3rd Time's a Charm?

mopardog · Post by **mopardog** » Mon Jan 05, 2015 4:55 pm

Really love the way your car turned out! Breathtaking to say the least!!!! Congrats on a very successful trip to Vegas as well. Great how things like that work out.

phatdak18 · Post by **phatdak18** » Mon Jan 05, 2015 7:19 pm

Great job Magnes! awesome car!

Im digging that hood scoop, did i miss that part of the update? how did that come to be?

Magnes · Post by **Magnes** » Mon Jan 05, 2015 9:33 pm

Thanks fella's. I am sure proud of it. It really is a blessing to be able to bring a car like that back to life. I'm very thankful that there are resources like these forums that really help us do exactly that.

Phatdak18 - That little hood scoop is a place holder for the time being. Eventually it will be replaced by an Air Grabber setup, but I didn't want to spend over $1000 on an Air Grabber right off the bat when I had so many other things to do to the car. It was also my way for me to pay homage to my 1st Plymouth. My 1st 72 SSP had that very same scoop on it, installed by a previous owner at some point. Unfortunately, that car was wrecked out by a careless driver so I figured out what the scoop had originally come off of (see the link below) and I bought one and installed it like that for now.... I've caught a little flak over using it on a Mopar, because it is, afterall, a Ford part. You can find them on 79-82 Mustangs.

http://www.forbbodiesonly.com/moparforu ... hood+scoop

They are inexpensive. I bought that one off ebay for I think $65. They are well made, not some cheap O' floppy double stick tape on scoop. They actually fit the Satellite hood perfectly. The curve of the louvers near the windshield cowl matches exactly as does the curve of the bottom edge of the scoop to the hood itself. Simply swapping out the mounting hardware with longer bolts allows it to bolt right up to the hood.

phatdak18 · Post by **phatdak18** » Tue Jan 06, 2015 6:28 am

Even if its a ford part...i think its cool as hell. way to think outside the box! It looks good in my opinion, not too obnoxious or oversized, it fits perfect and doesnt look cheap either like something youd buy from autozone with the double sided tape haha. Although the air grabber is preferable, id have to say this is better than the call-out style hoods. again great job!

Magnes · Post by **Magnes** » Wed Jan 07, 2015 10:24 pm

Thanks Phatdak18.

We pulled the hood off today. 318 and 904 coming out this weekend. Ordered another grand worth of goodies today. Basically, everything under the hood will be new when the 440 and 727 go in.

Anyway, I took the opportunity to shoot a pic of that hood scoop for you to see a bit better Phatdak18.

You can see what I mean about how it really does match the shape of the hood quite well... Even down to the curve of the louvered section. Please excuse the bad lighting and fingerprint smudges...

phatdak18 · Post by **phatdak18** » Sun Jan 11, 2015 7:32 pm

AWESOME!

Magnes · Post by **Magnes** » Tue Jan 13, 2015 1:47 am

Due to the lack of inspection and registration, I figured the safest bet would be to have the car towed the 2 miles to my buddy's shop. Who needs a load of tickets right off the bat, right? Anyway, I followed the tow truck down there in my 77 Ramcharger and man o man... This car is an attention whore. Seriously, everyone who was outside or driving around us on the way was staring at the old girl.

We snatched out the 904 and the 318. I brought them home and put them in storage. They still were working just fine, but after 43 years they deserve retirement. I will keep them for use should I ever decide to restore the car back to original.

The new engine is almost ready to go.

I bought this 440 from my friend who owns that shop. Another customer had brought in his 69 Charger and it had this engine that had less than 5000 miles on it since it was built. He wanted a year correct 440 in his Charger, so I was able to pick this one up for less than the cost of the porting and polishing on the heads.

We tore it down and sent it out for resurfacing, a valve job, and new guides. It's a 440 punched 30 over and has the 906 heads, ported and polished. We replaced all the "wear" parts. It's got solid lifters, roller cam. I'm hoping these headers will work because we got a great deal on them. We were just test fitting some of the parts that came in today.

Tomorrow we are supposed to install the oil pump and prime it. Then we can start buttoning it up.

The transmission is in and done. Of course it's a 727 and we had it built by another local shop that knows their way around an old Torqueflight. It has a shift kit and should work just fine with what we have here.

I took some time to clean the engine bay today and pull out a lot of the stuff we won't be re-using. Basically, everything except the battery, wiring, and the brake lines is getting replaced under the hood since this car WILL be driven regularly and I'd like to be able to take it anywhere with as few worries as possible.

It's not going to be a street rod, or drag car... It's going to be a cruiser and as it is, I think this 440/727 is going to be a night and day improvement over the tired 318/904 that it's had for so many years.

I'm very excited to see the project coming to a close. I'm hoping she'll be done just in time for all the Spring shows and meets. I'm chomping at the bit but we still have some work to do.

Magnes · Post by **Magnes** » Sat Jan 17, 2015 3:08 pm

Slowly but surely. Engine and trans are mocked up in place. I spent the week helping out around his shop. The regular joes who need their cars to get back and forth to work come first, then we work on my car as "fill in" work.

