Fixing the Stance Part II

This is actually work I completed last year as my spring project.  In my last post I cut the front spring to lower the front end and level the car with the rear suspension work I previously did.  For Christmas one year I got How to Make Your Muscle Car Handle and was reading more into my suspension.  In the book they mention that Chris Alston's Chassisworks makes a drop front control arm.  That's all I needed to get the wheels turning...  

Fixing the Stance

Since I had rebuild the rear suspension with a mid-leaf spring kit, the front of the car has sat higher than the rear.  I also upgraded the rear to 15" wheels, but due to how much it costs, I couldn't do the front wheels at the same time.  Finally, this spring I was able to get the front wheels and also ended up cutting the front springs to address the stance of the car.  I went with P225/60R15 tires for the front.

15" wheels all around, but the stance is too high in the front 

Rebuilding Rear Ends

This one is going to go back in time as I started this project back in February 2016.  The goal was to finish the back suspension of the car and add an Eaton TrueTrac to the rear differential.  So the plan was for me to rebuild the rear end and put everything back together with a new suspension.  I also decided to upgrade the rear brakes from drums to discs.

Out with the old suspension and rear axle

Double Pumping

Carburetors.  Archaic technology (hasn't been sold on a car since 1990) and very temperamental (hard to dial in).  I only say this because I have been having a hell of a time getting them to work for me.  I inherited with my car a Holley 4160 600 CFM which comes with vacuum secondaries.  This means the carb relies on the vacuum created at higher rpms to pull the fuel into the secondary fuel bowl (higher rpms require more fuel to be fed into the engine to meet the demand).  It is actually a pretty nice bit of engineering (for the time), and in theory the fuel is delivered when it is needed.  This was not the case for my 4160.  I am not sure if it was due to the lower vacuum my engine pulls because of the bigger cam, or what, but I could never get the secondaries to open on my carb.  I tried lighter springs and a new diaphragm, but I could never get it to work correctly.  It was costing me horsepower. And then one fateful day, the whole carb decided to die in spectacular fashion.  Gas just started spewing everywhere from every seal.  I had enough.

The old 4160