As was posted earlyer in the fall Ive decided to take a step up in my racing adventure. Later this week I will pull the engine and trans from the Captian America Skylark and get ready to build a 78 Regal Roller I bought on RJ for 1200.00. 2 of the items I will be needing right off are the frame pads as the Regal had a SBC oe BBC in its prior life and a cross member. If I reuse the pads from the skylark they will have to be cut out and then re welded into the regal. What are my options?
you can buy the cast iron pads from TA, may have to make a trans crossmember or modify the Skylark one to fit
Briz im sure you going to need the pads sooner than this but im pulling the 430 out of my regal this winter and would be more then happy to throw the iron frame pads your way after i cut them out. im going back to a small block of some sort. not sure what direction im heading yet. dan
That's what I would do. It's cheap, and it's not like you're going to hurt the value of either car by doing it.
Ok that settles it for the frame pads. Is there a light weight low cost option for the cross member? Im sure I will have to do something about a drive shaft also. The Regal is set up with a Ford 9" rear. ladder bars and a 500 gear. Least thats what was posted in the ad. Wouldnt be suprised if true. They run a 300' track up where it came from. Id like to keep the Lark as close to a complete roller for future sale as a low cost entry level car.
http://www.jegs.com/i/Jegster/550/41050/10002/-1 This is the cheapest one other then cutting and welding a stock one. i have a gforce one in my car which is a really nice piece but kinda pricy.
Pulled the engine and trans out of the Lark and cut out the frame pads today. Pushed/pulled it out back to the woods and drag'd the Regal up to the shop. As I was pulling the engine and the headres fell through with a loud BONGgggg I wondered to myself if they were gonna fit in the Regal. Do A body headers fit inside the frame rails of the Regal?
Thanks for the offer. This car is set up with a Ford 9" rear and has a ladder bar set up on it with adjustable coil over shocks.
Briz,for a cross member in my race car,I use one from a Lincoln,it's fairly easy to modified and it's light.Pick one up in a yard,cheap and good.Bruno.
I put 2" primary headers from TA perf into an 80 Regal. Photo attached. No 2 pipe comes awful close to right front brake line inside frame, No 2 pipe goes between rear lower A Arm mount and crossmember and was about 1/4" from the brake line Re routed a new one to get around this problem. Stock steering intermediate shaft hit no. 5 cyl. pipe, going with Jeep Grand Cherokee part or if I cannot find one, build one from Flaming River parts (Expensive for what it is). John W.
Briz,the one I have is from from mid 80's Lincoln,it does come from the factory with dual exhaust.If it's a little longer,it might be,just cur it and make new holes on it where you want them.Bruno.
Were the headers designed for the A body cars? I hope to reuse the ones that were in the Lark. There 1 7/8 primarys with a 3.5 collector. What cross member was in the picture? The engine looks like its a tight fit.
Yes, TA Part No. TA2012SCH Super Competition. 2 Primary Fits `68-`77 Special, Skylark, GS, Sportwagon, Regal, Century. `71-`76 LeSabre,Centurion, Electra, Riviera.`78-`88 Regal, Raw Text above is from their on-line catalog. Should have passed this along earlier For A and G body. Crossmember is from Iceman products (www.maliburacing.com) Makes them custom for the transmission. Getting the engine into the car with the body on was tight. Especially on the drivers side where the transmission hump was closer to the side of the trans. The 2004R has "ears" that interfere also. I aligned the engine/trans with the crossmember and rear axle installed, welded in the engine pads. The body was off then. I put the body on first, had a 6 pt. rollbar installed and then tried to put the engine in. Major bitch of a problem when tilting the engine for the pan etc to clear the front xmember and the shock towers. Didn't count on that. Had to recess the firewall about 1.5" and there are some real tight spots on the drivers side between the engine, firewall and trans tunnel. Had to expand the tunnel near the front. Must be how I did it, possibly more setback due to the trans xmember placement. He builds these for BBC in Malibus mostly, so the engine may be 1/2 to 1" further back than most installs. John W.
More Pictures, I'm having trouble adding extra shots to the above post so here's more. New firewall section and blower motor filler were 18ga. steel. Trans tunnel filler was 16ga steel
The car I'm working on is more complete with the roll bars and body in place. I'm hoping I don't have to go to all of that cutting and welding. Re using the TH400 and I can cut any "ears" off that I need to. There is an advantage to having the engine further back for weight transfer. Guess I wont know for sure until I actually go to set it in place. Good info and nice work on your fire wall.
There is another member, regal81455 I think, who was well along with his swap when I started mine, he has older threads in this forum, V8 Regals, on how he did his. His is a street car and I think he used stock exhaust or shorty headers.... anyway, the bottom line is I think he did it without much firewall work, as it looked like he kept the heater box etc. When I did my measuring initially, I marked the frame at the rearmost spot of the old 231 block on the frame with a small notch. When I fit a bare 455 block, I aligned the pass side rear of the block with that notch. The rear trans mount bolt hole was at the most forward position on the transmission xmember hole and I thought I was pretty much just going to drop the engine in after I got the body on and the roll bar done. I never counted on the height of the engine with the heads and valve covers being on tilted back about 30 to 40 degrees to get the oil pan over the xmember and the rest past the spring pockets/shock mounts. The drivers side of the engine hit the firewall and I had about 3/4 of an inch to go in order to have the engine mounts settle down on the frame pads. I was f'in pissed and had to leave before I ruined the whole mess. This is the first car like this I am doing, every thing else I did was pretty much bolt in work using engine families that normally came in that body, like 340 68 Valiant, 454 70 Nova etc. No real problems with those types of swaps. The 455 in the regal was a whole other world compare to those. The pics that I showed are almost a year old. The thing will be done soon, I hope. Thanks for the compliment.
It was a nice day here in N Florida yesterday and I had nothing on the book work wise so I jumped into the Regal with both feet. First i pressure cleaned the entire car top to bottom then cut out the old BBC frame pads that came in it. Now that its clean I was able to see that some work had been done to the trans tunnel and fire wall (with a hammer). The blower/ heater box was gone and a patch panel put in its place. Jacked up the engine and trans with the BBB mounts in place and lowered it into the car. Lined everything up and tacked the mounts down with my stick welder. While it was in there I test fit the L side header and it fit with no problem. The R looks like its gonna be tighter. Couldn't get it in there without lifting the engine and setting it back down and I didn't want to possibly mess up my frame pad alignment so I didn't fit it. That might bite me later. I've decided to make my own cross member out of a piece of 1-1/4" mild steel pipe. Flatten the ends and drill and bolt as needed then weld a piece of angle on to bolt the trans mount to.After the engine/trans was back out welded the mounts in solid. After the pressure wash I found a bunch of holes throughout the int of the car in the floor, tunnel and fire wall that had been covered by tape and under coating. Spent the next few hours making sheet metal patches and riveting them in place. Felt good to get a start on it. I'm trying to get in touch with my trans guy to get a trans brake installed before I put it all together. I.ll need a 2 step box if anyone has one cheap.
