Tav 1970 Road Runner RM23N0G217270

[torredcuda]

Yes, that is the one. I`ve heard it was only Cal emmisions but I`ve seen a number of original cars with them and they are not coded for it on the fender tag. I`ll have to find my folder with th e info as I forget the code for it.

[Gary]

The research that I have done says all 70 383 and 440 engines except 6 paks had the timing retard solenoid.  In 71 the 6 paks had them also. I was researching Challengers, Dodge engines, so I don,t know if there was a difference for Plymouths.

[cataclysm80]

and to take this further off-topic

this is an odd cooling combination, not seen often - or maybe anywhere else "documented"
an export ordered & presumably delivered to southeast Asia when new

Challenger R/T convertible 383HP 4-speed w/3.55s (NO mention of an axle package  )
&
N45 - FAN-SOLID DRIVE
N51 - COOLING PACKAGE MAX. LESS FAN

I think this is the "HI-CAPACITY" & it's a 26" radiator
wonder what springs & torsion bars this R/T came with??

I just looked this ^ over.   WOW, that's a cool car!  (though I'd prefer a different color)
Galen's White Book lists N45 as 1969 to 1971 High Capacity Fan, and lists N51 as Max Cooling.
I'm not quite sure where you'd put it on the order form, but apparently N45 gets you the High Capacity Fan.
I wonder if export cars used a different order form?
That particular car having N45 High Capacity Fan WITH N51 Max Cooling is what the Factory Service Manual describes as level 5 Trailer Towing Cooling.
Interesting that it seems to have been ordered without the A35 Trailer Towing Package, similar to how the 3.55 axle was ordered without the A36 Axle Package.
It looks like the only things in the Axle Package that weren't on the car are the torque drive with fan, and possibly the Extra Heavy Duty Suspension.

Here is the Axle Availability page from the 1970 Dodge Division Code Guide for Challengers.
It lists D56 as being optional on 340 with Auto trans or 4 speed manual trans.
I suppose that availability of this option could have changed over the course of the year.

@6bblgt   I stumbled across something that mentioned Max Cooling without a Fan, and thought that it might interest you.
It's on Barry's website.  Here's a link, but the relevant pic is posted below.  http://www.hamtramck-historical.com/dealerships/1970-DealershipsPlymouthOrderingInfo-08.shtml

Also, here is a broadcast sheet for a 1970 'Cuda that's coded for N51 Max Cooling Less Fan.  (It is an axle package car, and coded for a typical torque drive fan.)

[cataclysm80]

About a week later, someone came by who was seriously interested.  He has a Lemon Twist 1970 GTX with a 440 four barrel.  He's had it since the early 70's.  He's the second owner, but it's a northern car and really rusted out bad.  It's rusted enough that the body is sagging and holding the doors closed.  He wants to find a good body to fix his car with.  To late, I'm keeping this one.  He gave me his contact info in case I changed my mind.  I visit with him occasionally.  He's getting pretty old, I hope he can build his car someday.

Picked up this solid 1970 Satellite for a parts car.  I wanted the nice trunk lid, and a few other things.  Maybe when I'm done with it, the guy up the road who wants to fix his 70 440 GTX will want what's left.

Well, I drove the purple Road Runner over to see the old man down the road, and offer him the 70 Satellite parts car.
He loved the Road Runner, and liked the Satellite, but he thought it over and decided that as much as he loves his GTX, he's just to old to go through all that effort of fixing it up.  He can't stand to see his car get parted out or scrapped though, and he approves of my workmanship, so instead of buying a parts car from me, he wanted to sell me his GTX, and made me an offer I just couldn't refuse. 
He only requests that I put it with all my spare parts, and find it a good home with someone who will fix it up.

Now I have a 70 GTX.

I had it for sale for a few months, as a pair with the parts car, etc., handing out flyers at car shows, but the few people who came to look at it were scared away by the severe rust.
As you can see from this Road Runner project, I don't mind taking a car down to nothing and building it back up, so I've decided that if this GTX is going to be saved, I better get to work.
Here we go again...

The old man was the second owner, and he bought it in California in 1971 from a used car lot.
It was Lemon Twist when he bought it, with a black vinyl top, and stayed that way the whole time he had it.
He wasn't easy on it, he drove it like it was a muscle car.  It was real fast, to the point that the police had to chase him down with a helicopter to catch him, and they impounded the car for 6 months.  After that, he moved from California to the rust belt, and that's where all the rust came from.
Over the years, he blew the engine and replaced it with another 440, and he blew the transmission a few times, but never had to touch the rear end. 
The cars never been wrecked, but he hit a curb once and had to replace a lower control arm.
The cars been off the road for 18 years.

