Expert: Jesse Moser - 1/17/2002

Question
I am seeking info on the featherduster. I'm intrigued by the fact that this car was rated at 36 mpg while current production cars strive to get 30.  the questions are:
what carburation was used.
what transmission was used.
distributor timing
rear end ratio.
tires
total vehicle weight.
I've read that the car also used an open exhaust.  any ideas as to what this was.
Thank you for  your help.
Manley


Answer
Manley, to answer your questions simply, the induction was a finely tuned single barrel carb on top of an aluminum intake manifold.
If the car was bought with an automatic transmission, it was the standard 904.  A manual transmission would have been an overdrive unit in an aluminum case.  
Distributor timing and tires I'm not sure about.  You'd have to ask a real Feather Duster specialist or owner.
The rear end ratio was 2.94:1.
The exact weight I don't know either, but my sources say that with the aluminum intake, hood and trunk bracing, bumper reinforcements and aluminum manual trans, it was 187 pounds lighter than a standard Duster, comparably equipped.
The open exhaust that you read about is probably better described as "more open."  It was a high flow cast iron manifold that fed into a 2 1/4 inch head pipe.  The manifold is reccommended by Mopar Performance over header(s) for most dual puprose performance applications.

I've now told you all the information that I have.  If you search the internet, you will likely find a few car pages among thousands of cleaning supply companies.  One in particular is owned by a man going by the nickname of Kowalski.  He has a few cars, including a red Feather Duster.  He is rather knowledgable on this topic.

I hope you can find the pieces of info I wasn't able to provide for you, and I wish you luck.