I used his lift to clean the bottom of the car, shoot some new undercoat, and finish the spray-bombing of the firewall. Yeah it's not correct but it's clean. It'll be fine.

Surprise, surprise, those headers didn't work. We ordered some others that supposedly will. If they don't, my buddy has a set of HP manifolds he will (reluctantly) sell me. We will see how it goes next week.

Magnes · Post by **Magnes** » Wed Jan 28, 2015 8:45 pm

Well, we test fired the engine today and it fired right up. We only let it run a few seconds just to make sure we had everything right.

Tomorrow I will finish the cooling system and we can break it in.

I got the Champion 4 core aluminum 26" radiator. I also got the aluminum shroud, 2 12" fans, stainless overflow, and the relay/sensor switch so the fans will kick on and off automatically. Seems like a pretty good system. I'm going to also have an override switch that I can turn them on manually if for some reason I need to.

The original headers I had didn't work out so I ordered some ceramic coated ones from Jeg's and they fit great. They slipped right in and only required 1 or 2 nudges with the pry bar to give them a little wiggle room in the engine compartment. Replacing a bad starter may be a bit of a bitch in the future but hey... You do what you got to do.

Everything under the hood is new now. We didn't go cheap at all, lol. It was a bit of a pain to figure out which pulleys and brackets to use but everything lines right up now.

If everything goes right tomorrow, I think all that will be left is taking the car down to the muffler shop and have them run some pipes and flowmasters.

I am anxious to get it done. Can't wait to run it down the road.

Magnes · Post by **Magnes** » Sat Jan 31, 2015 12:01 am

So today was a busy one. I should say that the last 3 weeks have ALL been exceptionally busy days but today was even more so.

We got everything about wrapped up. Ran the break in procedure. Car runs excellent. We have to pull the valve covers on Monday and adjust the lash again now that it has heated up and cooled down. I loaded the car and took it to a local shop and had them run some pipes for the rest of the exhaust. I went with Flowmasters, 2.5 inch from headers to mufflers and 2.25 inch from mufflers to the machine gun tips. I'm happy with the sound and the look.

I'm quite tired and looking forward to a couple days of rest this weekend. Here's some pics and a couple vids from today. And yes, there's still a few small bugs to work out but it's close...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRXYEXUi-MM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cysnCSchRg

KentuckyBlueBird · Post by **KentuckyBlueBird** » Sat Jan 31, 2015 9:13 am

Great looking and sounding car Magnes! It sounds really mean in your YouTube videos. You done very well on your build, I love that color. Congrats man!!

Magnes · Post by **Magnes** » Sun Feb 01, 2015 7:49 pm

Thank you KentuckyBlueBird.

ct71rr · Post by **ct71rr** » Mon Feb 02, 2015 3:21 pm

Magnes, that sounds really good! You can't beat the sound from Flowmasters. I had them on a '73 Charger that had a 440 in it and it sounded like THUNDER!! Beautiful car

Magnes · Post by **Magnes** » Sat Feb 07, 2015 10:55 pm

Well, other than minor detailing, it is finished.

It runs great, drives great, looks good. I'm happy with it.

I had it appraised by a well known appraiser in Houston and he classified it as "excellent, near show car quality" and then showed me the few things it needed to be raised to the top tier "show car" standard. Simple stuff. The car wasn't clean when he looked at it (because it had rained and we had JUST finished the engine tuning) so just detailing it out and repainting the inside of the trunk floor would raise it's value a bit more. As is, even being a 1972 Plymouth Satellite Sebring Plus / Road Runner "clone", he said $41,750 which was surprising to me. The value isn't necessarily based on what it will sell for, instead it is based on what it would cost to build another one of this quality with these options. It's really just for insurance purposes.

Letting this shop build my engine turned out to be the best thing possible. I got my foot in the door. With the owner seeing my work and my drive to get work done, he has me to finishing some cars for him. I am working on a 70 Challenger convertible 340 4-speed car now as well as a 69 Super Bee convertible clone car. There are others waiting including his personal 70 TA Challenger clone and a real deal 70 AAR Cuda.

Anyway, I suppose I will quit posting on this thread now. I appreciate you guys for following along with the build. It's hard to believe the car has come this far in 10 months but it just goes to show what is possible if you really set your mind to it. I'll be keeping my car for a long time. I really love it.

So as it turns out, the 3rd time really is a charm.

harpo57 · Post by **harpo57** » Sun Feb 08, 2015 2:37 am

wow great find! I am jealous also. Being an owner of the exact same car it makes me sad to see or hear of the loss of an original model like this.I don't mind it so bad if the car is a basket case whose condition is so bad the loss of an original is not of such great value.if one looks at the production numbers of the satellite and Roadrunner the number of 72 SSP's produced makes it a pretty rare car. I feel it would be a shame to lose such a good example of this model.

if you do decide to clone it may I have first dibs on the aluminum side trim?.edit update oops my bad! Lol I jumped in on this thread from the first page and didn't realize there was more to the story. My apologies. Congratulations on a nice build that does look nice. Still my question stands.. dibs on the aluminum side trim? I sure could use some to help the restoration of my ssp. Thank you.

Road Runner Nest

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