Chrysler's racing history goes back many years.
The company's presence has been strongly felt in such categories as oval track racing (i.e. NASCAR), drag racing (i.e. NHRA) etc., but probably the most worthy of all these 'battlegrounds' was the street! Between the years of mid 1960's and mid 1970's, Chrysler was producing some of the quickest and most beautiful cars that could be found on the street. With motors like the 426 Hemi, big blocks like the 440 and even small blocks like the 340 or 360 cars like the Plymouth Barracuda, Dodge Duster and many others ruled the streets. My interest in these cars started about 10 years ago. It was a humble beginning by any standards. My first car was indeed a family owned 1978 Plymouth Caravelle. It was a 318 equipped sedan, factory fitted with economy oriented 2.76 open end rearend it wasn't quite the street killer I have often read about in Mopar magazines. Off I went trying to find out how to make this car quicker. After two summers of playing around with various part I finally put together a car that could be comfortably labelled a sleeper! It still had the original 318 engine...rebuilt, but this time with a few goodies like a 340 camshaft, street ported 360 heads. The compression was increased to 9.5:1 ratio, the rearend was swapped out in favour of an 8 1/4 unit. The car was much quicker, and surprised quite a few Chebbys and Camarinos. But I knew this wasn't to be the end of it all. A few years later I picked up a 1980 Plymouth Caravelle. This was a 2 door car, in quite a decent shape. A summer later I had a car which was just what I wanted it to be. Pretty much a sleeper, it lived up to what I expected from it. To the addition of being fast it also took me through almost 3 years of university. Mind you the money I had to spend on gas probably saved me from quite a few hangovers...ahh, those were the days. This car had a fresh 360 motor, a hot Crower cam (.497/.515 lift, 228/238 dur @ 0.050), a set of street ported 340 heads, Carter TQ 4 bbl carb (great carbs, you just gotta know how to tune one), Hooker headers, 2 1/2 exhaust. The powertrain chores where handled by a high stall custom built torque converter (approx. 2800 stall speed), a 727 with a shift kit, and finally a 9 3/4" SureGrip rearend with a set of 3.55 gears. Boy, that car sure could move! Best measurements indicated a 0-100KM times of around 6 sec. The 1/4 trip was never taken, but I suppose the time would be around 13 or 14 sec. mark.Anyways, that's my story, and following are a few links to some interesting places:
Mopar Mailing List
Mopar Action Magazine
High Performance Mopar Magazine
Chrysler Central
Also check out these pics... the history, the present and the feature of Chrysler vehicles...
If you have any questions please drop me a note and I'll try to help you out!