1970 Cuda 5.7 Hemi Supercharged + 8HP70 Restomod in Europe

[speedbird1229]

Hey everyone,

I am new to this forum, been a little bit away from car world some years and currently still own a 1979 Corvette with 383 Stroker and lots of customizations. I have always wanted to have a muscle car though and been dreaming of a proper Charger, Challenger or Cuda.

My fiancee's dad had a 70 Cuda project that started around 15 years ago but was put on a halt 7 years ago. It had been sitting in a barn since. He was not looking to sell it for a while but finally thought he would not restore it himself and would prefer to hand it over. So we took a couple of days to decide... and took her home!

The body was originally already in quite a good shape but has been restored + slightly modified here and there. It still needs some bodywork + paint.

These are the mods done or pending with available parts:

5.7 Hemi (off a RAM) with 545RFE transmission fitted to the car (tunnel modified), Hooker headers
Vortech Supercharger (not installed yet)
JAZ Products plastic fuel tank
Reilly Motorsport Alterktion front axle
Reilly Motorsport Street-Lynx 4-link rear axle components
Air Ride Suspension with automatic height control
Wilwood 14" 6-piston brakes in front and 12.2" 4-piston in the rear
Hydroboost hydraulic brake assist + Line Lock ready
Flaming River polished steering wheel assembly + rack and pinion system
Vintage Air conditioning system


Exterior: already been modified to remove the door handles and a rear spoiler has been developed during the bodyworks. I was not too happy about the removed door handles but then again they will probably add to the beautiful shape of the car from the side and can hopefully be solved with some electrical opening solution. Have not done any research yet on this so any feedback would be appreciated.

Interior: planning to tastefully use original interior components but have custom seats created, leather etc. The original instruments will likely be replaced with a fully electronic programmable display system.

We will move away from the 545RFE since time has passed and better options are available. I am now hunting for a good 8HP70 off a RWD Hemi car and deciding between Turbolamik or Sound German Automotive controller for the ZF transmission. I also initially thought of going Hellcat engine route or a 6.1/6.4 (then install the same Vortech) but it seems like the engines are quite steeply priced in Europe and we already have the 5.7 available so I'll stick to it and see what future brings once the car is ready.

So all in all, I think a lot has already been accomplished while there is a good 1.5-2 years of work ahead by professionals. I will try to keep this post updated as things develop.

The first step right now is to get the 8HP70 tranny and then a race shop called ESRacing here in Tallinn will get to work by wiring everything, installing the tranny, programming the ECU + transmission and trying to get the whole setup powered up. Once this work is done, it will be fully disassembled for bodywork and painting.

[speedbird1229]

Some more pics of how we brought her from the storage barn...

[Katfish]

Nice!  Looks like you have an excellent body to start with.
Sounds like a great plan, looking forward to the updates.

[speedbird1229]

Nice!  Looks like you have an excellent body to start with.
Sounds like a great plan, looking forward to the updates.

Thank you for the comment. Let's hope it all works out and I will be posting the updates 

[blown motor]

What tires are those? I like the tread pattern.

[speedbird1229]

The car has still been sitting in the corner of the tuning shop who will take care of getting the engine and transmission to work and run all the wiring. I am ironically waiting after a Supra build to be completed and then the Cuda is next in the line.

So the transmission was 545RFE currently bolted under this Cuda, however I really got excited about the idea of putting an 8-speed since I've experienced the 8HP transmission on three of my everyday cars already. Since I think there have not been too many retrofits so far either, I started to look for options to get an 8HP transmission and also looked for ways to make it work in terms of electronics.

the 8HP70 transmission has arrived and looks to be in very good shape outside. Let's hope it runs fine also, it was taken off a 2016 Challenger at about 40,000 miles. I also got the shifter off the same car since this is a requirement to have the controller functioning properly. No other alternatives were suggested.


I did quite a bit of research on what kind of controller modules have people used to get the setup running. I ended up getting a custom setup from Sound German Automotive. What I received was a really well produced setup and I have great hopes for this to work once they get it done approx in Spring.

