Re: Frame Swap

Posted by Anthony Pallett On 2012/11/12 1:12:37
One option is a metric chassis GM frame think Monte Carlo or Cutlass 1978-1987. I think there a bit short but these are very popular cars to modify so anything you want from stock to extreme is available plus you can usually pic em up pretty cheep, in my area a v6 metric chassis car goes for 500 or less. Another option is camaro or again metric chassis front clip grafted to the Packard frame around the fire wall area. That is a very common procedure and if you wanted disk brakes in the rear a 8 or 9 inch ford or comparable GM rear would fit. Packard's from that era are not near as heavy as they look, I believe my 52 is around 3600 lbs so you are not much heavier than a more modern passenger car. The interdependent rear suspension thing is not as good as it would seem in my opinion you wont really gain anything noticeable in ride quality and most of the OE stuff is pretty weak even for a L8 remember these engines have a lot of torque so wheel hop would likely be an issue in hard acceleration. They are also expensive if it breaks. Keep in mind what Ford does with a solid axle in the new mustangs. With the ranger frames you run into a split I beam front end on the older (cheap) ones which isn't inherently bad but doesn't really ride all that nice and doesn't have the "look" of stock. A smaller 4wd truck chassis would be pretty cool if you could mate the 4wd system to the Packard engine the mental image of breaking loose all four tires on a Packard in a smokey burnout at a cruise night is pretty cool. If you are in a bucks up situation a custom fabbed chassis is an option that way you would drop a ton of weight which would help with acceleration and gas mileage and you could set it up how you wanted it with what ever breaking/ handling abilities you desired.

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