“…..I think I cruise around 80mph with blurts to 110 or so, maybe once a year a little higher...”
You cruising sounds pretty much like the driving I’ve done going from Arizona to Illinois the three times I’ve done it in my 57 Dodge and Plymouth. I guess you cruising in your Canadian built Plodge would be an average of both LOL. For me it was just too tempting not to open both cars up going across the Texas pan handle. Neither car felt unsafe at 110+ MPH.
The Plymouth of course is the manual steering car with sway bar and the Dodge had factory PS and no sway bar. The Dodge ran a 440 with cast iron dual quad intake while the Plymouth has the iron Hemi so I would say the engine weights were pretty close to each other. If you do elect to go with an LA engine you should be significantly lighter which would ease the effort with the manual steering box.
Both cars had/have front Disc/rear Drum brakes. Both cars run 235/70/15s on 8” rims in the back and 205/75/15s on 6” rims in the front. The 205/75s are pretty much the same height as your 215/70s but narrower which makes low speed steering a bit easier with the Plymouth. Neither car ever had a tire rub problem even when the trunk was loaded with suitcases, tools etc.
The 57 Dodge was originally a 325 Poly car and I ran the original torsion bars under the 440 with no problems. The Plymouth was an original Flat Head 6 car. I got lucky and scored a NOSR pair of 57-8 Chrysler Windsor bars for it. The stock 6 Cyl bars were pretty spindly looking compared to the V8 bars. Even though the 6 Cyl bars would probably be fine under an LA engine, if I were building your Regent I think I would definitely look for a pair (of even used) V8 bars, preferably from the Windsor. I don’t know if the 57-8 Chrysler/DeSoto are dimensionally the same as the Dodge/Plymouth but it might be worth looking into.
The Plymouth with the heavier bars and sway bar is a lot firmer than the Dodge was. I know the sway bar helps but I think a lot of the difference is also the heavier torsion bars.
The Imperial Sway was a bolt on (if you come across a 57-8 Chrysler/DeSoto with a swar bar I suspect that will also fit). The Imperial bar is the largest bar Chrysler offered, but it is only ¾”. A 1” bar would have been great but would have to be custom built.
To make the bar fit you MUST have the center links and end brackets that connect the bar to the brake reaction strut. I was able to get all new bushing for the sway bar from Andy Bernbaum.
Sway Bar by
M Patterson, on Flickr
The only fabricating I had to do was build the brackets that are welded to the frame that the inner hangers connect to…..it was easier than cutting the original brackets from the donor car.
As far as the 56 Dodge PS I think you will find that it doesn’t even come close to fitting, but you never know. The 57 PS gear was a 1 year only and replaced in 58 with a “better” design. Chrysler used the same gear from 58-62 and any of those (and the 57) will fit but you will probably need the 57-8 Column tube. Seems like the turn signal switch might also be different between the manual steering and PS columns ……but it’s been too long since I played with that to remember for sure.
Anyway hope this helps.
