The Shart - Adventures in turbocharging with a 1964 Dodge Dart

Here she is - 1964 Dodge Dart 270. Two door, 225 ci slant six, push button automatic trans.

The story starts as many before it have; "I was looking on craigslist and found blank" well this was what I found last fall. The ad read "1964 Dodge Dart- needs transmission. Not rusty". What have we here? A clean, original looking, 60's American car that doesn't appear to be owned by some old curmudgeon or wanna be drag racer? Color me excited. I called the number, talked to a nice young woman and arranged to come view it that evening.

Well, not exactly. She said she wasn't going to be home but "the car was in the garage and it was open, so I could just wander in and take a look". So, I thought I was potentially being led into the grasp of some cult leader, or mass murderer, or lord only knows what, but the allure of an ugly 60's car was too much for me. I would laugh in the face of death and go to an unknown garage and poke around. As I'm navigating traffic to get to the inner city to take a gander, she calls me: "I'll actually be home so I can show you the car tonight". Great.

I get to her house, she leads me around the back to the garage, and poking out of the half-closed barn doors is this lovely little Dodge Dart. It's a 2 door, it has really cool styling, and as I inspect it closer in her cramped garage it is clean. Like down south it's whole life no rust anywhere clean. It's scuzzy, there are cobwebs under it everywhere, but it's not rusty and under the hood is relatively sanitary. Someone had been in there and done some level of maintenance. It has it's share of bruises; one of the headlight rings is battered, one door barely opens, the paint is kinda crappy, and it has some dents. She says it runs good, and judging by how not disgusting the engine bay is I tend to believe her. I ask her about the transmission, she says one day it just won't shift out of first so she parked it. Supposedly the trans in her truck went out that same day and she prioritized her newer pickup over the Dart. I ask if I can hear it run. She says, well, that's the thing... I lost the keys. She says she's going to call a locksmith and have new ones made, and that I could come back in a couple days and check it out when the new keys are made. I mull it over and head home sans Dart.

On the way home I call my Dad and talk to him about it- I'm excited but unsure. I get home and talk to my Fiance about the car, show her some google images, and describe the situation. I like the car, I want the car, but it seems almost too good to be true- it's inexpensive, really clean, and though I can't hear it run seems like it would come to life pretty easily. I'm not exceptionally trusting so I'm wary of the deal, and I don't want to wait for her to potentially forget to have keys made up. Up here in Minnesota ANY old car is deemed worth thousands upon thousands of dollars, let alone something interesting that isn't rusty. Finally it is suggested that I just call her back and make her a low offer and offer to drag the car out of there, no keys, never hearing it run, basically I offer to get rid of it for her that night. A clean break for her, a new adventure for me. I call her back, she accepts my offer, and my Dad and I head into the city with his Colorado and a tow strap. It's October. It's like 730 at this point so it's dark, it's raining. We're wearing sunglasses (not really, couldn't resist the blues brothers reference). I exchange money for a signed title (no keys), and we push the car into the alley. I stab the brakes with my foot as I'm going to be doing the braking in the vehicle behind, and we set off.

The ride home behind the Colorado was surprisingly uneventful. The lights barely worked, but the car steered and stopped just fine. It rode nice too, felt solid. There weren't any huge bangs or clatters over bumps, and without the engine running it was very quiet. We get it home, push it in the garage, and get to work. A friend of mine comes over and we hotwire the thing and get it running in no time. We let it idle for a bit then take it around the block to see how the trans acts. It acts like a 3 speed automatic transmission. It shifts quickly but it gets all 3 gears and seems to stay in them just fine. I drove it to work the next day with a big grin on my face.

TLDR; I buy an unknown 52 year old car in a dark sketchy alley on a rainy October night with no keys and a bad transmission. I flat tow it home for it's first drive and hot wire it when I get home. I drive it to work the next day and it is awesome.

This E36 M3 is gonna be fun.

So after driving it to work and around for a while I start to get nervous. I'm sure there's a dead body in the trunk (no keys, can't open the trunk). So one night I'm in the garage playing with the thing and I'm literally having a panic attack. Some of the paperwork that came with the car doesn't match the girl's name I got it from, I have no keys (the title was in her name though), I have no real idea of the history of this car other than somehow it ended up in my lap. I'm good at getting myself worked up.

So, I decide I have to know the status of what's in the trunk. I deftly remove the rear seat back and cautiously peer in with my trouble light. No dead bodies!! Not much in there at all, it looks pretty clean and there's no cause for alarm. I rest easy knowing at least I'm not an accessory to murder.

A few days later the title shows up so that pretty much solidifies the fact that I am now the proud owner of this Dodge. I still don't have any keys however...

Well, the weather turned at least modestly nice in late October last year so I decided to vacuum out the car. It wasn't filthy but getting it cleaned of the old owners trash and dirt is always a pleasant experience. So, as I'm vacuuming the rear floors I notice something shiny under the driver's seat... Car keys! To a 1964 Dodge Dart! So now not only do I have the title in my name, I have keys.

Armed with a real feeling of possession I did the logical first step and lowered the car. A bunch. I cranked the torsion bars way down and put a 2" block in the rear. I also did some basic tune-up stuff and I think I changed the oil, but I don't remember.

