I'm working my way thru the Duster with the US Car Tool stiff kit. Core support is in and so are the torque boxes and under fender supports. I'll post more pictures once I get the car up in the air.

I'm interested. Been thinking of fabbing a pair of those inner fender braces myself.
I've learned from a recent rustrepair issue on my daily driver that this is (could become) also a fairly highly stressed area.

I have always thought that all the aftermarket radiator supports are too flimsy and that our old cars would benefit from 2x2 square tubing welded between the frame right behind the radiator.

Our `Cuda has the space for a 2x2 square tube and would be much stiffer and cheaper than any radiator support but the extra front end weight is a negative.

XV sold weld in radiator supports made from tubing and US Car Tool has some heavy duty stuff also. There isn't much room on an A body to run tubing across but on my '65 Coronet there is room in front of the radiator for a piece of 1 3/4 inch roll bar tubing. I haven't done it yet but I've looked at it a few times and thought it would be easy enough to install.

I didn't know they came out with a replacement core support, interesting. Thanks for sharing your install!

Here is a closer shot of the fender bracing.

Are you planning on closing up the inner fender hole again?
I pressume this car has been a dragraced and someone made holes for fenderwell headers?

On my Dart I rewelded all the inner fender connections to the firewall as I thought I was seeing it seperate and put tensions on the spotwelds over time.
I do plan on making those fender braces too.

On my 65 B, I made up an entirely new core support for it. Had some 1x2 formed up for the upper tie bar, used some 1" or so square for the verticals off the rails, some 2" square for the lower support and some formed 16a for the side baffles. All of this was fitted for my Be Cool unit with holes punched for bulkhead fitting pass throughs for a/c lines, oil coolers.

I already installed the lower radiator support in my GTX. I have the fender bracing but I haven't installed them yet as the car is already painted. I don't want to mess with the paint but I will. If you have the dash and windshield out you can also weld up the cowl lip, the steering column support And any where the seams are spot welded. Just doing that made the whole cowl so much stiffer. You can also run weld the frame to the floor as the spot welds let the body flex too much.

Here is another look with the wheels off the car.

Looks like good stuff AndyF. Are you suitably impressed with the fit and quality of the parts thus far?

It is a lot better than trying to make all this stuff myself! Parts like this aren't going to fit perfectly since the car is 50 years old plus there are lots of production tolerances in a car. So a guy just needs to understand that it takes some cutting and fitting to work.

YOU know that. I know that....but there will still be some guys that cry and complain that it didn't fit "Out of the box".
Losers. Life isn't perfect. Nothing is. A man knows that and adjusts as needed to keep moving.

The Mopar hobby has changed a lot over the past 30 years. I installed a Doug Nash 5 speed into my B body back in 1988. Back then there were not any kits to install a 5 speed transmission in a Mopar and I didn't expect anything to fit. I was correct, nothing fit. I had to build it all. So I guess I'm old school.

And what(?) is worse, welding misc brackets on a car because there is supposed to be some un documented improvement ( a video clip by itself is not documentation), when the installer has zero clue what the weakest structural area is in the first place on the chassis/frame, and always couched with when questioned, the time honored response, "it can't hurt"?

Reminds me of the days when members raced to install the largest Dia 40lb? front discs for bragging rights, when they maybe had a 255 front tire.

Thanks Andy. Old dog here, fully understand they won't install themselves. Don't expect them to be spot on, or maybe even in the ballpark. But the right zip code would be nice. You have your hands on them, so that makes your thoughts on the matter valuable, IMO.

It all depends on your skill level. I didn't have the talent or the tools to do the front core support so I towed the car over to a local chassis shop and they did the install. Cutting out old spot welds and grinding old rusty metal smooth isn't my specialty. If you're set up for that kind of stuff or you like it then the job should be a snap. It didn't take them more than a few hours to install the core support and the under fender braces. I'm glad I had a pro do the work, their welding skills are much better than mine and they had all the little grinding and sanding tools needed to do the job correctly.

I added some tabs to the lower core support to hold a chin spoiler. I figure that at 120+ mph there will be a lot of force pushing on the spoiler.

I've got a full width front spoiler mounted on my '73 Dart from an 80's Mercedes, and I've had the car up to 100mph occassionaly and I've started wondering the same thing.
Need to mount an action cam under there again one day and find out how much flex is really happening there.

The 91 Ford Ranger spoiler looks good and easy install on A-Bodies with full bumpers and no valence under the bumper.

They actually look good on valence cars too.


https://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/threads/awesome-a-body-air-dam-for-under-30.377028/