Fabricating a Monte Carlo Bar to my '68 convertible with a full US Cartool Chassis Stiffening kit.

[jbc426]

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.

 

[Yunick13]

I hope you reinforced the cowl where it's bolted on

 

[Kern Dog]

Okay, John....I have questions.
What are these?

I think ma Mopar should have kept them open like that to allow fresh air to the carburetor AND to clean out the leaves and debris that seems to collect there.

Secondly, what are those things on the valve covers?

I don't see a distributor at the back, are those coil packs?

That sure looks like a complicated set of pulleys and belts too. EFI too, I see....

 

[junkyardhero]

ducts for CAI to feed the beast. there's another pic that shows his slick air cleaner ***'y all plumbed in.

magnum, so thems the coil packs.

serp setup is stock magnum, minus an extra snake for the pro chargeré.

crank trigger, i'm guessing? on ignition. or disco stu is out to lunch while the bar is getting mocked up?

 

[str12-340]

I installed the factory struts for a later 70s A-Body on my 1970 Dart... Not as beefy as the fabricated one shown, but all I needed was the mount ring welded to the firewall pinch weld.

 

[DionR]

crank trigger, i'm guessing? on ignition. or disco stu is out to lunch while the bar is getting mocked up?

You can see the MDS dual pickup distributor in the last picture. Has a cap to delete the plug wires and rotor but it is a distributor that feeds the EFI both crank and cam position inputs.

 

[jbc426]

Okay, John....I have questions.
What are these?

View attachment 1716307633

I think ma Mopar should have kept them open like that to allow fresh air to the carburetor AND to clean out the leaves and debris that seems to collect there.

Secondly, what are those things on the valve covers?

View attachment 1716307634

I don't see a distributor at the back, are those coil packs?

That sure looks like a complicated set of pulleys and belts too. EFI too, I see....

View attachment 1716307635

Cold air from the cowl....sauce for the goose, Mr Savick.

 

[jbc426]

ducts for CAI to feed the beast. there's another pic that shows his slick air cleaner ***'y all plumbed in.

magnum, so thems the coil packs.

serp setup is stock magnum, minus an extra snake for the pro chargeré.

crank trigger, i'm guessing? on ignition. or disco stu is out to lunch while the bar is getting mocked up?

I cut those holes to grab cold, higher-pressure air to stuff into the air cleaner.

I skipped the crank trigger due to it being higher complexity with not much benifit in my application. I'm using the Holley Dual Synch Distributor which provides crank and cam position signals to the ECM which fires the individual coil packs.

I hope you reinforced the cowl where it's bolted on

It's actually a pretty stout area of the car because of the multiple bends and folds in the sheetmetal there. I've never detected any deflection or stress risers, cracks or any such indicators as of yet. With this new motor, that may change.

 

[jbc426]

Okay, John....I have questions.
What are these?

View attachment 1716307633

I think ma Mopar should have kept them open like that to allow fresh air to the carburetor AND to clean out the leaves and debris that seems to collect there.

Secondly, what are those things on the valve covers?

View attachment 1716307634

I don't see a distributor at the back, are those coil packs?

That sure looks like a complicated set of pulleys and belts too. EFI too, I see....

View attachment 1716307635

I can't even get that Dwayne character over here to help once in a while.