10th Oct 2009, 23:52

I can't believe you're complaining about exhaust smell and the car not being as rigid as a framed car; it's a convertible and unibody. Take your 69 and put it up against a 440 6 pack Cuda, or better yet how about the 68 426 hemi Barracuda. After all, we are talking about muscle cars here.

This has to be a joke to get Mopar fans going. If it's not then horse power to weight is the name of the game, not how low your decibel meter goes in the car at idle. And further more, at the time E bodies came off the production line, even the builders didn't brag about the quality of craftsmanship, they built unibody cars lighter for HP-lbs with a wide range of engines; the 340 being one of the smallest, so if you're going to compare a 396 Big Block to the 2nd smallest V8 that Plymouth offered at that time, obviously you would lean towards the Chevelle.

Maybe you should have rethought your purchase before stopping somebody from buying their dream car. Not me however, I have a 1973 Barracuda with a B 383 that would eat your old Chevelle for breakfast. It's lighter and I'm carrying plenty of cubes to take care of business on the street, taking down almost every Chevy I've ever raced.

19th Oct 2009, 11:27

Actually the '71 340 was no slouch. It was a match for the stock 383, and would have given the 396 a good run for its money. The 340 was so much more than just the 2nd smallest V-8 that Mopar made. In reality, of course, there was the 273, then the 318, and then the 340. But at stock with 10.5:1 compression pistons, free flowing exhaust manifolds that were nearly headers, and the big Carter 4-barrel, there is a reason why the 340 was called the poor man's hemi. In the stock power hierarchy, the 340 is probably above the 383 and surely above the 400. Of course all that changed in '72 when the compression ratios dropped. On the other hand, the electronic ignition was a huge improvement over the old point distributors.

20th Oct 2009, 08:51

I think the stock '71 340 would take your stock '60s 383. Once you depart from stock, there's no telling what would happen. Maybe a stock 340 would not catch you, and yet a nitrous 4-cylinder would. There is always somebody faster. Always.

20th Oct 2009, 08:53

"P.S. Ain't no stock 340 gonna catch me!"

Wanna find out?

20th Oct 2009, 14:00

17:50 continued;

The 340 made the car that much lighter, and in turn made made the car better on the road, more nimble and the same car with a bigger engine would take that much more time to stop as well, so the big block cars were slightly harder on the brakes, and would have had a hard time beating a finely tuned AAR or 340 6pack Challenger in an open road race.

340s are getting more and more scarce. I've heard plenty of stories about people wrecking their 340 Dusters or Cudas beyond repair. I'd love to have a Duster or a Demon with a 340.

So I guess my car with a 340 could beat my car with a 383 depending on the type of race. I withdraw the post statement from my last comment.

There is no comparison as far as torque though so if the two had the same hp rating in whatever setup I'm sure big block would do just fine.

21st Oct 2009, 10:42

My Mopars were honestly prone to rust heavily, had electrical issues and body hardware issues as well. I sometimes forget the issues and had them. I am sure they are restored better than the factory built them today and garaged.

21st Oct 2009, 11:17

I haven't had any electrical issues with my '73 Charger or '71 Barracuda, although the Barracuda did get the typical rusting out of the rear deck underneath the vinyl top, and a bit of rust cropping up near the windshield wiper motor in the firewall. Odd place, I don't really understand it.

Sometimes I think that when Chrysler made those cars, they didn't realize what classics they would become. I had a '67 Chrysler that did have some electrical problems, but that was the only of my dozen or so Mopars from models 1964-1985 that did that.

21st Oct 2009, 11:36

"10:42"

No kidding their prone to rust. That's the main reason mine came of the road a few years back and is in the process of being restored. Somebody side swiped the rear passenger 1/4 panel, and instead of fixing it properly, they just mixed up a gallon of bondo and slapped it in the dent without straightening the panel. People like that shouldn't even be allowed to look at such a car. They didn't use an adhesion promoter, nor did they use a primer surfacer. I'm sick of looking at the job's performed by these idiots. I wish the people who originally fixed my Barracuda would have taken some pride in their work instead of defacing an art form.

21st Oct 2009, 13:06

Considering my review turned into a big steaming piece of crap on the ground. Does anyone have any experience with having their dash redone? I'm kind of afraid of sending it away. I don't want it to come back less than acceptable. The gear vendor over drive is intriguing as well, so that the BB isn't turning at a c hair under 3 grand on the highway. Any experience that will shed some light on my situation would be much appreciated.

22nd Oct 2009, 11:36

Oh, don't be so hard on yourself about your review (the '73 Barracuda, right?). I thought it was a good review, too bad it got hijacked by the street racing diatribe. I own a '71 Barracuda and have not seen any activity on these Barracuda discussions for years, so I for one am glad that at least somebody is writing about them. Oddly enough, there aren't many muscle car posts on this site -- for instance the Roadrunner posts by people that don't actually own a real Roadrunner.

23rd Oct 2009, 12:16

"8:51"

There is always someone faster than you on any given day.

This one time at the strip there was a Duster that could flat out just fly! It was eating up the competition including a late 60's Camaro with a blower. It made 8 sec flat 1/8 miles look pedestrian. The car wasn't even close to stock though it was tubbed, with huge wide tires and had everything stripped that could be, inner fenders, seats etc...

The car probably weighed under 2700 lbs with the driver.

24th Oct 2009, 21:58

My '71 is the "Knee Shaking Performance" review, although it wasn't much of a review.

Honestly, I absolutely love that idea of the instrument cluster bulbs under the dashboard where you can reach them! I wrote more description of my car as the first comment on the "Hot Wheels" review of another '71 Barracuda. Like I said there, back when I first got the car, when I was 19-20 (22 years ago!), I was a bit harder on it and topped it out probably around 150 on lonely country straightaways, but doggone it, there was nobody to race when I wanted to at that age! My friend had a '67 Camaro with a 350, and he disappeared in my rear view mirror pretty quickly. It was fun to just have the two cars sitting together, though, in 1991. But then as I got older, I realized that it's an old, relatively rare and valuable car that to me would be irreplaceable, and I wasn't going to waste my time racing every kid that thought a fart-can muffler on his '87 Honda Civic added 5,000 horsepower. So now, it's the 45 mph backroad cruising car, just fun to listen to the engine burble. Well, once in a while I still blow the stale gas out of the back barrels...