Here's the car next to my buddy's civic that got totaled this spring unfortunately

and here's a couple shots from a mid-winter blast out of storage for a little exercise.

So I bought the car in October, put it away in early November, and it sat like this is my Mom's garage until I pulled it out in March.

Unsatisfied with the stock 1 barrel carb configuration I racked my brain trying to decide what I could do to make the thing a little more powerful, a little more interesting, but not break the bank... What I eventually decided on was something I've wanted to do for probably 5 years, which is make my own turbo kit. More on that next!

11 out of 10 for project name. Great potential.

Awesome!

Adrian_Thompson wrote: 11 out of 10 for project name. Great potential.

Thanks! Given how little I trusted it in the beginning... and how unsure I am of the turbo now, it's appropriate. Plus it's kind of a turd but in a quirky loving way. I don't know, it's pretty much been called the shart since day one.

You're going to turbo the leaning tower of power? If so I've heard tell that 2.2 pistons will work in the slant six with a slight boring of the block. Stock 2.2 pistons are 3.44 inch and the 225 is 3.4. If you can find 6 used stock turbo 2.2 pistons you should be able to boost it super cheap.

Not only am I going to turbo the leaning tower of power, not only am I going to boost the hillside hemi... But I already HAVE completed the task. It's been up and running for 3 weeks now, probably put about 300 miles on it (and probably 3 quarts of oil through it...) and it works well. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

So not only have I wanted to turbo something for the last 5 years, but I've also been quite fascinated with the 20XX challenge for the last few years. Why not attempt the whole two birds, one stone situation? Best laid plans... I believe I hit the mark for the budget, but the car has NO suspension or brake upgrades, and it isn't pretty or fast. I am going to consider this 'challenge themed' as I am getting married this year and won't be making it to Florida for the challenge. I also think that further down the road I can build something better for the challenge, at this point I've lost track of the budget a bit and got pretty impatient/excited so I bought far more than I needed to to get it running.

Anyhow- Research: I am grateful for both www.slantsix.org and www.forabodiesonly.com as there were some documented turbo slant six builds. I was able to gather enough info that I thought this would not only work, but be moderately conservative for what the engine is capable of. People have made north of 300 horsepower out of this little engine, and ran south of the 11 second mark in the quarter. When all is said and done if mine made 200 horsepower and went 13's I would be ecstatic.

That being said, despite research and despite everyone saying it can't/shouldn't be done- I decided to run my particular set up draw-through. Meaning the turbo inlet is after the carburetor, so it mixes fuel and air normally and needs no modification (aside from tuning/jetting) to work with the turbo. This also saves me from having to run any kind of boost referencing for my fuel. The drawback is fuel puddling and a fair amount of oil consumption likely due to the cold side of the turbo being under vacuum and actually sucking oil past the seals.

Photobucket is being a PITA right now- I'll try and get it working and get some pictures up and stop boring everyone with my ramblings.

I sold that car's doppleganger a few years ago. Miss it.

Adrian_Thompson wrote: 11 out of 10 for project name. Great potential.

Came here to say that - you beat me to it!

I would think that if it's gonna be turbo'd, there needs to be a 'T' instead of an 'S' in the name

Tart?

So here's one of the first pieces of the turbo puzzle- Used, way too big Holley carb (770 cfm street avenger )- $50 from a friend. You'll also notice the $11.99 eBay t3 exhaust flange.

I figure this was on a stock 302 Ford, my turbocharged slant must consume nearly as much air as a small block Ford right?

The next piece of the puzzle was to start fabricating some kind of a carb-sucky-tube to get mixed air and fuel into the inlet of my not yet acquired turbocharger. No matter, while I wait for that to ship on the slow boat from China (just kidding it actually came promptly from California, by way of China I'm sure) I can get started making the basics of the carb sucky box.

Essentially I made my own steel 1" carb spacer, using a small block chevy aluminum intake as a heat sink and bolting everything down to avoid warping. I hand cut out a carb gasket from some thin sheetmetal for the top, and used this square box section for the sides. This is how it started.

Hot E36 M3 the Shart is awesome! (see what I did there? Hehe) I'm ASSuming that it has a Torqflite behind it.... wait did they have those in 64? Goes to show how much I know about some older cars haha...

I like this. A lot.

If you want the secrets to turbocharging with EFI, check this thread out: Sweet Turbo EFI Barracuda I found at the grocery store last summer

The guy who built this actually penned a guide waaaaaaay back in 2001 on doing this with GM 3.8 SFI Turbo (aka Grand National) stuff. Here's a link to that: How to turbo your leaning tower of power with GM EFI

I turbocharged a 250 I6 in a Chevelle a long time ago. It was a lot of fun to drive around town. I ran the turbo setup off a 81 Trans Am, with a 4" exhaust that dumped right behind the front wheel. It turned a lot of heads. It wasn't fast, but it was fun.

This should be a hoot to watch.

I think a draw through turbo setup need the turbo built with a special seal (I forget the name) for reasons you outlined.

