66SportFury
Senior Member
Hi guys. My good friend R/T Dan is an inspector for motor vehicle in Jersey for his full time job, but after work he's a MOPAR freak and writes tech articles for MOPAR muscle magazine and is always working on a MOPAR project of some sort. One of his first stops of the day was at MERKORD'S GARAGE INC in Galloway, NJ for an inspection. This shop is about 1/2 hour from Tuckerton where we both live and grew up together. When he arrived at the shop, he was surprise greeted with a beautiful 1968 GTX. At this garage are real Mopar guys. They knew he'd be there for his 9 o'clock inspection appointment and he liked the surprise they planned for him!
The GTX's owner was a Vietnam Vet that got a '68 Road Runner 383 4-speed when returning from Nam in fall of '67. He bought this GTX a few years ago. They got to talking about the GTX . The 727 T-Flite in his GTX wouldn't downshift at any driving speed. A little Mopar Magic (adjustment to the trans kickdown linkage) and presto his trans would downshift like its suppose to! Danny was glad to make his day as well as his own! Danny mentioned that the GTX felt like it needed a MOPAR tune. An R/T Dan tune! The owner said I'll give you a call and we'll get together on a Sunday at the garage. A few months past and he called Danny. Danny called me and said we'll be going on Sunday to tune the GTX. I was pretty excited to hear we'd be going to the shop for the day to talk MOPAR and work on a badass GTX. The GTX is very clean and sports a nicely rebuilt all stock 440. The car is beautiful in and out and the repaint in original Electric Blue is incredible.
When Danny was at the shop and after adjusting the kickdown linkage he noticed the trans needed a little tuning for shift points. It was shifting at around 4200/4400rpm's between 1st and 2nd and about 4000rpm's from 2nd to 3rd when left in drive and floored. Also the 440 needed some tuning to wake it up. It was sluggish.
I picked Dan up at 8:00am in the Fury and started heading down to MERKORD'S GARAGE. Air was good and was in the mid high 50's. We got off RT9 and hit the entrance ramp to the Parkway. Just about off the entrance ramp to get on the parkway,.. Danny said "hit it". We were doing about 40. I whacked it and it broke the Nittos loose. The 440 woke up real nice. I hit 2nd then 3rd and the 727 was shifting at around 56/5700 in drive. After hitting third and letting the 440 air out and hitting about 110/115 in no time, I let off and Danny looked at me and I looked at him with smiles on our faces and I said MOPAR BABY! We laughed our asses off. That was a great start to a good day coming!!
We put the GTX on the lift and removed the trans pan,filter and inspection plate and drained the fluid and converter.
See video for tips on getting a little more out of your T-Flite.
We had an excellent day hangin out with some cool guys and got to see 2 other nice Mopars besides the 68 GTX. A 440 6 Pack Challenger and a 67 440 Belvedere GTX. I got a chance to take the Challenger out for a test blast. Very cool car!!
Here are some pics of the cars. I also got the chance to see a 67 Polara that was hit dead center of the trunk. What a shame,.car is still cool and would love to buy it from the guy, but he's asking a little to much considering the damage. Maybe I can talk him down. We'll see. All in all,.great MOPAR day!
The GTX's owner was a Vietnam Vet that got a '68 Road Runner 383 4-speed when returning from Nam in fall of '67. He bought this GTX a few years ago. They got to talking about the GTX . The 727 T-Flite in his GTX wouldn't downshift at any driving speed. A little Mopar Magic (adjustment to the trans kickdown linkage) and presto his trans would downshift like its suppose to! Danny was glad to make his day as well as his own! Danny mentioned that the GTX felt like it needed a MOPAR tune. An R/T Dan tune! The owner said I'll give you a call and we'll get together on a Sunday at the garage. A few months past and he called Danny. Danny called me and said we'll be going on Sunday to tune the GTX. I was pretty excited to hear we'd be going to the shop for the day to talk MOPAR and work on a badass GTX. The GTX is very clean and sports a nicely rebuilt all stock 440. The car is beautiful in and out and the repaint in original Electric Blue is incredible.
When Danny was at the shop and after adjusting the kickdown linkage he noticed the trans needed a little tuning for shift points. It was shifting at around 4200/4400rpm's between 1st and 2nd and about 4000rpm's from 2nd to 3rd when left in drive and floored. Also the 440 needed some tuning to wake it up. It was sluggish.
I picked Dan up at 8:00am in the Fury and started heading down to MERKORD'S GARAGE. Air was good and was in the mid high 50's. We got off RT9 and hit the entrance ramp to the Parkway. Just about off the entrance ramp to get on the parkway,.. Danny said "hit it". We were doing about 40. I whacked it and it broke the Nittos loose. The 440 woke up real nice. I hit 2nd then 3rd and the 727 was shifting at around 56/5700 in drive. After hitting third and letting the 440 air out and hitting about 110/115 in no time, I let off and Danny looked at me and I looked at him with smiles on our faces and I said MOPAR BABY! We laughed our asses off. That was a great start to a good day coming!!
We put the GTX on the lift and removed the trans pan,filter and inspection plate and drained the fluid and converter.
See video for tips on getting a little more out of your T-Flite.
We had an excellent day hangin out with some cool guys and got to see 2 other nice Mopars besides the 68 GTX. A 440 6 Pack Challenger and a 67 440 Belvedere GTX. I got a chance to take the Challenger out for a test blast. Very cool car!!
Here are some pics of the cars. I also got the chance to see a 67 Polara that was hit dead center of the trunk. What a shame,.car is still cool and would love to buy it from the guy, but he's asking a little to much considering the damage. Maybe I can talk him down. We'll see. All in all,.great MOPAR day!
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