Introducing my '69 Chevelle (and myself)

[Bakaruda]

Sweet car. Love the color as well.

[gmorris]

I guess it is time for an update. I actually can't believe how well the R888's hold on. I kept hearing horror stories about 540's on the chevelle forum and how if you're not careful she'll turn sideways at 60mph...maybe with stock 14" tires I guess. With these things it just grabs and goes. Basically it is fast as hell considering it probably weighs almost 4000lbs. It's loud, attracts a lot of attention and gets terrible gas mileage....pretty much exactly what I wanted. It was entertaining a couple weekends ago when I blasted by a smart car on the highway in it. I kinda wanted to stop and thank him for offsetting my carbon footprint for me

I've gotten 600 miles on it so far between snowstorms and "tweaking". It turned out that the stock bilsteins were terrible with the 800lb front 200lb rear springs. Nowhere near enough damping made for floaty and unpredictable handling. The original setup was the result of multiple direction changes during the build and not wanting to re-buy things before even driving it. I worked with Mark at SC&C to put together a proper package:

I already had SPC upper and lower control arms with tall balljoints.

I added SPC 535/135 springs - huge drop from where I was obviously. These allowed me to get rid of the hidden threaded spring adjusters in the front.

Spohn PT adjustable rear sway bar - bit of an install since the link mounts have to be welded to the annoyingly irregular rear crossmember but not that bad.

Spohn 1 5/16 front swaybar - the proper frame mounted rear bar allows a much heavier front bar to be used without upsetting the handling

Varishock double adjustable front/single adjustable rear dampers.

My first drive was yesterday and I have some dialing in to do but it is already drastically better. The ride is softer and yet it rolls less in the corners and turns in way better. Feels much more planted and is much easier/fun to push harder through the corners. The real test will be this wednesday when I get it out on the race city road course.

[tones2SS]

Thanks for the update.
That is a nice car you have there.
Love the color and the stance.