Getting the big Fairlane back on the road.... Going the whole 9 inches

[Coelacanth]

I went with 255-60R15's on 15 x 8.5" rims on the rear of my '70 Charger, it originally had 195-75R14 or 205-70R14's on the back. The extra width and a bit of extra height on the rear looks proper on our old cars. The original skinny rears don't look good at all, IMHO. The wider wheels & tires also noticeably improve cornering. Not that cornering was EVER good on these beasts, but there's a lot less sidewall flex with the wider, lower-profile tires...your tires will complain a lot less when you turn that off-ramp curve at speed.

[romulus22]

I normally run 245's on the back with a 14x 7" rim and they tend to be reasonably grippy. The problem is finding tires wider than 245 in a 14" size.

I really don't expect 215's to last long

I made the mistake of going with 14's". Not a great variety in that odd wheel size these days.

[RC10th]

It has only taken 6 months but I finally bent up my kickdown rod so it works with the headers. Luckily I didn't have to shorten it like I thought, it just needed some creative bending around a fan pulley to keep its shape, all in all I'm pretty happy with it.

The car still has less than 500 total miles on it and next week I'll have to drive it 500+ miles non stop, should be interesting. No tach, no temp gauge, no oil pressure gauge, what could possibly go wrong, lol.

[romulus22]

It has only taken 6 months but I finally bent up my kickdown rod so it works with the headers. Luckily I didn't have to shorten it like I thought, it just needed some creative bending around a fan pulley to keep its shape, all in all I'm pretty happy with it.

The car still has less than 500 total miles on it and next week I'll have to drive it 500+ miles non stop,

I've been curious what's been going on with your car as I haven't seen an update for a little while. Good to hear you figured it out and you'll be putting some miles on it soon.

should be interesting. No tach, no temp gauge, no oil pressure gauge, what could possibly go wrong, lol.

What do you need any of those fancy things for, I still don't have any of those on my car. All I have right now is the fuel and an air fuel ratio.

[RC10th]

It has been on the backburner for a while now, got too much else going on at the moment. I've been meaning to reply to your Chevette thread but haven't gotten around to it yet , the two stage looks fun.

Touch wood the Fairlane makes it 500+ miles across a remote landscape, lol.

[mk-Zero]

It has only taken 6 months but I finally bent up my kickdown rod so it works with the headers. Luckily I didn't have to shorten it like I thought, it just needed some creative bending around a fan pulley to keep its shape, all in all I'm pretty happy with it.

The car still has less than 500 total miles on it and next week I'll have to drive it 500+ miles non stop,

I've been curious what's been going on with your car as I haven't seen an update for a little while. Good to hear you figured it out and you'll be putting some miles on it soon.

should be interesting. No tach, no temp gauge, no oil pressure gauge, what could possibly go wrong, lol.

What do you need any of those fancy things for, I still don't have any of those on my car. All I have right now is the fuel and an air fuel ratio.

Man, I don't know guys... to me gauges are cheap insurance. Couple years ago, my 200+ hp VW engine decided to lose a lash cap from one of the valves, which subsequently made it's way into the oil pump. Needless to say, it took out the oil pump instantly. If I hadn't had gauges I probably would have completely destroyed that motor. Instead I just replaced the oil pump and bearings and polished up the crank journals... good as new! Oh, And I had my valve stem tips hardened and ditched the lash caps

[romulus22]

It has only taken 6 months but I finally bent up my kickdown rod so it works with the headers. Luckily I didn't have to shorten it like I thought, it just needed some creative bending around a fan pulley to keep its shape, all in all I'm pretty happy with it.

The car still has less than 500 total miles on it and next week I'll have to drive it 500+ miles non stop,

I've been curious what's been going on with your car as I haven't seen an update for a little while. Good to hear you figured it out and you'll be putting some miles on it soon.

should be interesting. No tach, no temp gauge, no oil pressure gauge, what could possibly go wrong, lol.

What do you need any of those fancy things for, I still don't have any of those on my car. All I have right now is the fuel and an air fuel ratio.

Man, I don't know guys... to me gauges are cheap insurance. Couple years ago, my 200+ hp VW engine decided to lose a lash cap from one of the valves, which subsequently made it's way into the oil pump. Needless to say, it took out the oil pump instantly. If I hadn't had gauges I probably would have completely destroyed that motor. Instead I just replaced the oil pump and bearings and polished up the crank journals... good as new! Oh, And I had my valve stem tips hardened and ditched the lash caps

I was joking I definitely recommend knowing what's going on with your engine. I'm just waiting on my cage so I can do my setup once and done. I hate re-doing stuff.

[mk-Zero]

[RC10th]

Yeah, 500+ miles without gauges will be interesting. It has never run more than an hour at a time and no idea how hot it gets or if it even has good oil pressure, lol. It's bored .40 over which people say clevelands start getting hot.

Gonna be fun......


I'm just really happy the kickdown rod is in and works perfectly, I was avoiding it like the plague as I knew it was going to be a real pain in the ass.

Not sure if I explained the problem earlier but it was a custom bent rod made in the US and shipped over here, fitment was unknown to begin with as it was made to clear the aftermarket throttle bracket and higher rise intake manifold. The trans had a high offset kickdown lever which after a bit of fiddling made the rod work. Headers went on the car and the offset lever would hit the header collector tubes and wouldn't depress, great....

So find a Mustang shift lever which had the same indexing position but no offset, beauty. Rod now hits the bellhousing and wont work either, awesome....

I originally kinked the original kickdown rod out of frustration trying to modify it, which would have never worked anyways, so needless to say I was apprehensive about bending the new rod.

Fast forward 6 months and my head was finally in the right space for it and I just went to town on it. It was one of those if I ruin it oh well moods, it just has to be done. I was pretty methodical and it came out great, you can't tell it was re-bent the shape is completely different from how it started and luckily with the new bends the length worked out within the adjustment range.

[RC10th]

Maybe I'll have to put some gauges in the glove box one day so they're incognito...

[jwscab]

You might want to throw on a cheap set of gauges for the long ride, just temporarily for piece of mind. Then of course take some spare items along.

[romulus22]

You might want to throw on a cheap set of gauges for the long ride, just temporarily for piece of mind. Then of course take some spare items along.

That's what I was thinking. One of those small three gauge pods.

I was lucky enough to be able to hook a laptop up to my car to view everything to make sure it would cool properly and check the vitals after the build.

[RC10th]

I spent Christmas polishing wheels, lol

They are not perfect but a lot better, letting them sit outside over winter was a bad idea. I hand sanded and polished the rears which took about half a day Luckily I already did the fronts a bit earlier in the year.

[RC10th]

My rusty piece of junk made it without issue and without a temp gauge. I averaged a fantastic 11.36 MPG and burned nearly 50 gallons of fuel All in all it was a pretty fun trip.

[TRX-1-3]

Good to hear. Big old cars are alot more "fun" than the newer stuff.