[speedbird1229]

Hi!

Been a while since giving an update. The tempo has not been what I would have ideally hoped but still, there is progress and now we're trying to push things further to get the car started up with electrics working this Summer.

There were issues with the initial positioning of the engine so the steering column didn't fit with enough clearance and also the steering rack was too close to the oil pan. The engine was refitted with new custom mounts so it should be all good now.

The 8HP70 is now properly fitted to the engine. We had to fiddle around with parts from Mopar since it was a little bit difficult to properly connect the tranny and engine from different Gens and originating platforms. Some parts that we ordered went to scrap since they just didn't fit for this setup.

The exhaust is finished until the rear bumper where we will decide how to exactly finish it during bodywork phase. I think the stainless exhaust came out nice and although I have no idea how it will sound, there is great hope for a reasonably pretty sound with not too much noise.

Next step is to ditch the current fuel tank and pump setup. It was fitted around 7 years ago and it has external pumps. The size is also around 40-50 L which is a bit too low. We are going with the following setup from our neighbours in Sweden:

https://www.nukeperformance.com/product.html/alucell-fuel-cells
https://www.nukeperformance.com/product.html/sae-fuel-pump-kits
https://www.nukeperformance.com/product.html/an10-orb-full-flow-banjo
https://www.nukeperformance.com/product.html/fuel-level-sender-0-90-ohms
https://www.nukeperformance.com/product.html/remote-mount-fill-neck-for-the-cfc-unit
https://www.nukeperformance.com/product.html/fuel-filler-hose
https://www.nukeperformance.com/product.html/quick-lock-filler-cap

Fuel hoses:
Main demand line: https://www.nukeperformance.com/product.html/ptfe-fuel-hose-an10
Backflow: https://www.nukeperformance.com/product.html/ptfe-fuel-hose-an8

Fuel pump: most likely Walbro 525 (also used on Hellcat)

Next we will build the electrical side once the fuel lines are done. We will use several ECU Master components:

PMU-24: https://www.ecumaster.com/products/pmu24/
ADU Display: https://www.ecumaster.com/products/adu/ (can be hidden under the dash, not used for main instruments)
ECU: https://dealers.linkecu.com/G4X-FuryX or some other model

The thing with PMU is that we can get rid of relays and can have full electronically programmed control of all electrics. It allows programming of anything - for example turn signals with 3 flashes on tap, interior light behaviour, cutout of A/C pump on hard acceleration, even air suspension if I want to. PMU is also connected to the ADU display so any kind of faults can be debugged through that. From the display I can "reset" the fuse if needed.

[speedbird1229]

Here is the car sitting currently on the lift. Will replace the wheels later!

[Katfish]

Nice!
Interesting motor mount, looks pretty long.
Do you have a pic of passenger side?

[speedbird1229]

Nice!
Interesting motor mount, looks pretty long.
Do you have a pic of passenger side?

Hey. The motor mount of passenger side is visible on image 9542.

[Katfish]

Ooops, missed that.
Those look nice, you make them?
Build looks great, nice work.

[usraptor]

Wow! That's going to be one extreme resto-mod.     You're coming right along with progress.   Can't wait to see it finished.  Keep those pics coming. 

[cudaragtop]

Love it! Very nice project!

----o00o--'(_)'--o00o----

[speedbird1229]

Ooops, missed that.
Those look nice, you make them?
Build looks great, nice work.

The car is being built by a tuning/building company ESRacing in Tallinn, Estonia. They have built numerous very powerful street and race cars and hold some records still here in our country in drag racing. They are great in custom programming of electronics and designing systems from scratch. They will also program a custom ECU for the Hemi.

[speedbird1229]

Wow! That's going to be one extreme resto-mod.     You're coming right along with progress.   Can't wait to see it finished.  Keep those pics coming. 

Thank you so much! This is very motivational for me to keep it going on the track. There are a few issues left to solve but I will keep you all updated.