Hello, I'm thinking of widening the above on my 72 maverick. How wide of a slick can I use if I split and widen to the subframe? Havent got off my duff to measure yet! Thought Id ask. Would like a 10.5 tire. I want to get to racing it for now. Dont want to gut it yet, just tie it up and put a Mustang II front on and get rid of those God damn shock towers. Considering the room i'd have in back, ladder-bars or 4-link? Power will be a 393/C4. Regards. Al
If you're going to go through the work of the M2 front end, do yourself a favor and just backhalf it. 4 link. Ladders are ok, but its like which is better, chocolate chip or oatmeal cookies? Neither are bad but one is definitely better than the other Just get a backhalf kit from S&W race cars, or the like (there are hundreds of places that offer rear frame kits), weld it in and tie it all together with a GOOD 12 point cage. Remember to tie the cage into the front frame rails. Those rails are NOT designed to carry the weight of the car by themselves, especially not the weight of a 460/C6. Speaking of C6--once you backhalf and M2, you will have lost around 300 lbs of weight. More if you remove the stock floor, firewall, and go with light brakes (then we're talking 500-600 lbs weight lost). With any decent 460, that C6 will be gone through first gear so fast that it's a waste of time. Powerglide is the ONLY way to go on a race car, especially if you're making more than 400 HP, which is gravy with a 460. It's almost like putting a 4 cylinder T5 behind a 302. It CAN be done, but the first gear ratio is so low that it's just a waste of time to even use it. Just my thoughts, speaking from experience. Good luck.
Thanks MavMan, Been thinking about it all day today. Made my mind up last night and decided to just back-half it for now and gut all the rear floors. The thing I like about the C6 was COST. I understand on the ratio issue between the two trans. Heck, I even have a freinds that builds them once in a while. Cant touch a glide for the cost of a C6. www.460ford.com has a C6 sticky thread that is awseome. Probably go that route first and sell it later. I used to back-half,etc cars twenty years ago. I have a ten year old son and want to pass the diesease along to him. We will be working on the car tomorrow. Cant wait THANKS Regards. Al
Well guys i it looks like another good car bits the dust to the cutting torch!!!! But you know this doesn't have to happen.i have done what your talking about the mustang 11 front suspension is good for street rods or a car your going to drive but not too good for racing. It is hard to get enough travel out of and with 460 in short car it gets very nose heavy and hard to get too work. As far as cutting out rear floors if car is in good shape you would be a fool to do this.you can get 10.5" on it with out doing any cutting in rear.i have 13.5" tires on mine but we pushed out outer lip.stock type rear suspension works great with caltrac bars. Email me and i can help you a lot in putting big block in if your dead set on it but you can make a lot of power with small blocks today and they will live. I know towers are a pain but there are other things you can do too make room. Check out my car at klassic-auto.com go to pics I will help all i can.my car has been 10.20 at 127 true street car with tail pipes and stock looking!!
I would like to see those 13.5" wide rear tires in stock wheel wells, with stock frame rail locations. I ran 28-10.5s for a while. Those were tight enough and I had to do a couple of mods to make them fit without rubbing. As far as not hacking up a car, call me a fool if you want. Mine had 63,000 original miles on it, and the only thing left is the floor, body, and front frame rails. Rest of it has been cut up. But it was the absolute BEST modification I have ever done to that car. I have won 4 times as many races with the underpowered/over-tired car than I did with a stock suspension/small tire car. All the work I did-it paid for itself in races won (and then some....). Are the towers a pain? They are only a pain if you run a 351w or larger engine. With a 302, 347, etc they aren't too bad, but the factory suspension really sucks. Yeah you get plenty of travel but how much travel do you need? Of course I run a Mustang 2 IFS on mine, and I have the travel limited to about 6" total. 2" up and 4" down. Once your 60' times get into about 1.60's and faster, limiting travel can (and usually does) improve your 60 and 330' times, assuming the rear suspension halfway works. If you have a solid or really nasty leaf spring rear suspension, yes, lots of travel is what you need, but with the front end in the sky all the way down the track, it catches a ton of air and affects downtrack stability. Worse on 1/4 mile tracks due to higher speeds. Not trying to start a pissing contest but I just thought these things should be considered.
Frame rails I run 10.67 last week end on a 9-28 slick.we run a heads up 6.50 index on 9" tire my car run from 6.50 to 6.65. Don't know how fast your run with your big tire car but I hope it in the 9s or you wasted a lot of time and if you want you can check out my car at our web site klassic-auto.com and click on picture and you will see 13.5-28s on a stock frame maverick.all you have to do is cut inter wheel wells and push out outer quarters. I have a falcon sprint 9" housing in my car and it works.if you need more pics let me know and I will be glad to help.I also have a vidio you sould see e-mail me your address and I will forward it to you.
Dad runs the same 28x9's on his Fairmont. It runs 6.40-6.60 at 105-107 depending on track/weather conditions. Yeah it can be done. For a heads up racer, it's probably fine. But for us bracket racers, being that consistency is the best way to turn on the win light, over-tired and underpowered is usually the best way. Since I "ruined" my car (and yeah, I also ruined it with a powerglide GM transmission!!), I have total confidence in my equipment which allows me to concentrate on cutting double oh lights. Since the car does it's job it's hard to beat. But I am not racing heads up. Maybe some index classes once in a while but mostly open bracket (footbrake). I guess since I'm only running 5.80's (best, in good air...looking for some 5.70s this fall) in the 1/8 at 118-119, I probably wasted my time....BUT if I wanted to, I could let go of the steering wheel and let the car go right down the track perfectly straight with my only input being my right foot and right hand to slap 'er into high gear. Car drives PERFECT, which is exactly the reason I decided to ruin my chassis in the first place. Send me your vids. toddh687@yahoo.com
I know this is older but thought I'd chime in for people building race cars. I agree that the C6 is a cheap route to harness big block power. If your interested in knowing the strength of one: my dad has a 1500-2000 horsepower big block ford mud truck, 14-71 blower, alcohol injection, 44 inch tires, tube chassis, fiberglass ranger body. It eats drive train parts for breakfast going through a bumpy mud pit but he used a stock C6 for the first 2 years he ran it. Like right out of a 70's ford pickup. He had to replace the clutches often but until he really uped the power it stayed together. Eventually he did twist the input shaft off and has since moved to a racing C6 but thats at 2000 + HP
