DOING THE MATH ON A 14-YEAR 1968 CHARGER R/T STREET BUILD.
Halfway through his “Daily Blah” paper route, Andy Mawn would stop and stare, riveted by the 1968 Charger in his customer’s driveway. “Someday… “ he said to himself, “ Someday I’m gonna save my money and I’m gonna own the ‘Daily Blah’ and have some other kid delivering these crummy papers…and, yeah, I’m gonna drive a car like that.”
Body is stock. Mike squeezed the biggest rubber he could into the stock ’wells. BFG 225/70R15s are wrapped around 15X7˝ Magnum 500s up front while 325/50R15 BFG drag radials snuggle up to 10˝ Magnums at the business end. Charger has manual steering.
Years passed, and by the time Andy graduated from Boston University and moved to Los Angeles, the paper-delivery bike had gone through its last chain and sprocket and final set of tires and was replaced by a motorcycle. His dream of running the “Daily Blah” was put on hold as Andy relocated back east and made a lateral career move from paper boy to aerospace engineer for the U. S. Army, something he’s never regretted. One thing about being an aerospace engineer is that you always “do the math.” If someone says “do the math” on anything at all, Andy whips out his trusty slide rule and does it—whether it’s finding out how much you save buy buying bagels by the dozen or how many pounds of hydrazine are needed for a rocket liftoff. Anyhow, one day at work in 1999, when Andy was doing the math on one problem or another, he mentioned to a bud how he had been hooked on a ’68 Charger as a kid. “Funny you should mention that,” his bud replied. “My roommate from college has an original ’68 Charger R/T he was going to restore. He put it in a shop but the owner went under and gave him the car back in pieces. The guy got frustrated and just wants to dump the project.” Andy’s bud related how he used to ride with his roommate in the car. It had a worked 440 and was crazy fast. Matter of fact, the car would turn low-to-mid-12s at the strip. Andy went home and told his wife he was thinking about getting another motorcycle, like the one he had in LA, and he had is eye on a used Kawasaki. Wifie put her foot down. “You’re NOT getting a motorcycle! You’ve always talked about musclecars, so get one of those.” (Good bluff). “OK, I’ll look at one tomorrow.” (Good bluff call). Andy’s wife’s eyes bugged out. “WHAT??” True to his word, Andy stopped by the shop in Southern Connecticut. They used to specialize in building Mopar engines, but they took a big hit when crate engines came out. The Charger was essentially a shell with some body panels. The 440 and the rest of the original drivetrain— 4-speed trans and Dana 3.54 rear—was on the floor next to the shell. Included was the original intake and exhaust manifolds, headers, a Mark Williams driveshaft and yokes and a non-stock carburetor. There was no fender tag, but the VIN authenticated it as a 440-4 Charger R/T. Andy sized it up. The trunk pan was pretty shot, but the rest of the body was straight and looked solid, no evidence of previous hits. Not ever having restored a car before, Andy didn’t know what to look for outside of the obvious. He did the math and cut a deal for 6 grand. Carting home his prize and stashing it in his garage Andy did the math and it came out that he had a long wait ahead of him collecting parts before he’d be taking those nice Sunday drives. Without a fender tag, there was no way to tell how the Charger came equipped from the factory. A call to Chrysler Historical for the production record turned up nada as ’68-up records were lost in a fire. But the Charger itself offered clues. The original 4-speed and Dana indicated a Track Pak car. The console for the shifter, however, was missing along with tons of small parts like headlight pods and the hood attachment latch and on and on. Andy hit the swaps looking for parts, a search that took years. Then, according to Andy, came the “hardest part” finding a shop to handle the complete restoration of the Charger itself. Andy looked at the options. There were collision shops doing “restorations,” but he felt the quality wasn’t there. The shops were more interested in “getting it done and getting it out,” putting time ahead of quality. Then he looked at some “restoration” shops. He was disappointed to see cars sitting outside the shop in the rain. Not wonderful. In 2004, Andy happened to be at the Mopar meet in Englishtown, New Jersey. Mke LaBrecque had one of his restored cars on display. The paint was stunning. Andy sort of hung back and took in the dynamic of how Mike interacted with the Mo’fans. He was impressed, and decided Mike’s shop—LaBrecque Autocraft in East Windsor, CT (www.labrecqueautocraft. com) would be a good choice. He wasn’t disappointed. The Charger was moved to Mike’s shop and the restoration plan was worked out between them. Andy turned out his pockets to show Mike they weren’t deep. He couldn’t write big checks to get the Charger completed in a year or two. No problem said Mike. That would work out fine as he could get to the Dodge between other jobs and also offer a lower shop rate to boot. Andy knew what he wante —a stock appearing ’68 Charger but with max power from a naturally aspirated motor with no power adders under the stock flat hood. Andy researched engine parts, reading M.A. articles on what was available and discussing it with Mike for his opinion. Andy oiled up his trusty slide rule to do the math. Saving the original block, Andy picked up a 0.030˝-over 440 out of a ’69 Super Bee. He had the block sonic tested—it was thick all around, so he hogged it out an additional 0.020˝. He also went with a K1 stroker crank. Andy was worried about the stroke with the Chrysler rod—the sharp angle would load up the cylinder walls and piston rings and cause wear. He wanted engine to last a while—at least a week. So he (you guessed it) did the math and came up with the 7.1˝ Chevy rod from K1. A set of custom Diamond pistons (shorter than stock—think “hockey puck”) met the desired deck height and a pump gas friendly 10.3 compression. A pair of Indy Cylinder Head’s 440EZ heads were sent to Dwayne Porter for porting. When Andy told him of his choice of a single-plane Holley Dominator intake manifold, Dwayne said it didn’t pay to go radical on porting as the manifold would be the cork in the system (he put his finger inside his cheek to make a cork-popping sound to illustrate his point)—probably a 25 horsepower penalty compared to a higher-rise intake. Makes no difference -
Complete TTi exhaust system starts with 2˝ headers flowing into 3˝ pipes.
