Fabricating a Monte Carlo Bar to my '68 convertible with a full US Cartool Chassis Stiffening kit.
Due to increased horsepower and torque from my new engine/trans combo, I wanted to reinforce the front end chassis to hopefully reduce body flex under load. I welded in the US Cartool Chassis Stiffening kit over a decade ago. It transformed the ride of my convertible, which had a pretty bad case of cowl shake without it. Once welded in, the car felt dramatically stiffer, the doors opened and closed better and it seems to have helped the handling too. I highly recommend it.
I still had a touch of cowl shake on washboard roads and railroad grade crossings. I welded up my own version of a Monte Carlo Bar and installed in years ago before I swapped a 5.9 Magnum i place of my Doug Dutra build Slant 6. All my cowl shake was gone. the car felt way more solid in general.
I woke up one day and pulled the Slant 6 out and installed a junkyard 5.9 Magnum. My Monte Carlo Bar didn't fit with the intake of the 5.9, so I had to remove it until I could modify it.
Fast forward about 10 years, and I began to worry about feeding 820hp through the old uni-body which is a convertible to boot. I broke out the old bar and reinstalled it, so I can change the configuration to fit the new motor combo.
Notice how I used cap bolts on the cowl attaching point to reduce the size of the bolt head allowing the hood to close properly. I'm of to the metal store to grab a slightly longer crossbar that tie the fenders together resulting in a triangle shaped Monty Carlo bar.
I'll post a finished picture once the bar is welded up and painted.
Due to increased horsepower and torque from my new engine/trans combo, I wanted to reinforce the front end chassis to hopefully reduce body flex under load. I welded in the US Cartool Chassis Stiffening kit over a decade ago. It transformed the ride of my convertible, which had a pretty bad case of cowl shake without it. Once welded in, the car felt dramatically stiffer, the doors opened and closed better and it seems to have helped the handling too. I highly recommend it.
I still had a touch of cowl shake on washboard roads and railroad grade crossings. I welded up my own version of a Monte Carlo Bar and installed in years ago before I swapped a 5.9 Magnum i place of my Doug Dutra build Slant 6. All my cowl shake was gone. the car felt way more solid in general.
I woke up one day and pulled the Slant 6 out and installed a junkyard 5.9 Magnum. My Monte Carlo Bar didn't fit with the intake of the 5.9, so I had to remove it until I could modify it.
Fast forward about 10 years, and I began to worry about feeding 820hp through the old uni-body which is a convertible to boot. I broke out the old bar and reinstalled it, so I can change the configuration to fit the new motor combo.
Notice how I used cap bolts on the cowl attaching point to reduce the size of the bolt head allowing the hood to close properly. I'm of to the metal store to grab a slightly longer crossbar that tie the fenders together resulting in a triangle shaped Monty Carlo bar.
I'll post a finished picture once the bar is welded up and painted.