I have been putting this off all winter but finally I got out in the garage and started cutting. I bought the car in November of 06 and always thought that the car sat way to high. The rear tires are not tucked up under the car at all, and the way the previous owner tied the crossmember for the back half in was not up to par. So anyway I am sure I will have plenty of questions for all of you through out this project so thanx ahead of time!

Looks like fun! You should find all the help you need here. Bunch of great guys!

Thanks for the reply. I have already put 2 inch drop spindles in the front, it looks much better now. My plans now are to replace the crossmember for the back half along with narrowing the rearend a little bit more to give me some clearence to tuck the tire up in the wheel well. Then I am redoing the tin work to get rid of the "unitub" put regular wheel tubs in it and finish everything up with some sort of dynamat and carpet.

What power plant are you going to run?

My thought is to replace the rails and start over. Those rails look like they are pieced together. I would get one piece rails. If this car has no back seat, I would leave the rear bars as they are and put an X off of the main hoop to where teh spring crossmember will be.

In short its a 454 30 over gen 5 block with eagle crank and rods around 10 to 1 compression hydraulic roller cam 1.7 roller rockers and a holley air gap intake.
So gusseting the existing frame rails would not be sufficient? That is what my original plan entailed. Thanks for the input.

I have been putting this off all winter but finally I got out in the garage and started cutting. I bought the car in November of 06 and always thought that the car sat way to high. The rear tires are not tucked up under the car at all, and the way the previous owner tied the crossmember for the back half in was not up to par. So anyway I am sure I will have plenty of questions for all of you through out this project so thanx ahead of time!
What kind of crossmember do you have connecting the stock frame to narrowed frame in the rear? Looks like a ladder bar setup also. Is that correct? How wide are the rear frame rails apart? What you have looks decent to go with,just depends on the finished look you are after. Some prefer form over function and some prefer the opposite. Just trying to get a feel for what you are trying to accomplish.

The crossmember currently in the car is a round tube type there is a plate welded to the stock frame rail that the tube ties into and the welds there look pretty bad. It was a home made 4 link. I am considering going to ladder bars just because i have a set that have never been used but i dont know I like having the adjustment of a 4 link so thats kind of up in the air. The frame rails are 38 inches wide right now so its really not narrowed that much. It has 29x15.50x15's on it now. As far as the frame work itself that looks good all the welds look good I bought some 2x3x.120 wall to use to gusset the 90 degree areas. As far as finished look goes iwant function but I also want it to look clean, not just thrown together. It is mostly a street car going to cruises and shows but it may see some track time.

I think the 4 link will give you a little more drivability on the street. A ladder bar setup DOES NOT like to be crooked. So driveway aprons and things of that type kind of need to be taken pretty straight on. However as far as adjustability goes, you won't need it. My car is a ladder bar car and I have never moved anything from the day it was set up.

That will be sweet slammed! Have to say ive never seen front runners that big! Keep us posted with some photos should look killer!

I am headed down to National Parts Depot tomorrow to pick up my floor pans and a few other pieces so hopefully i can keep making progress.

Well guys thought i would give you an update. I did go to NPD and pick up all my floor pans also got a rear cross brace from Ausleys and I think that I now have all of my brackets to start setting up the rear end. Spent most of the day today getting the car at the ride height that i want. Made some crude spring compressors to lower the front of the car they go in place where the shock was using a piece of 3/4 threaded rod a couple nuts and some homemade washers. thats it for now but if anyone has an opinion on the look of the car with the new stance i would love to hear it.

stance looks killer!

Stance looks real good. What type suspension did you decide to go with?

Hey guys been a while but anyway what would you recomend for a tire to frame or tire to quarter clearence that woud be safe with a panhard bar for driving on the street not just straight down a track.

Well guys thought i would give you an update. I did go to NPD and pick up all my floor pans also got a rear cross brace from Ausleys and I think that I now have all of my brackets to start setting up the rear end. Spent most of the day today getting the car at the ride height that i want. Made some crude spring compressors to lower the front of the car they go in place where the shock was using a piece of 3/4 threaded rod a couple nuts and some homemade washers. thats it for now but if anyone has an opinion on the look of the car with the new stance i would love to hear it.

The stance you have in this photo, is that with just the 2 inch drop spindles on up front or is that the 2 inch drop spindles with the front coil springs cut alittle bit too? The reason I ask, I have 2 inch drops spindles not installed yet for my El camino and just want to get an idea of what mine might look like.

Looks good!

In that photo the springs were compressed with a piece of 3/4 threaded rod just for mock up and ride height purposes I ended up going with a set of QA1 coil overs on the front.