Once I got the 57 drivable back in 06 the drivers’ side rear spring started to sag a bit. I took the easy/quick way out at the time and threw a set of air shocks on the back. I finally got tired of adding air to them every 3 days so figured I go ahead and fix it right.

My experience with re-ached springs is that they tend to be over arched and when they are first put on the car sits like a stink bug and it take up to a couple years for the rear to settle to the final ride height. The only new off the shelf springs that will bolt on to the 57 are Mopar Performance C body super stock springs and those are a bit on the stiff side for my taste (I used them on the 57 Dodge I built several years ago).

That pretty much left adding some leafs to the spring packs. I had a spring pack out in the shed that has the right width leafs so I ended up adding 2 to the drivers’ side and one to the passengers’ side. That and a new pair of shocks and one more thing is checked off the list.

57 brakes by M Patterson, on Flickr


I also started collecting the bits and pieces for the dual quads. I picked up an original 57 dual quad manifold form a friend of mine who has decided to go with an aluminum intake for his Hemi. I set a pair of parts carbs on to check the height of the spacers I want to run under them (these carbs have too many internal issues to make them viable as builders). I’ll be running spacers for 2 reasons; insulating the carbs from the intake to help prevent heat soak on hot days , getting the air cleaner up into the scoop area……even with 1 ½” of spacers the air cleaner is still sits lower than the tri-power.

354 DQ by M Patterson, on Flickr

I like the big oval air cleaner on this car, but when I built it the only thing I could find were the chrome steel ones. To me the chrome steel never looked quite right with the aluminum valve covers. I picked up an aluminum air cleaner assembly which was black powder coated. I got the powder coating stripped (acetone and steel wool). Right now I’m debating whether to polish the lid out or send it and the valve covers out to be powder coated. I’m kind of leaning towards the powder coating. The “near chrome” powder coating does not look anything like chrome but does look like polished aluminum and it doesn’t oxidize like polished aluminum does. It’s also a lot easier than polishing the lid and those big valve covers …..but like I said, I’m still deciding.