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1972 Viper Powered Charger

Kevman89

Well-Known Member
Local time
9:11 AM
Joined
Feb 14, 2015
Messages
52
Reaction score
42
Location
Windsor Ontario
Hey guys, new here, been working on this project for a year now, it's a Michigan car, has 29,600 Miles on the body. Picked it up off craigslist last year for $2000, it was a 400/auto floor shift car, with black buckets.

As far as I know it was an SE, I turned it into a Ralleye clone.. It has a custom QA1 K-member, which we modified ourselves to house the 8.3L V10, and the Rack and pinion. The headers are stock Viper headers, modified to have the collector fall closer to the torsion bar cross member.

It maintains the factory Viper T-56, with the hydraulic clutch.. I'm running a Hydro-Boost system, feeding Wilwood 12.44" 4 piston brakes.
For now, the rear end is an 8 3/4" with 3.73's and a Sure Grip, I'm going to run that for the first year or so, then upgrade to a Strange Dana 60, from what I've heard the 8 3/4" doesn't like manuals..

Any questions on the project will be answered, I haven't seen many do this swap into this generation Charger, if they did, they've been quiet about it.

When I picked it up

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Sandblasted
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My favourite picture.. ( Self explainitory)
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In under it's own weight (This took a while, lots of headaches)
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Suspension mocked up, had to modify the factory Viper oil pan, it's not symmetrical, and the Pass. tie rod was making contact
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Test fitting panels.. The doors were rust free.. And $650 for the set...
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Found this in Chicago, After the hotel, beers, and keeping my at the time lady friend entertained.. This costed me around $2800..


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This is as of last weekend, underside painted, inside, trunk, firewall, and wheelwells done in single stage urethane 2014 Plum Crazy Pearl,
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hi and welcome to the site very nice build going on here ,looking very good keep us updated on your build :headbang:
 
Hello and welcome to the site. looking good so far.
 
Very cool, can't say I've ever seen a 3rd gen with a Viper motor in it but I do like the idea. I just put a Viper tranny in my 69 Charger but still lack the 2 extra cylinders haha. Looks great
 
Looks great!!! cant wait to see the finished car... The fenders are not easy or cheep...I had a lady come with in inches of my driver side...she couldn't understand my blood pressure.
 
Looks great!!! cant wait to see the finished car... The fenders are not easy or cheep...I had a lady come with in inches of my driver side...she couldn't understand my blood pressure.

Thanks for the welcome guys!


Yeah, 98% of people have no idea how hard parts are to come by, I had my sheet metal guy rebuild the mounting points, and the inside of the fenders, he couldn't understand why.. Until I mentioned that I had to drive four hours to get it.. And it cost me over $400 for just the passenger fender...

I also filled in all of the markers, antennae, and turn signal post holes on the car, should be pretty slick when she gets done. I'm in the home stretch now, as all of the body work is done, and I'm assembling the mechanical portions of the car..

I started this project because I always wanted a car with that sweet Hurst pistol grip shifter.. It kind of snowballed though, it went from a small block four speed car, to this... Oops
 
Hi, Kevman89, welcome! :wav:

What a great project, I'll be waiting to see how it finishes off. Are you squeezing in the Viper 6 speed as well?

-=Photon440=-
 
I'll be following this along for the end result - looks like a great idea and I'm sure it'll be one fine ride . . . looking forward to more posts of your progress !!!
 
Welcome from across the river, that thing will be cool as hell when done.
I have a few relatives in Windsor, I'm Italian so we head over to Erie street once and a while.
 
hope you prepped good when you painted it because that V-10 an six speed gonna put the test to it...lmao...SWEET BUILD!!!!!!
 
bout time someone did this.

the first thing that went through my mind when I saw a v10 was-

that's the perfect thing to take up all that extra room in a 71-74 Charger engine bay!

keep us posted.
 
There's a ton of room, I have to put the rad infront of the rad cradle, but aside from that, I can stick my fist sideways between the header, and the shock tower and not touch anything, huge improvement over my last few projects..

I am using the original Viper transmission, so the 3.73 gear will be a little bit lower of a ratio from the 3.23 the Viper comes with.. Should be nice, though 1st gear may be a little low.. I'd be interested to see it's 1/4 mile times when the time comes.. Considering a 440 72 Charger weighed around 3400 lbs.. I've shaved well over 400 in equipment I no longer need, the steering box alone weighed 80 lbs.. Plus switching from a cast iron Big Block to an all Aluminum engine.. Major weight reduction.

And on the paint prep quote, haha, I'm a little worried about cracking when I did the body work connecting the quarter panel, to the roof, I have about 50 hours of work invested in shaping that round section, as I stripped the car to bare steel.. If that splits, I might fall into a deep depression. (It's long strand kitty hair fiberglass to start, so it more than likely won't)
 
I wondered about the room, figuring that the slant six must be nearly as long anyway. What's the weight of that 8.3 litre? The original 8 litre was over 700 lbs, but I know they shaved weight off over the years. Being an SE big block, 3800+ lbs. would be more likely when it was new. Is the rear end a 8.75?
 
More pictures please, by the way welcome to the site ,sweet car love the color and motor choice , I'm doing a small block 4 speed now ,so if I steal a viper cut it up ... Hmmm. As strong as these cars are I would suggest frame connectors my friend has a 72 with a 440 putting 560ish hp to the ground, the guy who restored the car before we did the motor did a nice job ,the motor tore the body work all to hell, frame connectors fixed the problem. These cars weren't ment for that kind of power . I'm getting iffy on my small block it was dinoed before with the auto and some ok parts on it at 430 hp to the wheels I'm doing a little bit more to it so I'm probably going to just make some frame connectors to be safe ,anyways good luck it looks good so far
 
This car is going to be awesome more pictures please
 
I wondered about the room, figuring that the slant six must be nearly as long anyway. What's the weight of that 8.3 litre? The original 8 litre was over 700 lbs, but I know they shaved weight off over the years. Being an SE big block, 3800+ lbs. would be more likely when it was new. Is the rear end a 8.75?


Some research on good says around 500 lbs, the T-56 is really light as well, I can pick it up alone.
Comparing it to a 440 weighing around 750 lbs with exhaust manifolds.. I've also replaced the factory front K-member.. The new one was about 35 pounds after I removed the accessories I no longer needed.

Yes, I'm going with an 8.75" rear end for now, it's been back braced, but still won't be tough enough. I have to upgrade in the future.
And I've installed the frame connectors, I used the Competition engineering ones, incase I decide to move the leaf springs in for larger tires in the future.

For the weight I was going by this scale, the shipping weight, perhaps the wrong info to use, seeing as the 71 Hemi car weighed 3900lbs.

http://www.oldride.com/library/1972_dodge_charger.html

- - - Updated - - -

I have a few more pics, these are the most interesting of the bunch.

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Here are the SFC's installed.
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I'm in for the ride on this one! Can't wait to see the end result!

There's an very long time ongoing project at one of the speed/restoration shops not far from my place that has a Challenger with the Viper V10. Definitely a tight fit but once it's in and all clean it sure does look amazing!
 
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My stripper SB Satellite is 3700 and change.

Loaded BB Charger has to be much more before weight shaving.
 
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