[treessavoy]

Originally Posted by Alex Denysenko

I have been reading this thread with great interest on and off over the last few month's and thought that I may share some information that may be relevant.
Many years ago I owned a total of seven 273 powered early A body cars.
5 Barracudas, 1 Valient Signet, and 1 Dart GT.
Those of you that know me well and know where I worked in the early 70's might understand why a died in the wool FoMoCo guy may have had 7 of these little Mopars.

1 64 Barracuda 273 2V 180 HP 4 speed
2 65 Barracuda Formula S 273 235 4 speed
1 66 Barracuda Formula S 273 235 automatic
1 66 Barracuda Formula S 273 235 4 speed
1 66 Valient Signet 2 door hdt 273 235 4 speed
1 65 Dart GT 2 door hdt 273 235 4 speed

Everyone was a trade in on a new or used car and purchased wholesale by me from the used car manager. At the time they were basically worthless in the normal used car market place.
At one time or another I had the oppertunity to work on dozens of early A body cars at the dealership and I recall very well what equipment they came with. Especially since I wound up buying so many to screw around with, fix up, and eventually re-sell.

The 64 Barracuda had a 7.25 Spicer rear end (3.23 posi), 9 inch brakes with 5 on 4 inch bolt pattern, and a factory Hurst shifter.
Shifter was skinny round stock with a flat that had Hurst stamped in it.
64 car was the only one with 13 inch wheels. Widest 13 inch tire I could find was a D-70-13.
64 2V car also had a 9 inch clutch which lasted about ten holeshots.
All the 65 cars had the same factory installed Hurst shifters, 10 inch brakes with 5 on 4 inch pattern hubs, and 7.25 Spicer rear ends.
66 cars also all had 7.25 rear ends and ten inch brakes.
The 66 automatic Barracuda had optional Budd front disc brakes. Very rare as I recall.
Both the 4 speed 66 Barracuda and Valient had Inland shifters with reverse lock out.
I don't know about the "D" dart, but I have never seen a 8.75 in any "A" body prior to 1967 and back then I was under litterally hundreds of them.
Every one that I owned came with a 3.23 posi and I installed a Mopar 3.91 gear in all of them.
My cost was about $46 for the ring and pinion as I recall.
All the 65-66 cars had 14 inch wheels.
All of the 4V cars had the same large diameter single exhaust with one Hemi style muffler and a square tip resonator. I converted most to duals and used two of the resonators.
Looked very cool at the time.
All the 4V cars had black crinkle finish valve covers.
All the 4V stick cars had dual point distributors and the automatic had a single point.
All the 4V cars had worthless factory tachs (typical of Mopar)
The Dart GT and Valient had 273 FOUR BARREL emblems on the fenders.
Barracudas only had Formula S emblems and some had a single triple racing stripe down the center of the car.
Also the Plymouths all had the same simulated mag stylish wheel covers with long chrome lug nuts that protruded through holes in the wheel covers. Both 13 and 14 inch versions.
Dart had some sort of spinner full wheel cover with a Dodge tri bar emblem as I recall.
With 3.91 gears, a good chassis dyno tune, valve adjustment, wider than stock tires, 2 inch open lake pipes (dumps), air cleaner removed the sticks could run high to mid 14's on a good day.
Automatic low 15's.
The Valient was probably the most rare and coolest of the bunch. It was also the quickest and made the most money street racing.
2V car could not get out of the 17's and that was with a gear.
I bought all these cars very cheap, did a little work on them, had some fun at US 30, then sold them all when I was through for a nice profit.
On a final note, back in the parts dept. on a shelf for the longest time was a large box that had a Chrysler part number on it but was hand marked "D/S" Dart.
The parts manager had tried to sell it to me cheap several times but I always declined as I wasn't about to invest any of my Mustang race car money into one of these Mopars.
I was told that it came from Chrysler several years prior for one of the dealer team cars, but it had been sold before the kit came in. I can only assume that it they received a D Dart but never had any interest in campaining it.

What was in it you all are asking youselves?

A aluminum intake with 2 AFB's, air cleaners and linkage.

In late '65 and '66 Chrysler was pushing racers to spread out to other classes and one of the classes was modified production and FX. Koffel was paid to put a 273 in his A990 car and given the two four barrel manifold and carbs in order to run C/FX. The car ran well.

JimR