In reply to Bill Mesker:

Thanks! It has an earlier pushbutton trans of the torqueflite family- the 904. Which I've gathered to be the Mopar equivalent to the GM th350 as far as durability/power loss is concerned. Mine being a 64 is a bit of an oddball because it doesn't have a slip yoke to go into the trans, it has what they call a ball & trunnion which is what allows the driveshaft to pivot and change length as the suspension moves. Basically the slip yoke is integral to the driveshaft. My trans happens to be fairly tired (hence the 'needs transmission' in the CL ad originally), but I'm hoping I can limp it along for a bit at least.

In reply to BrokenYugo:

What you're referring to is a Carbon seal, and I'm currently exploring the limits of that being a necessity. ha ha ha. Some google sleuthing revealed that a few turbo beetle guys are the last people running draw though, and some of them run without the carbon seal and bandage it by using a restrictor on the oil feed to the turbo.

There are a few other drawbacks to draw-through that I'll get into as well.

Ok so here's some more backdated fabrication updates- I was working on making this carb sucky box while my turbo shipped. Here's the basic thing taking shape. The tube end is 3" exhaust and the rest is a home made carb spacer. The turbo has a 3" inlet and this mates up with the front of the turbo via a 3" silicone coupler.

From this angle you can see the carb mounting pad I cut out of thin sheet metal and reinforced with the square tubing.

And here's the bottom side and the jig (aluminum intake manifold) I used to keep everything square while I welded it together.

Here's the backside. I intentionally left the rear cap long because I wanted to brace it back there and figured the more room I had to play with the better.

At this point I had deemed my carb sucky box complete and had also received this little feller. Naturally I posed it with a delicious beer for size reference.

This is happening! The first step was to remove the factory exhaust because I was going to use what I had already to make a tube from the stock exhaust manifold to the exhaust side of the turbo. Here's the engine stock with just the factory down pipe removed. I also removed the battery as I intended to give the turbo permanent residence where the battery once resided. You can also see the stock air cleaner I meticulously polished this winter because I was bored. Literally polishing a turd.

Then I made this fantastic piece to get the exhaust running forward from the manifold and give me a place to mount the flange & turbo. Keep in mind I'm trying to re-use what I can, which is why this is so disgusting.

I put the flange on, mounted the turbo in place, and braced it to the engine block.

Then I started to play around with just where the carb sucky box was going to make the carb live, and whether or not it would clear anything. Keep in mind throttle and trans cable still needs to hook up to the carb, and I would like everything to clear the stock hood. I've had cars with holes in the hood before, and I wasn't a fan of it.

It vaguely looked like it would fit, and I knew that I could have some flexibility in the silicone coupler, as well as a bit of ability to extend or shorten the tube side of my carb sucky box. I decided the turbo could live in this place and decided to make myself an exhaust.

Here's some exhaust started- due to space constraints I decided the only logical route was right out the front fender. Actually I wanted to do that the entire time and I'm not going to make excuses. I've been around street racing and drag racing too long to build a turbo car and not have a gratuitous (albeit baby... it's only 2 1/2" exhaust) bullhorn. Someday I think I'll build a real exhaust, but for now this is what I have.

i love that turbo out exhaust!

Love this project. Cant wait to see the next update and the completed plumbing.

In reply to Gunchsta:

Ahhhh ok. Good to know on the trans! Kind of fits the car in a way haha. Oddball trans for an oddball car. Hopefully that sumbitch 904 holds out for a bit. Any plans for a rebuild or would you be planning on swapping it out for something a bit beefier?

So with the exhaust side of things taken care of it was time to look at how the carb sucky box was going to fit. Here's a rough positioning I had in mind. Note that I added a short bend to attempt to get the carb further away from the master cylinder. Also note that I'm using a level... as if the the limiting factor in all of this would be a slightly off kilter carburetor. Right.

So at this point a lot of the larger question marks of this project had been addressed. The next step was something I spent a lot of time reading about, pondering, and worrying about. I had to make some kind of a hole in my oil pan for the oil drain from my turbo. The concept of purposefully introducing metal shavings into an area generally frowned upon to have metal shavings in was hard for me to deal with. I had read that a lot of people either punch or drill a small pilot hole and then use a step bit coated in heavy wheel bearing grease to make an orifice for the oil to return to the oil pan from the turbo. This all seemed fairly sketchy, but I also wasn't going to pull the entire motor just to put a silly little hole and bung in the oil pan. So this was my only option. Anyways after far too much sweating and doubting, I drilled a small pilot hole in my oil pan. I was careful to go slow and use lots of lube so as to minimize the amount of shrapnel in my oil pan. Here is what I consider a big turning point in the project- The pilot hole.

This was carefully calculated to be just above the oil level in the pan so I wouldn't have backpressure issues with the oil returning to the pan from the turbo. Wait, did I say carefully calculated? I mean I took a wild guess and poked a hole. Here's the hole with the -10 AN return fitting installed. Barely fits. Luck be a lady that night apparently...

So there. A few big question marks checked off the list. Oil feed would come from a T at the oil pressure sending unit, return goes into this bung, exhaust is done... Now we just need to make a cold side pipe.