Pass side behind the control arm and driver side it lays VERY close to the cradle,..and on the back side of the cradle on the pass side
I have urethane mounts with additional bolt-in amounts. Every place that has a tapped boss gets a bolt-in mount. The only two blanks are the two above the axle.
The headers can be tight. I have already had them in. That’s another thing about custom headers. You can eliminate that. I have a set of 2 1/4” customs on another car that all fit inside the rails. Just yesterday I was toying with the possibility of some additional engine set back,but I will probably leave it where it is.
Do you put the down bars over the “towers?”. I have my down bars attached there on my car. fantastic work Brian. Amazing really.
This is interesting. Super rigid. Never knew there were that many threaded holes in our cars. I wonder if Chevrolet is like that to for 1970.
All of the GM A-bodies used the same floor pan,so they all have the same number of tapped holes. The convertibles usually got more of the bolt-in mounts. The Buicks and Chevy convertibles also have the double mounts on the firewall. The Oldsmobiles just have a single. Yes,the towers are for all the cage points. All of that had to be mocked-up,pre-fit,etc.,to know where to put them. I didn’t do anything for the forward bars in the engine bay because those can go straight to the frame,wherever I rout them to. I also purchased the smooth firewall panel from ABC. This car will have a ventless dash pad like the non-AC sedans and post coupes,with the correct dash bezel,and I even fabbed a blank plate to go where the heat controls were. I could possibly even put 3 small gauges their,but most of the time you can’t get the same quality gauge that small. I still want to run the original 3 large gauges that were born in the car. I restored the left rally gauge,the original speedo,and the clock,so I know the time. They do make an A-pillar pod gauge for these cars,but is never advertised or listed anywhere. The problem with that is if you have a real cage,the down bars block(or partially block) those gauges on the pillar.
No. I keep them the stock length,or on some cars,slightly shorter,along with the uppers. I keep the pinion angle stock,but I like to choke the whole axle forward a hair.
Great job Brian, your work looks top-notch! I used the ABC aluminum body mounts. And one thing I did was drilled 1 inch access holes so I could place a nut where those two floater body mounts are behind the rear seat that’s where I put the holes. I felt like that was important since that’s where the coil springs are and thats a high stress area.Believe it or not My 70 GS stage one that was an original four-speed car at one time had those nuts there from the factory. Can’t wait to see it all finished you should be proud!
Interesting, that you keep stock length or even shorten. I know slicks and even taller radials get the front of the tire up on the quarter. You have to then I believe get the rear tucked up most and getting the trailing arm close to 0* to get max length away from said quarter. As mentioned here. Dynamite work and I really enjoy following along. Seeing you use rod ends on the rear suspension is interesting. Is it a spherical joint in the upper differential housing? Thanks for your answers and photos.
I did some extensive work the to rear half of the frame. I added an assortment of gussets and braces to stiffen it up and to strengthen the spring and shock mount area. Yes,I could have chopped it all out,but I wanted to leave the option to put traditional coil springs and shocks back in,if I ever choose to do so. I run drag radials on my cars and I have run my arms at these adjustments before. Yes,the upper ears of the axle housing have spherical bushings from Wolfe Racecraft. There are other companies that sell them as well. I have urethane body bushings and every bushing bolts to the body. No dummy pucks. No,it’s not the lightest chassis,but it’s stout.
That’s all right about the weight. There’s more good that chassis stiffness does and often goes ignored that people realize It should 60 foot real good. Nice work Brian!
A friend of mine has a saying “if you can’t make the power,get a lighter car”. Well,I can make the power,so I’m not trying make a potato chip car. I will go down the road nice.
Long-awaited update. I sent the body on the new chassis to Nick Servo to pretty much re-skin and panel the whole car. A little overkill for this type of car,but I like my stuff nice. Mostly AMD panels with ABC Performance inner stock-appearing mini-tubs. She will still be a heavy steel car,but I can compensate with the power.
