My lower control arms are shortened. The length is identicle to the upper control arms. And like Pbody said the tie rods are the same length also.

The length of the rack is longer than the distance between the pivot points of the lower control arms. This works to be an advantage. When you make up the steering arm the tie rod end needs to be further out from center of the car than the ball joints in order to have proper ackerman. This control which wheel turns shorter than the other when turning. How much is not criticle but if you have negative ackerman you are hurting the handling of the car. In a drag car if the steering whell needs to turn you are already in trouble. So it is important to have a car that will have stable manners. My car is narrower than the later A-bodies so it all works out fine. This is not going to be the case on 67 and later A-bodies as well as the others. So you may want that lower control arm a little longer. Builders of strut cars have a measurement between frame rails they use for all of the cars. The measurement has to do with the length of the rack. This is not written in stone because you can get a shorter rack it just cost more.

A drag car does not need as much suspension travel as a factory built car. You need to limit how much compression the front end has so you don't flatten your oil pan or headers. Depending on how much power you have you may not need a lot of extension either.

Leon