Back when i was 17 i got my hands on a pristine 1993 3.3L/604 Dodge Dynasty with 64,195 miles on it. I loved the hell out of it and put 30k hard miles on it in the first year, which involved a lot of street racing and a fair amount of autocross. As years went by i began buying more and more different vehicles (a lot of k-cars, ive owned most types) and modding them out, with the odd result that i never got a lot of the stuff i wanted to do to my dynasty done even though i liked it more than many of the other cars i spent my time on. It always ran and was drivable with no real issues and working AC and i would DD it for a few months here and there, but ultimately it picked up more damage than upgrades along the way and by several years ago it was only a pale shadow of its former condition and had unintentionally gone down to beater status. But, i never did get rid of it or give up on my ideas for what to do with it, so when i came across a near-clone of it sitting behind the shop of a former employer, i worked it into a trade deal (i traded my 78 Volvo 242 for this new dynasty, an 85 CRX HF, and a modded 98 Eclipse GS) and decided to swap all the good stuff from the old car to the new car and start over. Save on fuel and get a gas card. Learn these deals in Publix Ad.
Here's a pic of the old 3.3 car, the new 3.3 car, and a 3.0 dynasty i had at the time that i swapped a 5spd into (world's only 5spd dynasty, one good clutch short of a high 14 car and sold to a member of this forum, http://www.turbo-mopar.com/forums/sh...ht=543+dynasty ).
This new dynasty, a 1990 3.3L, was a little lower optioned and not in as good of shape as my 1993 had originally been, it was a damn sight better than the 93 was now, and it was the same color inside and out (beige and beige!!), which i really liked. It had a running 3.3 and a non-moving transmission (the shop said it was bad, i never verified beyond that it wouldnt move). Shortly after, i bought a 94 Grand caravan with a 3.8/604 for ~$300 and used it as a moving van for a couple weeks before taking it apart and scrapping the body (although parts from it ended up on at least 3 vehicles in my group of local fwd dodge buddies). Slowly, over the course of december to march, i swapped the 3.8/604 into the 1990 car at work before bringing it home and swapping the rest of the stuff from the old car.
I had a lot of suspension and brake stuff from the old car i wanted to put on the new car.
I got all that stuff swapped. The 1990 car now has:
11" front vented discs on 91-up front spindles
11" rear vented discs, modified to fit Dynasty axle (which has a different 4-hole pattern)
Welded/boxed rear axle
Reinforced/boxed track bar
89 Stamped arm k-frame
1 1/4" front swaybar
67 Caprice coupe rear springs
Koni rear shocks
Fast-ratio steering rack from 89 daytona
2g neon front struts with factory NSRT4 springs
That got me the drop i wanted, which was one of my favorite things about the old car. I got the front of the new car a smidge lower in the front by going from srt4 struts to regular 2g neon struts and leaving out the spring isolators.
The back, i went from cut+spacered moog progressive cargo coils to cut 67 Caprice rear springs to get a higher spring rate. The cargo coils were too soft in the progressive part of the spring.
Left is the uncut Caprice spring, center is the stock Dynasty spring, and right is the cut+spacered cargo coils that came out of the old car. The caprice springs ended up being SLIGHTLY shorter than those cargo coils. I did not reuse the spacers and in fact in my caution i left the back a LITTLE higher than i actually wanted it. Im going to do my sub+amps install in the trunk before adjusting the rear ride height any further.
I had to roll all four fender lips and modify all 4 fender lip trims to be able to fit the 245/40r17s on 17x8 +35s at this ride height.
I rented a fender roller from a local guy to do the fenders. It's a good thing i have fender trim to cover up the fender lips because they are pretty obviously tweaked without the trim on them.
Here's how the car looks from the front. The front ride height is perfect for me. I do plan to modify some of the bracing under the front bumper cover to make it resemble the old car, which had more of a curved look to the bottom of the bumper cover that ended up looking pretty cool. I may replace that factory air dam with a wider/lower one as well.
I also swapped over the stereo from the old car which consisted of a jvc mp3 headunit that i forget the model of, 5 1/4" MB Quart coax in the front doors, and MB Quart 6.5" components in the back (made mdf plates to mount 6.5s in 6x9 holes, and mounted tweeters above rear seatbelts on c-pillar trim). I also have 2 12" 4ohm Infinity Kappa Perfects that i need to build a new spare tire well box for, a 75x4 rms Eclipse amp for the speakers, and a Total Mobile Audio bridgable 2ch for the subs that i forget the specs of. Ill get some pics of the tweeters, sub+amps install and all that sometime soon. The rest of the speakers and head unit are nothing to look at.
I also have the 3" exhaust system from the old car to install on the new one, but i want to re-do the downpipe and exhaust tip so i'll be taking that to an exhaust shop. It's a 3" mandrel bent system from FWDP that came off a VNT shadow and was modded to fit the dynasty, with a 3" high flow cat and 3" straight-through dynomax or magnaflow muffler. Ill edit that when i remember which one it is.
I also put the hitch from the old car onto the new one. The old one was an ACCOMPLISHED tow vehicle, culminating with taking 3 people, my Dodge Aries, and all of our race-related gear from Texas to Florida and back for the GRM $2009 Challenge. The whole shebang weighed about 8000lbs and it got 17mpg doing it. Today i inaugurated my hitch's second life by using the new dynasty to tow the old dynasty to the scrappers.
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