The Dodge Challenger Message Board

Well, my 2-1/2 year resto finally ended on the 23rd of December 05.
Here are some snap shots of the final product.

I took her up north for a 2000km (1,200-miles) road trip.
Not a single problem, ran hard and true and drove like a modern sports car.



Cheers,
NZ440R/T

Man she looks the dogs dangling bits. I bet you are over the moon with it eh?

Very very nice.

WOW, WOW and WOW
She is BEAUUUTIFUL.
I don't know why but I LOVE your Cha.

And those pictures... ...we need more.

Do you have bigger pic's? At least 1024 x 768 pixels?
Please mail them to me, please pj@hot.ee

And of course congrats.

Congrats! It truly is a beauty, the pay off for hard work and dedication.

NZ440R/T wrote::mrgreen:


Well, my 2-1/2 year resto finally ended on the 23rd of December 05.
Here are some snap shots of the final product.

That looks really sweet. I just hope mine will come out looking that clean. The more I see white Challies with R/T hoods, the more I think they look good. I definitely have to find a way to make those damn Indy heads and intake fit under the stock hood (I hate my black glass hood)...

Lucky fellow! It looks just Enjoy!

Congratulations mate, she looks stunning!
Nice to hear you are going to drive her instead of locking her away in a garage like some would do!

In the immortal words of the great Eric Cartman...sweet.

Man she looks good ,nice job love the pics

Thanks lads, yip, I'm over the moon. First week I was in shock more than anything else. All the photos of complete cars in the world have nothing on actually having the car in your garage. Took a while but well worth the money, time and stress....she'll be driven when I get the chance, every day if needs be, doesn't bother me. She was built to drive.

PaRoDy - I will email you bigger photos. Hope they don't clog up your inbox!


Cheers everyone.

Great job!

That looks stunning!

Congratulations.

Nice looking!

NNZ440

Amazing. I want to redo mine in white now! A friend of mine completed a 69 barracuda in white and I loved it – So I've been watching your progress closely - which I've most enjoyed, thanks. Very, Very sharp. Noticed you went back to the rallyes - looks great. (I like the dogs equally though- so keep'em around. for the odd show) glad to hear you'll be showing it off. Even though a have a chally, I'd still shit with excitement if I saw yours coming down the road.

I'll be saying buy to my tire combo this summer. If you dont mind, could you give me your rear combo. I'm guessing 295' 15 50's on 8"rim w/4.5" backspacing. Please clarify if wrong, as I want to hit the stance the first time. I gues I'm asking if you have custom backspacing beyond the 4.5 norm. Did you use the offset shackles with different springs?

Sorry, but I will be copying your stance to the ‘T’.

Awesome!

Brant wrote:NNZ440

Amazing. I want to redo mine in white now! A friend of mine completed a 69 barracuda in white and I loved it – So I've been watching your progress closely - which I've most enjoyed, thanks. Very, Very sharp. Noticed you went back to the rallyes - looks great. (I like the dogs equally though- so keep'em around. for the odd show) glad to hear you'll be showing it off. Even though a have a chally, I'd still shit with excitement if I saw yours coming down the road.

I'll be saying buy to my tire combo this summer. If you dont mind, could you give me your rear combo. I'm guessing 295' 15 50's on 8"rim w/4.5" backspacing. Please clarify if wrong, as I want to hit the stance the first time. I gues I'm asking if you have custom backspacing beyond the 4.5 norm. Did you use the offset shackles with different springs?

Sorry, but I will be copying your stance to the ‘T’.

Awesome!

Thanks mate, very kind of you to say.
Copy my stance? It's not mine so Sure! Also, it's a sign of flattery. lol


Rear Tires = 275/60 BFGoodrich Radial T/A's on a 15x8" rim. 4-1/2" backspacing.
Front Tires = 245/60 BFGoodrich Radial T/A's on a 15x7" rim. 4-1/2" backspacing.


