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Hello Gene,
I'll be running a strictly street car with a 440 dropped in. No roll cage, no racing. Just better handling. My thoughts were to surgically remove the front crossmember from the Dakota and weld that onto the existing Volare front frame rails. I'm also going to tie the front and rear frame together. I will also be removing the upper support brace above the transmission mount to make space for a Tremec TKO. So, no dirt track, no quarter mile.

After listening to you, it appears the Alterktion front suspension might be the better deal.

Greg



Greg,
Got a link to this "Alterktion" front suspension? I do not know what it is.

The issue I see with just using the Dakota front crossmember on the Volare rails is the difference in physical size of the Dakota crossmember compaired to the physical size of the Volare rails. The guage thickness difference between the 2 is not considered at this point. The Dakota crossmember is a 4-5" box where the Volare rails are about 3 1/2" high. Then once you take into count the guage thickness between the Dakota at about 11 guage and the Volare at about 16 guage, the difference in physical size could become a real problem, esspecially when you consider that is the same location as both the upper and lower control arms and the 440 engine mounts. That seems like a lot of load for 16 guage frame rails to me.

I still think a better plan would be to remove your front subframe, and install the Dakota frame, complete, back far enough to connect to your rear subframe. Then weld the Dakota frame into the car floor pans, rear sub frames, and reattach the cars front inner fenders and rad support to the Dakota frame. Basically your replacing your light duty frame with one from a Dakota and also using that same Dakota frame as your frame connectors. Then all you would have to do would be follow the link above to the 440 engine mounts in a Dakota frame and your set. All the factory engineering is still in place on the Dakota frame and you can use stock suspension parts and allignment specs. Gene