Well first off let me say ... COOL!!! Your doing a Rambler? About time! My first car was a 66 Rambler American so I'd be real interested in this one. I used to have dreams as a 16yr. old of someone coming by a night and fixing up my car for me <now they call that Overhaulin'> lolol. Anyway, I've often thought these cars were a poor man's Nova so I'd love to see what you come up with. Ditch the Pro Touring  idea though. Real street machines should be a little rough around the edges, not something that you can comfortably cruise in for 800 miles. Anyway, thats my 2¢ worth.  

Hey guys. Keep the AMC's rollin'. That Gremlins doin' some wheel stand. Hey, why not find a 1971-'73 Matador 2 door or a '74-'78 Matador coupe and make it a Penske Racing Nascar clone with the 360.    

Hey, speaking of 57 Rebel's, 1500 were built, and the only American car that was faster was the fuel injected 'Vette. My Grandpa had the privilege of taking the first one in the area for a spin. Litterally. When the secondary's opened it lost traction and did a 180. Cool, huh?  

Great to see an AMC build!  Now make it fast and safe, take it to some heads up drags, and give us your kill ratio versus import competition. I'd love to see it in sleeper mode with a 290 V8 decal on the aircleaner lid and a tissue box velcroed to the rear package tray.  You can compare it to project Disco Nova to show the cost vs performance of each car.  Keep up the great work!!!

Well, I don't know Duncan! My 63 Classic wagon is a little rough around the edges right now (working on that!), but I just drove from Gulfport, MS, to near Lexington, SC, stayed about a week and drove around everywhere, then got back on the road and completed a move up to Dover, DE.  I pulled about 1,000# of parts I wanted to keep in a utility trailer to SC where they were stored, with another 500# or so in the back of the car. The trailer went on with the load from the car in it to Dover. Reasonably comfortable trip, though it is a bit noisier than a modern car (partially due to the solid mount Jag axle, and the fact that the gears are slightly burnt and whine a little -- need to get new gears later!). With only 250+ NET HP (easily 300+ GROSS HP) and 320+ lb/ft NET torque it cruises effortlessly even pulling the trailer. But that's a straight six for you! I'm running an 87 Jeep (AMC!) Cherokee 4.0L bored 0.030" over with a 258 crank (0.44" more stroke than stock 4.0L), so it displaces 4.6L (280 inches). I also run a Jeep AW4 OD auto and 3.55 gears in the Jag axle. Pretty nice for a station wagon! ;> Gets 23-25 mpg on the highway and has no problem keeping up with 75-80% of traffic. A little more power would be nice, but with gas prices I[m not willing to sacrifice any mileage! One of these days a remote mount turbo might find it's way in. My next Rambler project will be a 63 American with the drivetrain from a Mercur XR4ti that I just bought -- IRS, five speed, turbo 2.3L.  Of course it will be 2-3 years before I really get to start on it!  

(see at http://groups.msn.com/amcsforever2/farnasramblers.msnw)

Great story! 

Too bad AMC president George Romney (Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney's dad) wussed out and quit building them.  The original Rebel was awesome for its time.

Also too bad that few remember the '57 Rebel.

Sweet! 

BTW, I've always wondered how a turbo would work on an AMC six. . . . 

Be sure to add an intercooler,  a T4/T3 hybrid turbo, some larger injectors,  and an 87-88 Turbo Coupe VAM and computer (or an aftermarket injection computer to eliminate the VAM) to the Merkur mill.  A new Esslinger/FRPP aluminum D-port head and a Ranger roller cam would also be nice.

I'am an AMC owner of in fact a 68 AMX. I'am really excited about the Rambler build as I'am hoping it will help in finding performance goodies for all AMC engines like Forged Pistons, Rods, and Cranks. As any AMC Street Rod builder will attest to, manufactures seem to totally ignore or brand of vehicle which extremely frustrates me, as AMC is just as important a part of the great American car history as the  so called 'Big 3'. Thanks CarCraft for taking notice of all of America's great vehicles.  

FINALLY! somebody is noticing amc's. i am working on doing my own amc build. i have a '62 classic custom 2 door. i have an amc 327 i am working on building for the power. any help finding parts for the motor would be great. need a 4 bbl intake, heads. that type of stuff.

