Chuck the Truck's 52 Chevy - Rear Sway Bar, ZR at 9 Mo, 4BBL

9/7/03
When I bought the rear end, the Z28 rear sway bar was still attached to it. Recently, every time I went into the garage it called out "Install me!" I spent a couple hours underneath ciphering how I could make it fit best. I didn't want to do it twice. I had to straighten the back to back 90 degree bends a hair to make it longer, roughly 80 degrees now. I moved the frame mounts further inboard to clear the shocks.. The drops from the frame I had to shorten by 1-5/8" to maximize ground clearance. Welding a couple tabs to pick up one of the frame mount holes was the last step.

The bar it high and tight but there is sufficient room to change shocks, diff cover, and route larger exhaust pipes should I ever chose to do so. Now that I have the tonneau, moving the spare out of the bed is less urgent, but it should still fit under the bed.

I bent the new frame tabs from a piece of 1/8" x 2" flat stock. The drops were hollow so I slipped a piece of 1/2" rod inside to strengthen the joint.

The end mounts bolted up to the outer u-bolts. I used a piece of 1/4" stock as a shim so the bar clears the lower shock mount.
Note the 9 month old Zero Rust on the rear end and crossmember. Maybe I wasn't as fastidious as I could have been with the prep, but they were clean and descaled when I painted them. For all the bragging they do, I was expecting better.

So was it worth the work? Well didn't you see me leading 3/4 of the IRL race at Joliet today? If I hadn't had to stop to pee.....
Seriously, it doesn't ride rougher and it may be handling better but it's awful hard to tell. It's only a 5/8" bar; perhaps a fatter one would be more noticable. If it wasn't free I wouldn't buy one.

I never showed my "show car" engine bay with the 4 barrel. The headers are developing their natural protective coating and the thin film of dirt helps protect the paint. Medusa in the corner there is the wiring for the electric fan. Someday I'll straighten it up.
I just dropped the jets down one size, primary and secondary. I dropped the float a 1/16" in response to the added pressure of the electric fuel pump.[Oh yeah - the mechanical pump started pushing oil out the pivot pin so I changed to an electric. Mo betta] I had previously stepped the rods down and it was a bit too much. Back in with the stock metering rods and it's running great. Throttle response is crisp, with no flat spots. I've got plenty of passing power and on my road trip this weekend, I netted 21.3 mpg. No complaints here.

10/4/03 Just outside of Bloomington IL, I rolled over 10,000 miles. I'm discovering my milage is dependent on the wind. A healthy wind both ways on a 550 mile round trip and I was at 17MPG. After the trip, I removed the cheap overseas latch from the driver's side door and restaked the cup. It had loosened up and the door rattled. The wind noise was deafening. After I got it back together, I realized a spot of weld would have been better. Next time. Closes tight again - even better than it was.