I've decoded it, and it's a real 1970 GTX.  It's a 440 four barrel with 4 speed manual transmission and pistol grip shifter.  Dana Track Pack Performance axle package.  Charcoal and black bucket seat interior.  No console, radio delete, stripe delete, no hood pins, no tachometer or clock, no extra cost upgrades at all beyond the manual transmission which required an axle package.  Custom ordered "Sold Car" all business sleeper GTX.  The original color is EB7 blue.
It's like someone walked into the Plymouth dealership and said "Gimme the biggest engine you've got with a four barrel carb and a four speed with nothing else.", and the salesman said "That's gonna hafta be a GTX."

So that was interesting that an EB7 car had already been painted yellow when the second owner bought it in 1971.  It was barely 1 year old. 
The engine bay and trunk (what's left of it) are still blue.  There's blue under where the wheel opening moldings were.  Apparently those were just taped off when the yellow was applied.  Looks like the fenders are original, and all the other metal, not wrecked.  Why repaint the car?  It seems like an unnecessary expense.  I checked all the body numbers, and they match the door sticker, VIN, fender tag, and title, no problem. 
The back seat contained a broadcast sheet for a 1968 Plymouth B body built at a different assembly plant, and the old man swears he never had it out.  Must have been swapped during the repaint before he bought the car.

Looking at all the evidence, I suspect this was someone's race car.  Someone probably bought this new, tossed out the back seat for weight savings, painted letters on the side of the car, and went drag racing for a year.  This is a GTX, not a grocery getter.
That's my guess for why the used car lot needed to find a back seat and repaint the car.  It wouldn't surprise me if the racer had done a little engine work also, and that's why the car seemed so fast. 

So, I'm cutting out the rusty parts, and cutting some usable stuff off the parts car, and I've cut some more usable parts off at a Mopar junkyard, and placed a big AMD sheet metal order yesterday for what was left.
I don't really need another 1970 B body, but I've got to at least get this through the metal work so that buyers don't run away scared of the rust.  I might go ahead and build the whole thing and run it through an auction just to see what happens.
Any suggestions for how I should build it? 
Original color?
Should I add a stripe or leave it stripe delete?
Do I try to replicate the original 440 four barrel look, or should I throw on a six pack?
Is adding an Air Grabber worth the cost if I'm going to auction the car?
Should I upgrade to power disc brakes or leave it all drums?
Etc...

[Chryco Psycho]

No question in my mind the disc brakes are a must , I would go back to B7 , 6 pack is a lot of $$ for no real gain , I would use a Holley street dom intake with a Proform carb , stripes are easy to add or delete in the future but I like the side stripe 

[303 Mopar]

  Discs, stripe, B7 looks so good!  Also, don't kill yourself with acquiring expensive parts that you do not have if you are not going for a full OEM restoration.   

[cataclysm80]

Well, I'm still an E body guy.   

This 1970 Road Runner is a great car.  You can see the build details above in this topic. 
This car is NOT your typical flipper cutting corners to make a profit.  No pigs in lipstick here.  This was built right, and built to last, because we wanted to keep it.
Everything has been gone through, and it's a quality build, documented with hundreds of photos and reference material, way more info than what's seen here. 
It has just about everything you'd want. 
It's a 383 car, but it has all the hemi suspension reinforcements and then some, Hemi fuel sending unit with 3/8 fuel line, and the same radiator as the hemi, so if you really wanted a bigger engine like a hemi or 440-6, it's a pretty straight forward swap, and you can enjoy driving the 383 in the meantime.  It's ready to go, start it up and drive away with a smile. 
Air Grabber, 4 speed pistol grip, axle package, rallye gauges, woodgrain steering wheel, 3 speaker stereo dash, light package, hood pins, rear spoiler, upgraded 11.75 rotor power disc brakes, Firm Feel Stage 3 power steering, bigger sway bar, etc. etc. 

But I'm an E body guy, and I just don't drive this car very much.  It sits in the garage, about 750 miles on it since the restoration. 
Someone should be driving this around.  It's crossing the auction block at Mecum Indianapolis next week
https://www.mecum.com/lots/553648/1970-plymouth-road-runner/

[Brads70]

Great car! 

[torredcuda]

Great car and awesome restoration and I`ll be referring to it a lot since I`m currently restoring my `70 383,727 FC7 road runner but wow on the $115-$140k estimate! 

[JH27N0B]

That estimate caused my jaw to drop too.  A 383 roadrunner HT is six figures now?
I guess I screwed up in the late 80s.  My friend Marty in high school had a 70 Roadrunner 383 4 speed. F8, fairly solid with a little rust.  He decided to rebuild the engine and broke something in the block when trying to install the camshaft. After that the car sat.  7 or 8 years later, in the late 80s, I ran into Marty in a bar, and he asked me if I was interested in his car. $200!
I had no interest or space for a project.
Not long after that, I spotted the car on a roll off.  I hope it was heading to a new owner, not the junkyard!
I guess I should have bought it!
Good luck at Mecum!

