Buckminsters '73 Challenger

Just updated the steering box by having it redone at Steer and Gear. I also had them send along the RT fast ratio pitman and idler arm. I am very happy I made the choice to do this. I had them create the stiff feedback box. No play, great feel, quick ratio. Drives like a modern car now. I had to make some dimples in my hooker headers to get it to clear the nut on the pitman arm just for reference.

Just finished making a custom center console. Pictures show day mode and night mode. Made from fiberglass, aluminum, acrylic (for the LED's). The LED lights have a pulse width modulated power convertor so they can be dimmed to almost dark so that it is not too bright for night driving. The center console with arm rest was also made by me custom made to house a fire extinguisher. The console has a USB charger lighted cupholders lighted phone slot, and custom shift cover.

Updated wheels and tires from:
Front: 14 X 6 with 195/60-14 tires Now: 17 X 8 with 245/40-17 Firestone Indy 500's
Rear: 14 X 6 with 225/60-14 rires Now: 17 X 10 with 275/40-17 Firestone Indy 500's

I decided to upgrade my 14" wheels and tires to a set of 17" wheels and tires. 17 X 8 up front with 245/40-17 tires and 17 X 10 in back with 275/40-17 tires. Yes, I did relocate the rear spring perches (again with help from this forum).

My car was always pretty squirrelly, so I was nervous about going to lower profile tires without addressing the handling, steering vagueness, etc. of the original setup. So here is the list of mods and the results to date.

The first thing I did was to upgrade the steering assembly by rebuilding it and adding the bearing at the engine compartment side. (thanks to you members for suggesting that upgrade). Then I had my steering box rebuilt by Stear and Gear to the R/T spec with the firm feel setup. They did a fantastic job. I also added the longer idler arm. I purchased it from Stear and Gear. Thanks again to them for guiding me through this process.

Lastly, after much debate and looking at the many options out there I decided to upgrade to the QA-1 upper control arms with the thought that if this didn't get me to the feel and handling I was looking for, I could always upgrade to the option from a well known suspension tuner that included the bump steer correction (upper control arm, with front pivot point relocating bracket, corrected tie rod links, etc.). I did some calculations to see what modifications would be required if I were to make upper control arms myself (yes, I have this capability), but after doing the calculations and looking at the price of the components, it made sense to buy arms with the relocated ball joint to compensate for the camber/caster changes that would make the car drive more like a modern vehicle. Thanks for the post from CudaRagTop. I've seen it in other posts, so if you are the original creator, please accept my apologies. Thanks to CudaRagTop for posting nonetheless. I chose to go with the typ. perf. street setup. I plan to autocross once in a while, but mainly street performance driving.




After recieving the QA-1 control arms, I laid them out next to the factory upper control arm to see how significant the changes are. See the photos below. It was hard to find a camera angle that really showed the differences, but the ball joint is further towards the rear of the car as expected, but a tiny bit further outboard. It was a little hard to tell how much as I did not build a jig or fixture to check them.

I did the alignment myself with the help of one of my racing buddies and we ended up with 3/4 degree negative camber on both fronts, and about 1/16" toe in. I haven't measured caster yet, but It is probably more than the 2.5 degrees. I'll be taking it to an alignment rack to do some additional fine tuning. I took it out for a test drive after completing the install and am very happy with the results. On-center feel is night and day better than it was and the car tracks true with no wandering or following grooves in the road. This was a big concern as many older cars I've driven with low profile tires tended to exacerbate this effect. If you are contemplating this change, I highly recommend it.

Spent the better part of 6 months creating custom door panels for our '73 Challenger Resto-Mod. The door panel is made by locating the arm wrest (out of a 2012 Chrysler 200 and highly modified), then locating the door latches. had to modify the latch in the door to accept a cable VS the rods in the original door, but i like the feel much better. the latches are from a late model car. I fabricated the door panels from ABS and polyurethane foam. I sculped the foam to create the shape that I wanted and then covered with epoxy fiberglass. The whole thing is then covered in 2 types of vinyl.

The speaker grill is still open for debate. I created a Fratzog and had it 3D printed paying homage to the old Dodge emblem from that era. I then got the idea to create the new Fratzog coming out on the electric Charger next year. I haven't decided which way to go yet, but leaning towards the later version. The later one is printed in ABS and then finished with a Carbon look hydro-dip process. The carbon dip has been used on the center shift cover and the door handles so it may be the way to go. I'll post photos of the finished product when installed.