Mopar Magic

1971 Demon 340, 4 speed By: Keith Turner This car is owned by Bob Turner, and he purchased it back in 1992. He drove it for 3 years before deciding to give it a full makeover and parking it for a while. Before Bob, Rick Kraska had the car for 4 years, buying the car in the summer of 1988, he bought the car from Glen Harder, Glen had the car for just over 4 years and was bought with the motor in pieces. Glen bought the car after it sat for over 3 years without even being turned over. When the original owners son tried fired it, they noticed it had major piston slap so it was shut down and left to sit. The engine was pulled apart and left for another year. That's when Glen purchased the car. The car was originally a Lime Green car with the 340 and 3 sp. manual trans with floor shift with manual steering. The original owner had hood pins installed by the dealer (so we were told) but other than that it was a very plain car. After being hit in the front end in the late 70's it was painted yellow. The car stayed yellow until 1999 when the whole car was plasta beaded, and returned back to Lime green.

Body The first line of business was so strip the car down and get it ready to go to the plasta bead shop. Surprisingly the front fenders had very little rust on them, and the rear quarters were worse than we thought. After getting the car back we had noticed the drivers door was full of bondo and there was a little bondo in the back of the car above the rear bumper, but overall things looked pretty good. The body guy repaired the poor repair on the drivers door and straightened out the back section of the car, we had new lower rear quarters welded in a new spare tire well welded in. The fenders were painted off the car and the engine bay was stripped except for master cylinder and brake lines. AS we put the car back together with the hood it took a fare amount of work to line it all up as we took no measurements at all. Most parts went back on as they came off. The grill wasn't in bad shape so it went back on, the old paint was striped off the bezels and the rest of the front end pieces and just bolted back on. We are still looking for marker lights and drip rail chrome, and we have a new outside mirror on the way. We still need new rubber for the front inner fender shields, and inside door rubber that snaps to the door. Door frame rubber was all replaced with new, from Year One. Trunk rubber was bought from a local auto Store, not the best repo I've seen. The front and rear bumpers were straitened out and rechromed. New wiper arms from Laysons were installed. The tail lights were ok so they went back in. New hood pin's are on order as they were rusted and the gaskets are no good.

Suspension, Brakes and Steering.

After getting the car back from being painted all the suspension was pulled. The rear suspension was in excellent shape. The springs were sand blasted painted and new bushings were installed in the springs and hangers. The front end was another story. One lower arm was bent and the other one had the Sway bar bracket damaged and just about ripped off. Two used lower arms were bought but had no sway bar brackets, so the old ones were cut off the old arms, straightened up and welded on. The front K member was sand blasted and painted black, all old bushing were replaced with a ll new Polygraphite Suspension bushings from PST ( http://www.p-s-t.com/ ). New sway bar brackets were fabricated that bolt to the K-frame as one was gone and new end links were put in. The steering box was rebuilt with factory bearings and seals. We decided to replace the 10” drums with a disc brake conversion kit from SSBC ( http://www.mpbrakes.com ), this kit was picked because it has both the 4" & 4.5 " bolt pattern's. This is an excellent kit to install and is a very good dollar value. The rear drums were kept with a new brakes and hardware kit. All rubber brake hoses were replaced. The shocks we used were KYB units on all 4 corners. Ball joints and tie rod end, pitman arm and idler arm, were all new. And built with the K member out of the car.


Drive Train The factory 8 3/4 rear end was in very good shape. New seals and a coat of paint, is it all it needed. The 3:23 gear set was checked for wear and was retained. The old 3 sp. Transmission needed to be rebuilt, so we looked for a 4 sp.. We found a 74 A833, but also needed a rebuild, so a complete rebuild kit was installed and came from Brewers. A Mcleod clutch and pressure plate was used. The original 340 was already bored .030 and could not be cleaned up so we looked for another block, we found a 70 340 block with standard bore. That block was bored .020 cranked cleaned up .010 on mains and rods and rods were resized, and the whole package was balanced with the original flywheel. New cam bearings were also installed. The cam is a Comp cams .477 lift intake and .480 lift exhaust, and a new timing chain. The original 2.02 heads were sent in for a 3-angle valve job and new guides. The rest of the valve train was all new pieces with a set of roller rockers. The stock cast iron intake was used with a 750 Edelbrock carb. (We are hoping to go to fuel injection in the future). The exhaust is TTI headers with their complete 2.5” exhaust kit. This is a little pricey but well worth the money, if for anything the up front ground clearance. The exhaust kit was easy to install and a great fit. All new motor and tranny mounts were added to this. We also went with MP distributor electronic ignition, which had been previously added.

Wheels and Tires The original rims that came with the car were rally rims painted black with no beauty rings and one center cap missing. One of the rims was bent and could not be balanced. With this bent rim and one other that I had in the garage I decided to widen 2 of them to 7.5 inches wide. The front 2 rims were left original and then all 4 rims were sent out for a coat of argent silver. We put on radial TA's, 265-50R14's on the rear and 215-60R14's on the front. We will install stock beauty rims and 4 center caps.

Interior The interior was not in the best shape, the front seats were from a challenger and were poorly bolted in. The back seat was weathered right through on the top back. We tried to find front seats to match the rear seats, but no luck, Not even being able to find a complete interior that would work in good shape was impossible. Then we tried to find 70 or 71 front seats to recover but no luck, we found some 74 front bucket seats from a duster and with the original rear seat, they were sent out for reupholstering with Demon logo's on lime green and black outside. Bob did this design as he supplied the artwork for the Demon logo for the seats front and back. New carpet came from National Moparts ( http://www.nationalmoparts.com/ ) (as did all new bump stop kit and parcel shelf. New door panels and door lock buttons and sill plates were purchased from Layson's Restorations ( http://www.laysons.com/ ) as they were in the worst shape and we have a limited budget as Bob doesn't make enough money to replace all the worn peices! The rest of the interior went back together with the parts we received with the car, and a few better looking pieces from the auto wreckers.