Jimmy D’s 1971 340 Wedge Duster: The Eternal Project
Every crew has one project car that never quite finishes, and for the Be Quick Or Be Dead crowd it was Jimmy D's 1971 Plymouth Duster with a 340 Wedge — the same Jimmy D who once launched a Cutlass over the Curry Street jump with five passengers aboard. The man was never short on commitment.
The Duster page on the original site carried a single immortal status line: "Back from the shop." Everyone who has ever owned a project car knows that sentence is both a milestone and a warning.
Why a Duster, why a 340
The 1971 Duster was Mopar's budget rocket: a lightweight A-body fastback that left the factory with a 340-cubic-inch small block rated at 275 horsepower — a figure widely believed to be deliberately conservative for insurance purposes. With a curb weight around 3,100 pounds, the combination embarrassed cars with twice the sticker price.
The "Wedge" name refers to the combustion chamber shape, and the 340 earned its reputation with high-flow heads, a six-barrel option in the AAR 'Cuda and Challenger T/A homologation cars, and a willingness to rev that the big blocks could not match. For a Detroit-area street racer in 2003, a 340 Duster was the thinking man's weapon: cheap to buy, cheap to feed, honest to tune.
The eternal project
Jimmy D's page doubled as a parts desk — "contact Jimmy D for parts and Mopars for sale" — which tells you everything about how these builds actually lived. One car came together while three others came apart; the Duster absorbed the best pieces and the worst scheduling luck in equal measure.
1971 Duster 340: the numbers
| Specification | Figure |
|---|---|
| Engine | 340 cu in (5.6 L) LA small block V8 |
| Factory rating | 275 hp (widely considered underrated) |
| Body | A-body fastback coupe |
| Curb weight | Approx. 3,100 lb |
| Transmission options | 4-speed manual or TorqueFlite automatic |
What a 340 Duster build looks like today
- Surviving cars are restoration candidates first, race cars second — rust decides the budget before horsepower does.
- The LA small block aftermarket remains deep: stroker kits to 408–416 cubes are the modern default for street-strip builds.
- Period-correct street trim with a quiet exhaust and a good tire will outrun most of what the car faced in 2003.
- Document everything: cars with a story — and this one has several — carry value beyond the metal.
The Duster's page never got its finished-gallery update, which is somehow the most honest ending a project car page can have. Somewhere in Michigan, the argument continues. That is not a failure of the build. That is the build.