The Rallye wheels were purchased from Jegs and are the 56 series wheel.
Stock trim rings work on the 7" wheel but on the 8" wheel leave a 1" gap.
Nothing major and from more than 1-2ft away most people over look it. Could you tell?

The set-up is stock. No springs, no relocation kits.
I did however upgrade my shocks to Edelbrock IAS Performers.
A fantastic shock, firm and with about 1/2" of movement with human manual load on it and it's still very comfy.

Yip, I still have the 4 cop rims in storage for when I want to change the style a little.
Only problem was there backspacing was well off and could only fit a 245/60 as a maximum limit.

Hope that helps, and make sure you post photos once your done.
Don't know about the rest of the board but I'm crazy for eye candy!


Cheers,
Carl
NZ440R/T


PS: I have attached some photos including a close up of the 15x8" rear rallye wheel with the 1" gap, very minimal as I stated.

NZ440

can't thanks you enough. It's great to hear i can acheive that look, as I'm running 275 and 245's already. I think it's because my rear is a 7 inch which bulges the tire and looks odd. yours looks perfect. I'm saving the money as we speak.

thanks a million for posting the additional pics, and no, I can't tell about the trim ring thing. Do you have another post of your history with the car? Love to read more about it. What all was done to the engine, mods etc?

cheers

Also noticed your running different head lamps - please school me on your decision. Do they work better?

brant

Hey Brant,


Glad I could help mate! As far as the headlights go I am not 100% sure, I haven't even driven the Challenger at night. lol They were installed by me resto mechanic and were told they are great. I'll try and get info on them for you.

For more info on my ride check out my website: www.nz440rt.com
It's got everything from how I got it, before resto photos, during and HEAPS of photos + the engine build and spec sheet including what was involved with the rebuild.

Can't wait to see your ride mate sounds good.
Don't forget to post photos when your done!!!


Cheers,
Carl
NZ440R/T

What a great looking Challenger, reminds me of The Vanishig Point movie.

Thanks mate.

looks very, very nice !

i thought mine was clean untill i saw yours... congratulations on the resto-job !

Looks fine, I like this color a lot, but at least we decided in family plum crazy purple.
It's clean, wonderful.

Very nice job! I was too busy working to be active on the board when the pics first came out..... sorry about that - didn't mean to ignore all your fine work.

JackT wrote:Very nice job! I was too busy working to be active on the board when the pics first came out..... sorry about that - didn't mean to ignore all your fine work.

lol!! It's all good mate, thanks for the compliments guys.

Just installed a Gear Vendors OD unit and we are testing it today.
We got the autoshift unit, no need to out-shift the OD as this does it automactially. I've learnt a hell of a lot about the unit, so this was a good moderation for me. 6 gears, no dipping and lagging trying to turn OD off....smooth shifts, should be a blast!!!!!


Cheers,
Carl
NZ440R/T

Looks great, congrats on the restoration job! And very nice pictures you've got there.

Thanks mate. I think I've seen you at cuda-challenger.com too.

NZ440R/T wrote:Thanks mate. I think I've seen you at cuda-challenger.com too.

Correct. I'm new into E-bodies and have signed up at several boards. I'm kind of monitoring the activity on these. I think at the E-body web board (http://www.transamcuda.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl there isn't much traffic ongoing. I like this Challenger-board very much and have found a lot of useful information here. And quick answers to my questions. Anyway, it is also fun reading at the American's Cuda-Challenger.com, always lot of new threads and nice pics in there.

See ya around,
Roar

babyelephant wrote:

NZ440R/T wrote:Thanks mate. I think I've seen you at cuda-challenger.com too.

Correct. I'm new into E-bodies and have signed up at several boards. I'm kind of monitoring the activity on these. I think at the E-body web board (http://www.transamcuda.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl there isn't much traffic ongoing. I like this Challenger-board very much and have found a lot of useful information here. And quick answers to my questions. Anyway, it is also fun reading at the American's Cuda-Challenger.com, always lot of new threads and nice pics in there.

See ya around,
Roar

Yip, cuda-challenger IMO is one of the best forum boards around.

