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Ok so if anybody has any insight on how much work / money this is going to cost let me know. I'm considering changing my entire drivetrain. The swaps would be as follows: carbed 355 for a carbed 454, 700r4 for a turbo 400, stock rear end for a 9". The cost of the engine, tranny and rear end is not to be considered as I am interested in the fabrication and extra support costs. I have access to welders and car lift (in a month or so). I have a wonderbar and I will be getting SFCs, rather not get a cage if possible. Let's just say a safe 500hp to the wheels w/o "frame" damage is what I'm after. I assume I will need to change up the suspension and the 9" is out of a truck so its too long right? I am not looking for a how-to guide just the stuff necessary to make this work. Thanks guys.
1st and foremost... Buy a moser or QT performance bolt in 9" housing for $900-1100 with axles unless you are a master fabricator...
You will save yourself ALOT of grief.
You will HAVE to have a roll bar (6 or 8 pt) on hard top car, roll cage (10 or 12 pt) on T top car at that power level if you want the chassis/body to live a long happy life.
Weld in SFCs are a MUST HAVE.
Rest of the stuff is pretty simple/basic.
If the 454 is going to be a full weight iron heads, etc you will need a little stiffer springs up front, but if alum heads, alum intake, mini starter, alum water pump, etc. The weight will be about the same as a SBC.
Rear suspension needs to be addressed for sure.
I really like the Jegster adjustable tunnel saddle mounted torque arm.
Fab your own trans crossmember if you run a saddle mount TQ arm..
Or buy one of the aftermarket TQ arm and crossmember packages
Stiffer rear springs, maybe a set of drag bags in rear springs.
Adjustable LCAs, and panhard rod
LCA relocation brackets
BBC swap headers would be one of the other high dollar swap parts, and fitting a big enough exhaust system to support that kind of power.
Thats the kind of info. I was looking for. Thanks Night rider327. I forgot to mention I do have an adjustable panhard bar. My car was a solid top but had a sunroof installed. Do you think welding in extra plates or bars with SFCs would help much or just add weight?
Last edited by Streetstuff; 11-03-2015 at 11:55 AM.
I know you will not like hearing this... But if the roof has been cut to install a sunroof the ONLY imho way to stiffen the car back up and handle your 454 500 rwhp engine would be to run a full 10 pt. roll cage with roof halo and A pillar bars.
Yeah I probably should have realized that before now. Good thing I don't have a working posi, I probably would have bent my car up already. I guess I'll just put this on hold.
A roll cage aint that bad man. I had mine as a daily driver for about 6 years with a 10 pt cage in it.
The back seats are pretty useless in these cars anyway so not a big deal there.. I put swing out kits on my door bars, so no climbing over door bars to get in/out of car.
I used S&W bent door bars to go around factory arm rest and their bent A pillar bars to go in front of dash pad so I didn't have to cut the pad and go through it.
I done the install and welding myself in my yard with my car leveled on jackstands.
Very basic fab tools really.
Hobart 140 amp mig welder, 4.5" angle grinder, 7.5" compound cut miter wood saw with a metal cutting blade installed. Levels, angle gauge, basic hand tools. Drills, etc
At that time I didn't even have a cutting torch.
The S&W kit was on my front porch on Dec. 19 2005.
I really didn't get started on the cage install until Jan 1st 2006
Everything was done, finished, put back together on March 9th 2006
And I also installed a driveshaft loop, Jegster torque arm, a diff intake, fuel pump, and drag bags in rear springs during that same time.
I drove that car daily with the cage from March 2006 to June 2011
I might make a semi-cage myself just to see how it looks and fits. Believe it or not people actually sit in back seats so those bars are out. The swing outs by the door look nice but I think I would be annoyed by them. I think the rest of the bars actually look cool (not really the purpose but whatever). If I decide to add more power later I can just weld in the rest of the cage then. Pretty sure we have identical steering wheels btw.
11-02-2015, 04:18 PM
