Hi everyone, I was recommended to post here about myself. So I guess I better get started. Presently 34, in florida, bachelors in computer engineering and a masters in economics. working in the tech side of the insurance industry. Daily driver is a 2023 genesis gv80 3.5TT prestige, but my car restoration project is a 1971 dodge challenger. Huge into technology, programming, cars, audio, 3d printing, pretty much every nerdy habit in a way ha
The story of how i got my challenger was completely by accident and I wasnt even looking for a car project. It was June 2014, it had been a year since I had convinced my grandfather to finally start restoring his old 1950 ford f-3 pickup. it had been sitting for well over 30 years at this point and he had been talking about getting it running for ages, in 2013 i finally got through to him and we started taking it all apart. in 2014, as part of the restoration process of swapping in a ford 302 from his old 1990 mercury grand marquis, we needed an upgraded rear end, so we were checking out some junkyards around nebraska. We came across watt's in wymore, and right out front i saw some classic mopar, it looked good, but at the time i wasnt exactly sure which one it was. It definitely needed work but we took a look at it after searching for rear ends(to no avail) but while we were there we inquired how much he wanted for it. Turns out he was selling it for a friend who was wanting to restore it but then got a family. As a lowly college student, $4750 was a very steep price. So I would think about it overnight. After discussing it for awhile my grandfather said he would help me out if its something I really wanted. So we ended up getting it. At first the engine was a bit taken apart, and the interior was mostly taken apart as well. But i was able to replace the waterpump, spark plugs, battery, the carb, and install a temporary gas tank so i could crank it up to move it around the farm for repositioning and such. It came with a 318 v8 with a 941 auto transmission so not exactly anything to run home about, but it was an opportunity to make an r/t clone and as i have no desire to ever sell it, why not enjoy it to its fullest?
The following year i started taking it all apart down to the chassis so it can get cleaned up and repaired, then painted too.
by 2016 those 3 things had been completed and came time for reassembling the car But as i was still a student, i didn't have much funds, so the car was put into my grandfathers car garage on the farm, until i could get back to it. Fast forward finishing college, grad school, and my first job, my second job was far more profitable and i could finally start working on the car. it was 2022 and since i live in florida and the car is in nebraska, Ive only managed to go up there roughly 3 times a year one week at a time, so coupled with spending time with family, Ive also been working on the car myself. The car august 2016:
The end of the final vacation of 2023:
As of end of 2024:
And as of my first vacation trip this year from a couple weeks ago.
The goals in mind for this build were to drop in a 440 big block, originally planned to do 500 cid stroker kit but 440source ended up convincing me to do a 512 for the same price. Back in 2015, my grandfather had come across a guy that was selling a 440 and a 727 auto transmission out of his 72 chrysler imperial for $500 so thats what Im working on. I took apart the whole engine and last year i sent it and all the parts to assemble the engine to a machine shop since it will need some mods and I lack the tooling needed to do that. So far, everything else for assembling the vehicle has been done myself.
I have reused some of the original parts from the vehicle after restoring them. Clean them and remove as much rust as possible and painting. My favorite piece that i restored was the rear taillight assemblies. Did a bunch of research on how the R/T tailight panel looked like and i cleaned up mine, masked it as best as i could, and painted it and now cant even tell it was originally from a non-R/T car. well, to me at least. maybe yall will disagree haha
I have put on wilwood big 6 brakes up front, and wilwood dynalite 4 piston on the rear. Last year, i also found a shop that was taking a 72 challenger and upgrading the entire drivetrain to a hellcat config and just so happened that the original 8.75" rear end had everything i was wanting, a 489 third member housing, 3.55 gears, and a posi-traction too.
I got PST 1.03" torison bars, the k-member, upper/lower control arms are all QA1 tubular, also have adjustable qa1 shocks front and rear, hotchkiss rear springs. Originally got some original style magnums 15" for the front and rear but with the big brake calipers rubbing on the inside of the wheels, i ended up swapping them for 17" converted wheels from yearone.
