Thread: 1937 Dodge coupe

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If you're going to hot rod the front half of the car, you'll also need to hot rod the rear half of the car or risk continually breaking stuff. If I had a '37 Dodge coupe, I'd separate the body from the chassis, hang the body from the rafters and install a complete chassis from a '91-'96 Dakota pickup. Those years came with an available 318, which can be changed out for a 360 and enlarged to a 408 with a stroker kit. Mopar Performance P5153849 aluminum heads and Edelbrock Performer 7176 intake manifold would lighten up the package considerably. I'd mount a 750 carb and 14" x 4" open air cleaner assembly so the motor could breathe. '97-up was a wider track and would be more difficult to fit under the Dodge body. I wouldn't be a fan of trying to fit a big block into the coupe, I foresee too much cutting up of body pieces to fit cooling system, headers, etc. and far too much weight on the front end. If you use everything from the Dakota, you'll have factory cooling, factory power disc brakes, factory R&P steering and factory suspension front and rear. If I were doing it, I'd use all the electrical (including all the wiring) from the Dakota and all the interior, seats, dash, steering column, etc.

I agree with Roger that body/fender/grille mounts can be challenging, but if you carefully measure everything and make locating fixtures before you begin, you should be able to complete the task successfully. You should know however, that a frame swap is not for the faint of heart, it takes considerable forethought, patience and a lot of simple math.

Here's an article started by Jon that I finished years ago, it should give you some insight......
http://www.crankshaftcoalition.com/wiki/Frame_Swap

There are only 2 shops that I would trust to make a driveshaft for such a rod, Denny's on the east coast and Inland Empire on the west coast.
http://www.dennysdriveshaft.com/
http://www.iedls.com/

You didn't give details on the specific model of coupe you have, so I'm thinkin' it could be either 113" or 115" wheelbase, so a Dakota Club Cab would be the donor, with its 123.9" wheelbase and a section whacked out of the frame rails behind the cab and re-welded back together to fit the coupe wheelbase and center the tires in the wheel wells so the car would have good "eyeball".
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