater box leftovers, 2 foam strips I could not figure out where to place, not mentioned in the list that I could find & an O ring & retainer, not sure where they go? View attachment 25654
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Go on Detroit Muscle Technology's website and see if those parts are listed individually. If so, it should tell you where they're supposed to be.
 
While hunting thru my pics today I found a shot of the O-ring & retainer, they go on the drain tube at bottom in engine bay .

I'll check out switching the mount.

Pretty sure the carb was rebuilt & shelved, there was a few of them on that shelf & it was in the house.
 
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