Hello all. I have finally saved up enough $ to start the conversion of my 68 Chevelle to a pro-touring car. It currently has stock front disc brakes, rear drums, stock suspension, springs and shocks. I plan on putting on some 18" wheels and of course, need the right stance. The car will remain a street car and hopefully some day will be ready for a road course (once a year or so), but what I really want is the car to look good and handle well.

My question is, where do you think I should start this project? Should I start with beefing up the suspension components with somehting like a Hotchkis TVS system? Would coil-over shocks get the car's stance right? Dropped spindles? If I go with the drop spindles, don't I need to convert the brakes at the same time, and then that would also require me to get the wheel/tire combo as well? I'm guessing wheels/tires/brakes all should be done at the same time...?

I'm just looking for a little direction from you guys since you have been in my situation before. I currently have around $2,000 to spend on the first portion of this conversion. (Credit card is available as well if I need to spend a little more http://www.lateral-g.net/forums/images/smilies/paranoid.gif )

First of all welcome aboard! You`ll find the folks here really friendly and helpful. Theer`s a LOT of great tech here and the Search function is a great way to access it and get caught up. You picked a great time to do a PT Chevelle,there has never been such a huge selection of parks to do it right (and still lots to do it not so right :( ).
Naturally I`m a little biased (because our suspension packages are the best! :p ) but I`ll still weigh in with a few suggestions.
These cars have some shortcomings when it comes to the suspension and steering geometry and those shortcomings effect everything else. The typical fix has been to try and cover them up with "bandaids" in the form of giant swaybars etc. I prefer to see those issues fixed first,then you`ve got a good solid foundation to build on and from there you can get as crazy as you like. There are a few different ways to go about it all of which involve either taller spindles or taller ball joints to effectively make the stock spindle taller. Drop spindles are generally frowned upon because they can cause wheel clearance issues and don`t usually contribute to better performance in any way.
Once you`ve taken care of the fundamentals (which makes a huge difference in performance and drivability) you can go on to performance spring, brakes,performance shocks etc. You can go mild with something like adding rear discs to the stock front discs,a set of Eibach Pro springs all around,Bilstein shocks and a 1" rear swaybar and you`ll have a very competent car that`s a lot of fun to drive and handles as well as many new cars. You can kick it up more with,13" GT Baers front brakes,Currectrac tubular rear arms,even better geometry up front and a set of adj. shocks like Varishock QS1s. Now you`re beating up on new Charger Daytonas and many Vettes. We have clients running cars in this general range in 165mph Grand Touring class open course road racing and beating Viper GTS coupes! The fastest Vipers are in higher classes but it goes to show that the cars are now in the same ballpark and it`s coming down to the best drivers. You probably don`t need to go any farther than this but then hotrods aren`t really about need. :D Mark SC&C

Welcome to Team Chevelle. :beers:

I'd steer clear of the Hotchkis TVS system, as it has some pretty big design flaws. (good quality, but poor design) They are good for springs, shocks, and their front A-arms aren't too bad, but their use of a B-spindle screws up the steering geometry, and their rear control arms induce bind.

SC&C provides better products at better prices. :)

See this topic for a pretty good starting point. :thumbsup:
http://www.chevelles.com/forums/showthread.php?t=167646

And this one for some ideas on upgrading your existing brake setup cheaply.
http://www.chevelles.com/forums/showthread.php?t=115940

Derek-Thanks for your opinion. How did you get the stance on your 69 Malibu? That's the look I'm going for, but with some bigger wheels/tires.

So what I'm gathering from your responses so far is start with getting taller spindles/ball joints, to go along with some shocks rear sway bar and springs? I know around $2,000 isn't much to work with, but I'm itching to start my project and would still like to be able to drive the car this summer. Any other thoughts?

Welcome to Chevelle Tech!

Yes, that is a good place to start. The front end is where most of the A-body problems are. Fix them first, like Mark (SC&C) said. Another cheap improvement would be to do a Cherrokee box swap. See the other post in PT section.

Oh, have any pics?? Everyone here loves pics!!!

Ron

I took a look at the Cherokee thread and did some searching for Jiml82's "list" of parts for the conversion, but couldn't find it. Could anyone copy the link or tell me where to find it? How difficult is the box swap? How hard is it to find the parts?

Most of my experience with my car so far is from working on the engine rebuild, transmission, interior and a little body work. I'm a rookie when it comes to chasis set up/suspension, so I'm sorry if I sound ignorant....but it sounds like I'm going to have to learn a lot, which is just fine with me.

I just got a digital camera this winter, so I'll take the cover off the Chevelle and snap a few pics for you to check out.

I took a picture of the car last night but I can't figure out how to get it on the site. (I'm not the best with computers). When I click on the insert picture icon it wants to take the picture from a URL source (internet?). Anyone know how to take the picture saved from your computer and post it here? :confused: Sorry guys, I know this is a chevelle forum, not computer 101....

www.photobucket.com sign up for an account upload the pics and copy and past the url links from that site to your pics.

Derek-Thanks for your opinion. How did you get the stance on your 69 Malibu? That's the look I'm going for, but with some bigger wheels/tires.9.5" dirt-track springs with adjustable shims... I've got 17s for it now, but the suspension is all disassembled again for some upgrades, so I can't take any pics with the new wheels. :)

welcome. this is a great site, and www.pro-touring.com is also another great site. i'm a member of both and have gotten tons of valuable information just from reading lots of the different topics on both sites. be sure to check it out too.

Thanks for the tip with the picture upload. I hope it works. I pulled the cover up and took this picture last Thursday...http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s240/jjl4004/Chevelle3-15-2007.jpg

I just saw your post on the PT board and it looks like everything has been covered. Hopefully my car will be up and running soon w/ the SCandC stage II kit. Check my sig for pics.