Nessumsar wrote:justthatguy wrote: I believe, short of getting another car, that my 69 4 door Valiant is now the best car for the build. Anyway to update the title?Let me know if you have your eyes on any Hotchkis products, I work there; for either the '65 or '69.
Does Hotchkis actually make anything for early A bodies? Serious question. The 69 goes without saying.
The 69 would be cool with a turboed to hell slant 6.
We have a '63 here that we put most of our A-body kit on. I believe all but the front sway bar and subframe connectors worked so our cars has the leafs, rear sway bar, 4 shocks, upper arms, strut rods, and steering rods IIRC. I would look, but it's at an engine shop getting the freshly rebuilt engine gone through for a bad piston wrist pin.
For the Suspension, A body is A body. No differences. I did 1.03" torsions with the Bilstein shocks and many other additions on my Barracuda I just sold. The only thing that made it difficult is the 5X4" SBP setup and most of the axles were the really weak 7 1/4" setup. To move up to the 8 1/4" rear it results in getting different wheels and having a mis-match front to rear unless you change the front to the later disk setup as well.
Where you run into issues is headers. If you want to keep the fenders in tack then you either keep the stock manifolds or go with something like Dougs headers for $$$.
If you need a good core 273 forged crank, let me know. I've got one sitting around that I can let go for not a lot.
Mike
I really want to give these composite leaves a try. I keep hearing good things about them. I can't get squat for length on them though, only that it has the Chrysler bolt hole size. Very reassuring.
I think 1.03" in front is a start, they make up to 1.18" but that would crush my spine on bumps. The car is definitely getting an 8 3/4", I'm not sending 500 hp through an 8 1/4 and I'm scared of sending slant 6 power through a 7 1/4.
It's been raining here for 3 freakin days, so I have yet to actually finish getting wheels and tires on it to move it.
I'm definitely converting to the BBP Chrysler, have to for big discs anyway. Headers I don't mind some bashing and cutting, the car will never be worth big bucks so I'm not too worried.
You raise a good point, Mike. I dunno if the 273 parts I have are still any good. They were stored in a leaky building so it may be too rusty to clean up, plus the 273 they came out of was torched. I'll have to see when all this rain clears out.
So progress.
I cleaned it today and hammered out the trunk lock. I put tires and wheels on it last week to get it out of the ground and this was actually an amazingly solid car.
I promise I will actually get pictures tomorrow, though I suspect not much will get done since it's about 5 degrees shy of Satan's kitchen here. The next step is moving it and getting the interior out of it, which is in such nice shape I may wrap it in plastic.
justthatguy wrote: Headers I don't mind some bashing and cutting, the car will never be worth big bucks so I'm not too worried.
Be careful what you cut on an A body to make the headers fit - the inner fenders are structural on these cars. I've seen several A bodies with fenderwell headers with visible alignment problems that are likely due to sag issues from having the material cut out as if they are just removing a cosmetic splash shield. If you must cut the inner fenders, don't put sharp corners in the cutout, and try to add some reinforcement to make up for the missing material.
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