Got a holley EFI gas tank to pair with the holley super sniper efi, got a dakota digital VHX digital rallye style gauges, got american autowire wiring harness kit to wire up the whole car, dapper lighting 575 LED low and high beam headlights with rgb halos. Converted the manual windows to nuRelics power windows. Aside from the driver side door window(which has a big scratch in the glass), i was able to clean up and reuse the original windows. Also got the vintageAir a/c kit. Also got a champion 4 core radiator that should handle the upgraded engine with ease. Given my audiophile background, Ive also put in an XSPower battery and plenty of 0 gauge cable so i can also do a big 3 upgrade since i do have a 300A alternator to go in here. Oh yea, i also have those dapper lighting rear sequential LED lights too.
I know for some doing electrical and wiring is complicated and such a pain, but to me theres something calming and enjoyable about it. I still need to get some proper cable loom wraps for the various wiring but that should be sometime this year though.
I have 3d printed some things for the challenger as well and some others that are currently in the works. First I didnt want to use a rare 4x10" speaker on the dash, saw how some people made their own adapters to fit dual 3.5" or dual 4" speakers so i got dimensions of the original speaker, and the dimensions of the rockford fosgate P142 speakers i wanted, and created a design that i sent a sample to the farm for my grandparents to take pics of it in place to see if i needed any adjustments, there were a couple but not much so i reprinted it in ASA-CF(or was it PAHT-CF? idr) and inserted brass inserts so screwing/unscrewing the speakers wont result in reduced strength of the plastic threads. Also designed my own cupholders that use 2 of the existing screw holes on the console's woodgrain panel our of ASA with negative holes in them to securely fit 2 TPU printed cupholders that can effectively be used as a coozie. fits up to a 20oz gatorade bottle in diameter. Still in the works include the speaker grills. The original style center dash speaker grill is too low to support my new speakers so ive taken appropriate measurements with digital calipers of the original and of my speakers already installed so i can design my own while(hopefully) retaining the original-ish look, and since it would be on the top of the dash, I may choose PAHT-CF so the summer heat even in florida wont cause it to warp. Also need to design speaker grilles for the kickpanel speakers as the last thing i want is to accidentally "kick" them and damage the speaker. In my head, Im thinking of using PPA-CF for those grilles since they will need to be pretty strong to survive being hit.
Anyway, thats my story, if any questions, feel free to ask!
The story of how i got my challenger was completely by accident and I wasnt even looking for a car project. It was June 2014, it had been a year since I had convinced my grandfather to finally start restoring his old 1950 ford f-3 pickup. it had been sitting for well over 30 years at this point and he had been talking about getting it running for ages, in 2013 i finally got through to him and we started taking it all apart. in 2014, as part of the restoration process of swapping in a ford 302 from his old 1990 mercury grand marquis, we needed an upgraded rear end, so we were checking out some junkyards around nebraska. We came across watt's in wymore, and right out front i saw some classic mopar, it looked good, but at the time i wasnt exactly sure which one it was. It definitely needed work but we took a look at it after searching for rear ends(to no avail) but while we were there we inquired how much he wanted for it. Turns out he was selling it for a friend who was wanting to restore it but then got a family. As a lowly college student, $4750 was a very steep price. So I would think about it overnight. After discussing it for awhile my grandfather said he would help me out if its something I really wanted. So we ended up getting it. At first the engine was a bit taken apart, and the interior was mostly taken apart as well. But i was able to replace the waterpump, spark plugs, battery, the carb, and install a temporary gas tank so i could crank it up to move it around the farm for repositioning and such. It came with a 318 v8 with a 941 auto transmission so not exactly anything to run home about, but it was an opportunity to make an r/t clone and as i have no desire to ever sell it, why not enjoy it to its fullest?
The following year i started taking it all apart down to the chassis so it can get cleaned up and repaired, then painted too.
by 2016 those 3 things had been completed and came time for reassembling the car But as i was still a student, i didn't have much funds, so the car was put into my grandfathers car garage on the farm, until i could get back to it. Fast forward finishing college, grad school, and my first job, my second job was far more profitable and i could finally start working on the car. it was 2022 and since i live in florida and the car is in nebraska, Ive only managed to go up there roughly 3 times a year one week at a time, so coupled with spending time with family, Ive also been working on the car myself. The car august 2016:
The end of the final vacation of 2023:
As of end of 2024:
And as of my first vacation trip this year from a couple weeks ago.
