Charger
You can see in this picture why I had to cut that crossmember.
One of my concerns was weakening the chassis and then adding massive power. The Charger's unibody was already showing damage from the original 440/727 torque. The right quarter panel had the dip by the sail panel that's not uncommon on these cars when subjected to a lot of hard launches. It was also starting to tear the leading edge next to the door. I've seen a few other B-bodies with similar stress damage.
The subframe connectors should stiffen the chassis quite a bit but that transmission crossmember/torsion bar assembly was pretty integral to strength. Cutting the center out of that is scary. I had to make the newly modified crossmember pretty stout.
You can see in this picture why I had to cut that crossmember.
One of my concerns was weakening the chassis and then adding massive power. The Charger's unibody was already showing damage from the original 440/727 torque. The right quarter panel had the dip by the sail panel that's not uncommon on these cars when subjected to a lot of hard launches. It was also starting to tear the leading edge next to the door. I've seen a few other B-bodies with similar stress damage.
The subframe connectors should stiffen the chassis quite a bit but that transmission crossmember/torsion bar assembly was pretty integral to strength. Cutting the center out of that is scary. I had to make the newly modified crossmember pretty stout.
