The latest Challenge

I've been waiting till this summer to buy another car. I drive a very worn out 94 Civic which is super reliable & gets great gas mileage, but it's just a way to get me from point A to point B. I was deciding between a 5th generation Honda Prelude, a classic Chevy truck (48-54) or a muscle car and decided that the time is now for me to get my muscle car! I found a mopar that I've always liked, and while it may have been a little over priced, these classics are only getting more expensive all the time. Here's my 1972 Dodge Challenger:



First thing I need to do is get an air cleaner onto the engine. The previous owner changed the engine to a big block 440 with a taller intake manifold that leaves only about 1 inch of room between the carburetor and the hood, so I either need an air cleaner that drops over the carb, or I need a hood with more space - I decided to make an air cleaner. I may eventually modify the hood with a subtle cowl induction, but for now an air cleaner is a lot easier. K&N makes a large enough round filter that it drops around the entire carburetor and the throttle linkage, all I need to do is relocate the coil, change some of the bracketry, and make a new throttle cable mount.

We finished the molds yesterday. Here's a nice picture of them installed in a line of presses. It took a little longer than I had hoped, but not too long considering the additional requirements that were added & the other interuptions that stole time away from this project.
I look forward to the day when I see one of these delineator bases out in "the real world"!

Production is underway at my day job on the 20 mold project. My department had a small personnel problem, and a 3 day equipment break-down. Those 2 things put us a little behind schedule but we'll soon recover. One aspect of the design is still up in the air, and that is which air poppets we will use to blow the part out of the mold. The main trouble is the poppets are steel & the molds are aluminum, the aluminum operates at an elevated temperature which makes the aluminum expand. When the air blast is blown through the poppet, the steel poppet cools and contracts and the poppet comes out of the mold. To make a long story short; I may end up designing my own air poppet to best fit our application, depends on what the president opts for.

Production is underway at my day job on the 20 mold project. My department had a small personel problem, and a 3 day equipment break-down. Those 2 things put us a little behind scheduel but we'll soon recover.  One aspect of the design is still up in the air, and that is which air poppets we will use to blow the part out of the mold.  The main trouble is the poppets are steel & the molds are aluminum, the aluminum operates at an elevated temperature which makes the aluminum expand. When the air blast is blown through the poppet, the steel poppet cools and contracts and the poppet comes out of the mold. To make a long story short; I may end up designing my own air poppet to best fit our application, depends on what the president opts for.