Plymouth Barracuda Bracket Racer - The B3 Bomber

Project B3 has come a long way since we began our build several months ago. If you've been following our project, you'll remember our goal was to build a bracket race car that would run consistent 10-second elapsed times in the quarter on a budget of about $10,000. In previous issues, we've shown how to stiffen the car up with frame connectors and torque boxes, installed a legal rollcage, built the engine, and lightened the car by adding fiberglass body components and polycarbonate windows. We've also finished the front and rear suspension of the project, getting the car ready to hook hard and run consistently.

In this issue, we'll finish the car by plumbing the fuel system, wiring the electrical system, finishing the interior, and installing the engine and transmission before heading to the track for some test passes.

When building a race car, or a street car for that matter, expenses can easily get out of hand. We've stuck pretty close to our budget so far during this build, but the finishing items, such as wiring, braided fuel lines, a fuel cell, and the rest of the components needed to complete our car, were going to quickly add up and blow our budget. While we were hunting for used parts to finish our project, we ran across a deal we couldn't pass up. While we don't take any pleasure in benefiting from someone else's misfortune, when friend and fellow racer Rebecca Mendito suffered an unfortunate accident and totaled her Duster, we purchased the remains of the bracket car to salvage the fuel lines, fuel cell, wiring, switches, and other components needed to complete our Barracuda. Luckily, the transmission was unhurt in the accident, so we pulled it from the wrecked Duster to freshen up and use in our project vehicle. we purchased the wrecked Duster for just over $1,000, then sold the rollcage to another local racer for $250, and the rear ladder bar suspension and 831/44 differential to another racer for $850, leaving us the rest of the car to salvage, along with a little spare cash to help our budget.

Though the wrecked Duster will provide lots of used parts for our Barracuda, there are some areas where we feel only new parts will suffice. In the fuel system, we'll be using a new Holley high-volume electric fuel pump and regulator along with the fuel lines, filter, and fuel cell we salvaged from the Duster. Though the transmission from the wrecked car looked ok and already had a manual valvebody, we'll have Tod at Inline Performance Specialist freshen it up and check it before installing it with a new Dynamic 8-inch converter with a 5,000-rpm stall speed. This converter, along with our 4.30-geared Dana 60 rear differential and the suspension components we installed in previous issues, should provide hard launches and the sub-1.50-second 60-foot times we'll need to get our car into the 10s.we had our hands full in the interior of our Barracuda. The door panels and dash were shot, and the carpet was nonexistent. Additionally, we stripped the car of its heater box, seats, factory gauges, and other unnecessary equipment to save weight. Since we want this car to have a finished look, we'll be installing new carpet, door panels, and door sill plates from the Paddock. To make the dash presentable, we decided to have Emo at Emo's upholstery recover the dashpad, and we painted the dash black to match the rest of the interior. The fiberglass race seat was salvaged from the Duster and used as well.

To get the car to the track, we'd need wiring, an electronic-ignition system, and gauges. Since we had the salvaged Duster at our disposal, the wiring was easy. We simply stripped the wiring from the Duster and transferred it over to our Barracuda, cutting or lengthening wires as needed to fit our car. For ignition, we decided to use MSD's new Digital 6 electronic ignition controller with an MSD billet distributor. The Digital 6 is one of MSD's latest ignition controllers and incorporates a built-in, two-step rev limiter that can be adjusted quickly with a small screwdriver and doesn't need the removable "chips" common to other MSD ignitions. It also has the feature of an ignition retard, which we'll utilize if we ever run nitrous oxide on this car.

To keep track of the engine's vital signs, we chose Sunpro gauges and mounted them in the factory dash that we modified ourselves. The Sunpro instruments are accurate, less expensive than most gauges on the market, and the black face gauges really fit the retro-look we're going for with this car. The tachometer incorporates a shift light as well-a necessity for accurate shifts in a car that will be bracket raced. Speaking of shifts, our shifter will be a Hurst Quarter Stick that we salvaged from the Duster.

With the parts accumulated to finish our car, we got to work assembling our Barracuda. This is always a time-consuming part of any build, but don't get in a rush. Taking your time during assembly, cleaning and painting each part as it's installed is what separates an average car from a nice one. Once our car was assembled, we started the engine and tested the functioning of all the car's systems.

Since everything checked out ok, we headed to Bradenton Motorsports Park to test our bracket car on their quarter-mile dragstrip. Any time you test a new car at the track, it's a good idea to take it easy. For our first test session, we simply eased the car down the track for a couple of passes to seat the transmission clutches and bands, check the steering and brakes, and get a feel for the car's handling. Once confident everything worked properly, we made some hard 60-foot passes to check how the car launched. During our first hard launch, the car drifted left, meaning the left rear tire was spinning. We corrected this by tightening the right torsion bar, which loads the left rear tire. With our car launching straight and pulling hard, it was time for some full passes.

While we had an idea that our car would run somewhere in the 10s in the quarter-mile, our first pass had us pretty excited. The car not only ran in the 10s, it ran low-10s as it clicked off a 10.39 at over 128 mph on its first pass. By bumping the ignition timing to 36 degrees and jetting the carburetor to 96 jets front and rear, we achieved a best pass of 10.28 at 129 mph during our first test session, achieving our goal of 10-second timeslips.

During our next test session, the car's owner and driver, Amy Coleman, stepped in and clicked off a string of low-10s in the quarter. A week later, Amy entered her first bracket race at the Lakeland dragstrip, winning four rounds to earn a win and a $500 paycheck in the Pro class! That's what we consider a successful project.

While this project definitely exceeded our performance goals, we aren't finished with it yet. Look for future articles on the B3 as we make chassis and engine changes to optimize this bracket racer. And if you happen to be bracket racing in the southeast, look out for Amy and her 'Cuda, they've already proven to be a winning combination.