So I’ve been wrenching hard on ol’ Bufort T Justice this week installing the Hotchkis Sport Suspension parts and pieces. It has been a long process mainly because I am taking my time and that’s also due to the fact that disassembling a crusty, 25 year old car ain’t exactly a process that moves swiftly, especially when the wrenching is going down in the driveway and I am working on my back. That being said, lots of progress is being made and I’ll be back with a full update on the car next week.
I am super excited to experience the night and day difference with respect to driving the car with the new suspension, wheels, and tires. Installing the new sway bar and all the other rear suspension pieces really got me thinking about all the bolt on parts I have installed over the years and which ones were great and which ones let me down big time. One of the cool parts about this hobby is the whole “before and after” factor, especially when it happens by your own hands. If you had asked me this question in high school when I installed headers and an intake manifold on the tired small block in my pickup truck, I would have told you that there was no better bolt ons in the world! Since then there have been dozens of projects, big and small that I have wrenched and bled on with varying results. I am thinking that this suspension project will take the spot for “best bolt on” upgrade when it is complete.
Now it is your turn! What’s the best bolt on upgrade you have ever made to a project car?
Cal Tracs
X2
No question about it….CalTracs.
Addco sway bar on my ’66 Dodge Dart. Really transformed the handling.
Hard to say. The General made it so that the 455 bolted into the engine bay of my car pretty easily. Does the manual transmission count? Bolting on the 12″ front rotors from a Cadillac was pretty easy on my Buick too (along with a rear axle swap that included the 10″ rear disc brakes). Now that I think about it, I haven’t just had a simple bolt on. The slapper bars did instantly get rid of wheel hop on the street, but they are not ideally set up for the track either…
I agree. Although, consistently, wheels thought out with proper backspace, width, and tire rating.. always a #1, little to big cars and light to heavy weight. The hotchkiss stuff would no doubt be a number 1 if I ever had those upgrades growing up. those open links c-shaped were not good here in natural rally road land. Welders boxed them in to find they went to hard on one end or some other anomoly.
Headers on the old truck, really woke up that 396
theres been a few. I have a 340 that when I got it was running an old torker single plane manifold, the change to an air gap was substantial.
Swapping frOm a 750 street avenger to a 750 mighty demon was noticeable.
Getting rid of factory dodge a arms and installing tubular arms with heim ends tightened up the handling at 120+.
Converting from one finger boat feel heavy power steering to 16:1 manual not only lIghtned the front end but hugely improved the handling.
i should also add that msd ignition was a huge improvement above 6500 rpm where the factory ignition box didn’t seem to want to keep up.
For the most dramatic change I ever made to a car was going from a 2 bbl to a 4 bbl on a sbc 400. That may change when I add the turbos to my current car.
Going from drum to disc brakes on the Impala, maybe. I never hit my face on the steering wheel when it had drums no matter how hard I mashed the brakes.
Purpose built race tires. When I stopped trying to drag race on street tires the difference was phenomenal, same with road course tires.
A do it all tire is nice, but add in wet handling and braking ability and the compromises are too great.
Going from a 3.23 to a 3.70 rear in my 68 Corvette.
I am not certain if the addition of the EZ-EFI or the Richmond six speed brings a bigger smile to my face. The fuel injection retrofit of the ZZ502 crate engine decidedly improved the responsiveness and markedly decreased the unburned hydrocarbons emitted, but the overdrive gear in the transmission allows me to cruise at speeds that were unpleasant with the previous 1:1 top gear. Added together, my ’71 Camaro drives almost like a modern car.
Hands down, the biggest improvement I ever bolted on my car was nitrous oxide. Went from 12.40’s @ 108mph to 11.33 @ 122 mph.
Ron
ditto that. took a daily driver 400sbc camaro from 13.90’s to 12.30’s with the smallest jets in the kit, felt like a hero until it broke the rear u-joint on the next pass…
I replaced a 600 CFM Holley on my daily driver pickup with a 625 CFM Carter AFB- really made a difference. My older brother was heckling me as I installed it but shut up while we were on the test drive. 🙂
So far on my 67′ GTO project its been the junkyard Jeep power steering upgrade, a total of about $75 bucks for 12:1 steering. Or the 1.25″ WS6 swaybar in the front. Iv’e got about $80 bucks in the whole swaybar setup with new poly end links and frame bushings and its a night and day difference between the old factory rubber crap and the tiny 7/8″ bar.
Changer to a 3.73 gear from a 2-something in the El Camino.
gear swap- get this 3.55 to 2.76! (poor mans o.d.) its a dart with a 383 17’s ect. ect. it’s torqey and you can roll into the gas at 80, cruise at 100 and wrap the speedo and hang with the ricers- people freak when they see old iron cruisin that fast!
Hands down, gear swap. 3.73s woke up my G body cars like no other mod to the engine would. I put 4.294s in place of the 3.850s in the KIA, huge improvement.
4 Wheel Disc Brakes on my Mustang!
Not exactly boltons, but the best upgrade for the money was putting in a better TC and 3.73 in my Caprice. Felt like the car lost a 1000 lbs!
no comparison, rear gears are the biggest bang for the buck. Going from a 3.08 to 4.10 feels like adding 200 HP.
Removing the dead C4 and swapping in a 4 speed Toploader.
K&N cold air intake on my 2001 Dodge Ram 1500.
In the late 80’s bought a ’71 Camaro (which I still own). I got it from the original owner who. It was “grandma” stock. I installed a set of Magnum 500 shocks that were the “hot” thing back then made by the Gabriel company. It transformed my car into a pretty decent handler. Oh, by the way. The shocks are still doing their job on the car today!
Out of all of the project cars I’ve worked on, rode in, or known, I would say that hands-down the best and most noticeable mod that can be made is changing out the rear gears and diff.
Headers, every car I have put headers on brought grins
B-body spindle conversion on my Skylark
I once replaced a Quadrajet carbureator with a 950 HP series Holley and picked up 8 tenths instantly.
One word!….BLOWER.
hard to top that, although a gear swap is probably the correct answer for most of us.
For me, it was a set of ported E7 heads on a 302 Ford. When I put them on, I also added a 650 Double Pumper. That combination almost led to me rear ending a car that I was passing the next day. I barely got it out of the right lane in time.
yeah, other than my gear swap to 4.30’s from my sloth like 3.50’s, it was replacing my Holly HP4150 vacuum secondary with a QFT mechanical secondary…. was worth an instant 3 tenths, and only took 15 mins