Where would we be without computers eh!!
Ordering parts would become a hassle. lol

Cheers and see you around.


Carl
NZ440R/T
www.nz440rt.com

So how have you found the Gear Vendors overdrive?

And what is this about auto out-shifting? I have to manually switch mine off and on to get all six gears.

dave-r wrote:So how have you found the Gear Vendors overdrive?

And what is this about auto out-shifting? I have to manually switch mine off and on to get all six gears.

Which is what I was asking you about in the email and how hard it was etc but little info was given just that I shouldn't try it.


It's great from what I've seen and driven so far 2 test drives under the belt.

The autoshift sequencer is another module that replaces the entire module set up in the stock GV unit. We found out the hard way, got the new autoshift sequencer and had to take the stock one (we just put in) out!
It's a $450 extra cost option that's very new and basically prototype.

It has no auto mode. So you drive in [D] when you're ready and it's above 25mph hit the footswitch to shift to OD.
Still maintains the autolaunch option by clicking the OD switch early it shifts to 1st-Over for you.
To bang through the gears, select 1st and do as normal hitting the switch to select the non-existing gears but it has HUGE advantage of not having to manually out-shift once the car is shifted into it's existing gears. The autoshift sequencer reads off your tach (unlike the stock unit reading from the speedo) and the split second between the shift it kicks out. It has a tiny linkage that's connected to the existing shift rods and it also watches the rpms and when they drop. It works awesome! and shifts super hard. We had all 6 gears shifting under 3/4-full throttle fast, hard and crisp.

It's basically like the shift into the #-Over shift through all 6 gears.
Highly recommend it. The only thing you can use in your stock module system if you purchase the autoshift sequencer is the footswtich everything else needs to be changed.

There is no auto/manual switch just a red and green light to let you know if your in or out of overdrive. We made a small custom bracket that sits right in the right hand upper corner of the dash pad above the rallye cluster that's curved and shaped to fit that houses the red/green lights, it's tiny, only about 5-7cm.

Only shame was my resto team had spent a bit of time making a bracket for the auto/manual switch so it sat flush on the console top plate. Looked awesome and sat behind the slap-stik shifter....so that became obsolete when we changed. Had to but a new top plate and decal.

We also put a red boot (same color as the red in the "R/T") around my foot switch to signify that it's important or the "GO!!" button. Hope that helps......would have been good to get some more in depth answer to my question but never mind worked out well in the end.

Cheers,
Carl
NZ440R/T

Carl. You are being a bit unfair to me here.

I explained twice how it shifts up and down. I described how you switch it on at the top of a gear and then shift and have to switch it off as you shift. I listed each gear and explained the sequence. I pointed you to a video of me shifting like that and also pointed you to the HUGE multiple thread on how to fit one and the problems I encountered on the way. This also contains the details on how it shifts.

How "in depth" do you need?

I also explained two or three times that I don't use these fancy shifts around town because I just don't see the point of screaming through 6 gears up to 145mph in a 540hp car around a city center. I did answer you question about "how hard it is" etc. I told you my feelings about its use. I can't tell how difficult you would find it. Which is why I suggested you try it and see.

I certainly didn't say you shouldn't try it. I said I don't use it myself as i find that with 4.30:1 rear gears I only need to use the overdrive facility while in top gear.

I don't know what more I could have told you. The best way to understand the operation of this thing is to try it. That was what I was trying to get across to you.

I had never heard of this auto out-shift until you slipped in a mention of it before.
So the system you have bought is NOTHING LIKE the stock system I am using anyway!

Carl I go well out of my way to help as many people as I possibly can. To suggest that I may have been unhelpful is an insult. I don't have people restoring cars for me. I don't have people fitting parts for me. I have to do it all myself. On my own. After work. As many others here do. On top of that I travel around the country helping others less experienced to sort out the problems on their cars.

I don't have people to ask questions of. I don't often feel the need to. In my case I just bought the GV unit, fitted it, and drove it. I then wrote a detailed account of how to do it and the possible problems.

How much more can I do?