AMC FOREVER!!!!

I love the fact that someone is doing a american. Although the fact that everyone is screaming pro touring is becoming a little over done i think the magazine should clone a factory V8 car becuase i think you could get this car with a 343, and four speed, and 4.44 gears. and then build it to run in F.A.S.T or factory appearing street car competitions you could use a 401 or 360 block since all amc block look externaly the same besides the number printed under the motormount. then use a 4.00 inch stroke crank avialable from moledex that should supply close to 440 inches of amc power with 6 inch chevy rods witch can be used with the crank and custom pistons  have SS/C racer Hemi Adkins port some factory iron heads witch can be made to flow over 300 on intake and 240 on the exhaust with out epoxy run 14.5 to 1 compression with a mild roller cam and extrude honed exhuast manafolds and ported  r4b if you can get away with that intake or find one. and this is just the basic idea i had thought it would be neat to see a rambler running with the hemi's and rat motor cars that currently dominate that class.

That sound nice.  Keep it up with the AMCs.  Or anything different than the "norm" for that matter!

Just thought I would tell you that my sons nascar matador is about 80% complete.  His wedding is scheduled for may and then the plan is to finish this project.  The car has a radical 366 with a 4 speed.  Having problems with clutch linkage since a standard shift was not available on the 74 coupe body.  Paint is complete and the decals are to be done soon.  The car has been autographed by Bobby Allison and he thought the project was pretty neat.

Be patient, it will be here soon.   Rick

    How about doing a Hornet? Remember the SC360 Hornets?

    Or how about a tribute to Waynes world/Garth and do a v-8 Pacer.. (A few were available with a factory installed v-8.. can you imagine? Make sure to get one with the extra-hideous "raised center hood", so you can get the hood shut with the v-8..**LOL**).

    A pacer wagon would be cool too, in light of the wagon craze... or install sheet metal and a porthole window in place of the nasty big rear glass windows and make a panel van out of it....

Since you mentioned trubos, I have to add something about turbos and GEN-1 AMC V-8s. There are 2-3 guys running turbos on the 287/327 (the first was a 250 but I don't know of anyone running one of those) engines at drag strips. One pulled mid 13s one six cylinders, running somewhere between 15-20 psi boost. It started making noise before the race, and since the guy had another engine to build he figured he'd run it anyway. When the valve covers were pulled one broke rocker arm on one side and a bent pushrod on the other were discovered, creating two dead cylinders. This was in a 3,200 pound two door 63 Rambler Classic! With two more cylinders it should get into the 12s easy.

These engines have rather heavy cast blocks, weigh and look similar to a big block Ford 390. They also have forged cranks and rods from the factory -- very tough monsters! Just add a set of custom forged pistons. Their big drawback isn't weight, it's the heads. In order to get the sparker near center, the valves are slightly offset, restricting size. Ports take an almost 90 degree turn also. Valves are almost vertical to the head, so when you put larger ones in shrouding gets to be a problem. Turboing forces air/fuel in, so the port and valve restrictions are somewhat negated. A racer in the early 60s did offset grind a 327 crank, bore the block out to the max (it can be safely bored up to 1/8" !!) and built a 410 version. It ran well, but one can only tink about what would have happened had there been good heads! Instead of redesigning heads for the big thing AMC took the wise route and designed the GEN-2/GEN-3 "smaller block" instead.

The GEN-2/3 is really a hybrid big/small block -- it has big block bore spacing (probably to reduce tooling costs by keeping the GEN-1 boring machines) but other features of a small block.  The difference between the GEN-2 and GEN-3 is the heads and deck height. GEN-3 has the better "dog-leg" exhaust ports and a taller deck height than the GEN-2, otherwise they are the same.

I've considered a remote mount turbo for my six. I want to build the 63 American (2.3L MerKur turbo engine, T-5, Merkur IRS) first though, so may not mess with a turbo for the 4.6L I'm running. Since a remote turbo works more on pressure in the exhaust system than velocity coming out of the ports (I'm theorizing here!) I'd think a smaller unit (than if it were mounted on the exhaust manifold) would be needed. Still, boost is boost! 5-6 psi from a remote turbo should be a good pick-up for anything, and a real easy installation.