1963 buick skylark special "gasser"

I'd like to start this thread with the admission that I’m not building a traditional gasser
I'm building what I most likely would have built if I had been doing this project back in the 60's
I'm just all that way.

Source material- car I bought in California nearly 10 years ago.
I lost my storage on it and I'm now working on getting a title. Cali DMV shot me a price I only need to send them the money now.

Where I'm at on it today

I don't have the mounts in permanent
I want to get the engine in and the front axle made and installed before I finalize the rear setup.
Currently I think I still need to push the axle back another inch
This is installed 1" back from the stock location on account of the wheel opening/tire situation and how it is affected by the lift and the larger tires.
I'm using 68-74 nova springs, old school slapper bars, and a 9" from a 1969 cougar 59.5" flange to flange.
I lost some pics in a recent system crash but I will be making new front spring mounts anyway. I don't like that the datum line is nearly parallel to the ground and how close to the body the tires are so I will be dropping the front mount somewhere in the neighborhood of 1-2 inches.
I think the tire could stand to go back another 3/4 to 1" to make room for 29" drag slicks.
I also don't like the angle on the rear shackles under load so they will also be moved back

You can see in this picture that the 59.5" 69 cougar axle is just about the right width
These are stock 15x7 ranger wheels
I'll be going with 15x8 with an additional 2" of backspace. Lot's of room back there.

rear shot- lots of room. leaf springs are going in pretty sano

I was messing around with the idea of building my own axle but instead I'm hoping to buy one from Bill at WAC customs. it's not an area I want to have a problem and it looks like his are the best.
I was going to run this 46 chevy truck axle I have but would have to get some hard riding ridiculously arched springs for them to work. I'm going with 47-55 springs because they are still 1.75" wide (a little longer from the pin forward) and general spring has them for roughly 120 bucks whereas the 46 and older springs are between 150 and 175.
it looks like stock springs with an axle-under straight tube on the front will get me close to level.
When I said "gasser" instead of traditional gasser this is what I meant. It will have a VERY slight forward rake.
I can't use a speedway axle because theirs are setup for car spindles at 3 degrees and I WANT the 7 or 7.5 degree truck kingpin inclination angle for the kingpin angle to intersect the ground roughly centered at the tire's contact patch.
The unibody looks to be over engineered. it is significantly more trussed than in a mustang or a dart and the factory put big power in those.
Most of my suspension mountings are to be bolted through to the inside where I'm using 3/16 plates for cage pick up points.
that should isolate most harsh stresses from the unibody.

tuned

[P[P[P[P[P[P

Later

Nice looking little car and a 2 door hard top [cl
What are you thought for power [S

engine mounts

Those Buick high arched front subframe rails leave me no where to mount the engine to.
they are also why I dispensed with the idea of going low with a tubular cradle mounting something like a mustang II setup.
I can draw one up I just don't want to build it.
My other option was installing the rear as a 4 link and going with custom one-off a frame suspension in the front. I just can't spend that much time on it and i bought the car to build it like this in the first place.
yes quite a few people have been telling me to pro street it or build a ralleye cruiser.
I had a 71 firebird for 20 years you almost couldn't roll a beer an under. time for something different.
I think the arch in the sub rails makes them stronger vertically and also less subject to twist.
The questionable area is going to be where the front unibody meets the cowl.

Anyway since it is what it is, and my plan was to leave as much original car intact as possible...
I'm going with a front motor plate and a rear tranny mount with no mid plate (no room).

The engine is a 67 pontiac 389 bored .060 over to 400 with 6x heads and edelbrock Performer-rpm cam and intake with an 800cfm 455 quadrajet and hooker super comps...

The 389 has a lakewood and a Billet hays flywheel
I could fab little batwings to bolt to the lakewood which would mount to the sub rails to stiffen up the chassis but I’d like to avoid using the engine as a structural component.
I’m going to have to tap the oil filter pad for AN fittings and run a remote filter
there are AN fittings in brass but they call them J-something for "joint..something something.". I need help remembering what they are called I want to go with brass.
they would be the same ones used in the commercial vehicle market with braided line.

If I have room I'm going to fabricate a clutch pedal and linkage assembly...
If not I have one of every gm non-electronic trannies they used in the 70's and 80's I could put in there.
200r4, 700r4, th350 th350c th400

If I'm lucky I won't have to butcher the firewall
It's a highboy, the engine doesn't have to touch the radio
It looks like if I remove the heater and go with a desert air i can get the new mill installed in roughly the same location as the little 215.
A benefit of the pontiac engine in a tight spot like this is that the exhaust manifolds point down.

I'm still undecided if I want to use a Saginaw 545 steering box or a grand national or SS power box
it's going to be front steer/cross steer- plenty of room for either.

My radiator tank saddle mounts I make are kinda cool
I use short pieces of smooth 3/8 rod and force plain black rubber 3/8 fuel line over them for cushion after I bend them into U-shaped radiator saddles and weld them to brackets.
They work very nice without harming the radiator.
I invented them for my Firebird after I tossed the broken plastic shroud.
Put many miles on them with no problems.

Engine has maybe one mile on it and half an hour break in and messing around.
It's been in the garage under a shelf since 2002 waiting on me.

...Runs like "Smokey and the Bandit"

Looks like a real fun project.

[cl [cl [cl
[P [P [P

Wow! This is heading towards being awesome. Love everything about it.

Thanks
I think it reminds me of those old dodge super stock cars
Working on a name
was thinking something like....

I'm missing a pic

back on the ground. have to move it inside to do the front will have rain all next week.
I'm going to swap this 59.5" axle for a 54" axle I have and get axles with 4x4.75 pattern so I can run 15x8 buick ralleye wheels

[cl [cl[P[P [cl

This Looks like it's going to be a fun one...

[P

keep her up on two wheels

stupid people

I bought a used steering arm off a guy on ebay.
I got a ripped open empty box and removed it from my mailbox right after the postal person delivered it so I filed a claim with the post office.
I told the seller I filed a claim and the box was empty.
The post office pays me back my $31.
He sends me another steering arm.
I tell him the post office paid my claim and I ask him for bill for the arm or if he wants it back.
The guy goes full retard and threatens me with telling the postal inspector I committed a fraud.
I recommend he just sends me a bill or asks for his arm back before he gets himself in trouble with the law or has to face my lawyer.
he says he's going to see the postal inspector instead.
I re-opened my claim and added an appeal sending .jpg photos of the emails proving this to the postal inspector so they have ALL the evidence when he goes in there in case he lies and tries to libel me.
Not just stupid
Junkyard stupid

Waiting for income tax return

I'm kinda stopped on this project until I get my income tax return unless I build my own gasser axle.
I want to buy one from Bill W WAC customs if I can. His are said to be bulletproof.
I have some 1026 .60 thickness DOM and a pair of kingpin bosses. I might have to at the least build a mock-up axle so i can keep moving on getting everything else setup.