Andy insisted on a stock hood for a sleeper look. He gave up a 25 horsepower potential by not going with a hi-rise manifold that would have required a hood scoop.
- how much the heads flow if you can’t get the air in there in the first place. Mike’s shop worked hard massaging the intake and really smoothing it out for max flow. Mixing up all those air and fuel molecules is a Holley Ultra 950 cfm mechanical carb that never goes hungry thanks to a complete Aeromotive fuel system with .˝ main and return lines and a pickup in the bottom of the tank. Valves dance to the beat of a custom solid roller cam spec’d and cut by Dan Costello who, these days, runs that big cam grinder in the sky. While the grind isn’t all that aggressive, Dan says there is a lot of spring pressure so he went with the then state-of-the art Isky Red Zone lifters. Since he doesn’t have needle bearings, if a lifter fails it doesn’t end up with needles floating around and doing nasty things inside the engine. Roller rockers are Harland Sharpe. A MSD digital 6AL ignition makes the sparks and TTi headers and 3˝ exhaust do what they do best. Andy liked the sound of an H-pipe rather than the X. He had spec’d the power output so the Charger wouldn’t break 11.49 at the track because he didn’t want to install a rollbar. That did not work out as the engine horsepower and torque numbers indicated the car would run well under 11.49. How’d he know that? By doing the math, obviously. Dwayne Porter dyno tuned the engine which yielded 590 hp @ 5600 rpm and 621 lb- ft tq @ 4300. Jeff at Danbury Chassis Dyno in Danbury CT performed the chassis dyno of the Charger with best rear wheel numbers of 548 hp at 5500 rpm and 586 lb-ft of torque at 4400 rpm. Mike has all his engines assembled by Eastwood Auto Machine, and Andy’s was no exception. Eastwood dyno’d the motor and Mike Dyno’d it twice on his chassis dyno registering 548 peak rear wheel horsepower and well over 600 ft-lbs torque. Peak torque comes in at less than 2000 rpm and is Kansas-flat up to 5500. Not too shabby. Mike painted the engine turquoise as that’s what a 440 Magnum in ’68 would have been sprayed by the factory. Andy had Passon rebuild the 4-speed and Andy had to spring for a dual-disc clutch because of the torque. A Lakewood blow shield is added so Andy can keep all his working parts in case of a... you know. Passon’s latest 5-speed is on the list. A Tremec, he says, wouldn’t take the torque of this motor. Mike says with the 5-speed, Andy should swap for 4.10s to make this car a real mindblower when you put your foot in it. As it is, the stroker is real happy on the street, punches you back in the seat, doesn’t load up, is snappy light to light and smooth on the cruise. A stock appearing Glen-Ray aluminum radiator keeps the temp well under control. Mike beefed the chassis by tying the unibody together with square steel, adding Mopar torque boxes, and going with tubular upper control arms for more alignment adjustment. He welded braces on the lower control arms and welded up the seams on the K-member. With over 600 ft-lbs of torque, Mike didn’t want the stock Charger chassis to twist up and look like something from Pretzelvania. Even with all that power, there’s no trouble hooking with Super Stock springs and an adjustable pinion snubber. QA1 aluminum shocks all around don’t hurt either. Stopping power is upped a bit with a SSBC power disc brake kit up front. Eleven-inch drums do their thing at the nether end. Bodywise, Mark replaced the rusted out trunk pan. The shell had come with new quarters, but Mike pointed out how they had been hung badly and the body lines didn’t match up. He had to cut them off and replace them with AMD panels. Andy hadn’t realized when he first looked the Charger over that the left passenger fender had been heavily Bondo’d, but Mike picked up on that pretty quick. AMD hadn’t pressed out the fenders at the time so Andy had to hunt up a used fender. He called a boneyard in Oregon and the guy just laughed. “What’s so funny?” asked Andy. “Too bad you didn’t call two days ago. I had 28 of those ’68 fenders. I never moved any and I didn’t know if I was ever gonna sell any of them. Then some guys from Warner Bros. came over. They were making the ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ movie and they bought every last one. Too bad, I guess they’re all gonna be crushed in making the movie.” Andy had better luck when he contacted a seller in Arizona. Andy kept the interior stock except for added MP oil and temp gauges. A shift light is built into the center of the dash. The cluster was redone by Auto Instruments and Just Dashes redid the pad. A new interior came from Legendary. The hardest part was finding the missing console for the shifter. Andy would have enjoyed the stock AM thumbwheel radio because he never turns it on. But his wife insisted on a decent stereo system which she listens to while Andy enjoys the tunes coming from the 512+ inch stroker. Mike sprayed the Charger in its original PP1 color. Andy wasn’t around when the car was finished, and Mike took it to the World of Wheels show in Boston. We’re sure Mike’s amazing paintjob contributed to the car’s taking First Place in the hotly contended Modified ’60-’69 Class. Andy first drove the completed Charger out of Mike’s shop in 2014, some 15 years after he bought the car in pieces. He should know. He did the math.
512-plus-inch stroke (displacement was figured on .030˝ over stock 440) is a powerhouse with a single 950 Holley. Andy did the math and spec’d out the components while Eastwood Auto Machine did the assembly. Mill puts out close to 550 horsepower to the wheels.
1. Andy had to come up with the missing console, not an easy task. Hurst T-handle with roll control (line lock) makes for exciting launches. Added gauges augment otherwise stock rallye dash. Modern stereo was a concession to his wife. 2. Legendary supplied grey-pleated seat covers. Belts are out of the 50 Shades of Grey catalog.
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