The goals in mind for this build were to drop in a 440 big block, originally planned to do 500 cid stroker kit but 440source ended up convincing me to do a 512 for the same price. Back in 2015, my grandfather had come across a guy that was selling a 440 and a 727 auto transmission out of his 72 chrysler imperial for $500 so thats what Im working on. I took apart the whole engine and last year i sent it and all the parts to assemble the engine to a machine shop since it will need some mods and I lack the tooling needed to do that. So far, everything else for assembling the vehicle has been done myself.
I have reused some of the original parts from the vehicle after restoring them. Clean them and remove as much rust as possible and painting. My favorite piece that i restored was the rear taillight assemblies. Did a bunch of research on how the R/T tailight panel looked like and i cleaned up mine, masked it as best as i could, and painted it and now cant even tell it was originally from a non-R/T car. well, to me at least. maybe yall will disagree haha
I have put on wilwood big 6 brakes up front, and wilwood dynalite 4 piston on the rear. Last year, i also found a shop that was taking a 72 challenger and upgrading the entire drivetrain to a hellcat config and just so happened that the original 8.75" rear end had everything i was wanting, a 489 third member housing, 3.55 gears, and a posi-traction too.
I got PST 1.03" torison bars, the k-member, upper/lower control arms are all QA1 tubular, also have adjustable qa1 shocks front and rear, hotchkiss rear springs. Originally got some original style magnums 15" for the front and rear but with the big brake calipers rubbing on the inside of the wheels, i ended up swapping them for 17" converted wheels from yearone.
Got a holley EFI gas tank to pair with the holley super sniper efi, got a dakota digital VHX digital rallye style gauges, got american autowire wiring harness kit to wire up the whole car, dapper lighting 575 LED low and high beam headlights with rgb halos. Converted the manual windows to nuRelics power windows. Aside from the driver side door window(which has a big scratch in the glass), i was able to clean up and reuse the original windows. Also got the vintageAir a/c kit. Also got a champion 4 core radiator that should handle the upgraded engine with ease. Given my audiophile background, Ive also put in an XSPower battery and plenty of 0 gauge cable so i can also do a big 3 upgrade since i do have a 300A alternator to go in here. Oh yea, i also have those dapper lighting rear sequential LED lights too.
I know for some doing electrical and wiring is complicated and such a pain, but to me theres something calming and enjoyable about it. I still need to get some proper cable loom wraps for the various wiring but that should be sometime this year though.
I have 3d printed some things for the challenger as well and some others that are currently in the works. First I didnt want to use a rare 4x10" speaker on the dash, saw how some people made their own adapters to fit dual 3.5" or dual 4" speakers so i got dimensions of the original speaker, and the dimensions of the rockford fosgate P142 speakers i wanted, and created a design that i sent a sample to the farm for my grandparents to take pics of it in place to see if i needed any adjustments, there were a couple but not much so i reprinted it in ASA-CF(or was it PAHT-CF? idr) and inserted brass inserts so screwing/unscrewing the speakers wont result in reduced strength of the plastic threads. Also designed my own cupholders that use 2 of the existing screw holes on the console's woodgrain panel our of ASA with negative holes in them to securely fit 2 TPU printed cupholders that can effectively be used as a coozie. fits up to a 20oz gatorade bottle in diameter. Still in the works include the speaker grills. The original style center dash speaker grill is too low to support my new speakers so ive taken appropriate measurements with digital calipers of the original and of my speakers already installed so i can design my own while(hopefully) retaining the original-ish look, and since it would be on the top of the dash, I may choose PAHT-CF so the summer heat even in florida wont cause it to warp. Also need to design speaker grilles for the kickpanel speakers as the last thing i want is to accidentally "kick" them and damage the speaker. In my head, Im thinking of using PPA-CF for those grilles since they will need to be pretty strong to survive being hit.
Anyway, thats my story, if any questions, feel free to ask!