[cataclysm80]

Earlier this year at Mecum Kissimmee, a 1969 Road Runner Hardtop with 383 Air Grabber sold for $142,000.
It's has Bronze paint with tan interior, an automatic transmission, and doesn't have rallye gauges. 
https://www.mecum.com/lots/533488/1969-plymouth-road-runner/

It seems like high impact paint with white interior, pistol grip four speed manual transmission, and rallye gauges would be worth more. 
Not to mention all the other extra options and upgrades. 

You really have to build them well to get that kind of money though, and that's not cheap.

[cataclysm80]

I sent a USB drive with all the restoration pictures, history, decode, etc. to Mecum with the car, so that the new owner would have that stuff. 
I also included a link to this post. 

There's a couple things I forgot to put on the USB drive, so I'm going to post them here, in hopes that the new owner finds them. 
Maybe the rest of you will enjoy seeing them also. 

This first one is how the pictures are organized on the USB drive. 
This one's probably not very interesting to most of you, but if you're looking for suggestions on how to keep your restoration photos in chronological order, here's one idea.

[JH27N0B]

That seems nuts, I don't see that or any automatic 383 roadrunner as being worth much more than $50K.
Not trying to disparage your car, I'm just saying if 383 roadrunners are now 6 figure cars, it's time to find a new hobby.  Something cheaper like a plane, lakefront villa, or yacht. 
I'd have to sell my no rust ever 440 six pack 4 speed super track Pak Challenger first to pursue one of those cheaper new hobbies, the one I had advertised for well under 6 figures for years with only a few tire kickers, flippers and picture collectors responding to my ads.
That experience left me feeling pretty cynical about the car market, and the games I regularly see the auction houses playing has me suspicious of many alleged sales they show too.
But it only takes 2 drunks with deep pockets so you never know, worth a try!
Have a number in mind you'll take if they try to get you to drop the reserve with a reduced commission, your "out the door" sale price.  They also like to shill bid up to near reserve hoping a real bid will come in at reserve.  I've known sellers who were on stage trying to get Mecum to drop the reserve, and got ignored.  The bid wasn't "real money" is why they wouldn't allow the seller to drop the reserve. So if your car bids high but doesn't hit reserve and they didn't twist your arm to drop it, you can say "I see what you did there" as your car goes off stage to the bid goes on area. 

[cataclysm80]

As soon as the restoration was finished in 2017, we took the car to the Don Garlits show (Mopars with Big Daddy) near Ocala Florida.
It's a pretty good annual show of about 500 Mopars, mostly muscle cars. 
It was normally held at Don Garlit's Museum of Drag Racing, but the show had outgrown that venue since the farmer next door didn't want spectators parking in the field anymore, so this was the first year that it was held at the Florida Horse Park about 2 miles north of the Drag Racing Museum.  If I remember correctly, Herb McCandless was the guest of honor that year. 

On the first day of the show, I drove the 1970 'Cuda, and my dad drove the Road Runner.
The Road Runner won 2nd Place in the Participant's Choice competition.
The 'Cuda won 3rd Place in the Participant's Choice competition.

The second day of the show, my dad and I rode together in the Road Runner, and won 3rd Place in the Judged Competition. 
The Judged Competition trophy is the one with the American flags on the columns.

[cataclysm80]

OK, now I'm going to include in depth suspension details. 

I'm going to start with an article I wrote about Mopar suspension. 
It's meant to teach the average car guy how to select suspension parts that will improve their car's handling, making it more fun to drive.
It's a lengthy article, but if you grab a calculator and follow along, you'll have a pretty firm grasp on Mopar suspensions by the end of the article. 
Anyone can do this, even you.  Just take one step at a time.

At the end of the article, I'll have the suspension details for this particular 1970 Road Runner.

Let's get started...      


Suspension Basics
Good handling is all about controlling how the car's center of gravity pivots around the roll center.

Center of Gravity:  The center of gravity for the whole car is the exact center of the cars weight.  It's an imaginary point in space, but if you could lift the car and support it by a single post, the center of gravity is where you would need to position the post so that the car would be balanced and not fall off the post.
However, cars aren't supported in the center like a unicycle, they're supported by a front axle and a rear axle.  If you could lift the car and support it by a post at the front axle and a second post at the rear axle, so that the car is perfectly balanced and doesn't fall off the posts, the position of those posts is the center of gravity for each axle.
If you drew a line through the front axle center of gravity, and the rear axle center of gravity, the whole car center of gravity would be between them on that line (closer to the front because the front of the car is heavier).  If you could skewer the car on this line like a shish kabob, all sides would weigh equally so that the car would not spin from one side being heavier.  Instead it would be perfectly balanced, and it could easily be turned by hand.
It can be difficult to locate the exact center of gravity, but to give you a rough idea, the front axle center of gravity is usually located about where the crankshaft is at, and the rear axle center of gravity is usually located about where the trunk floor is at.
If you want to try and calculate center of gravity more accurately, here's a website.
http://www.longacreracing.com/technical-articles.aspx?item=42586