Okay, had some time so I thought I would talk about why I used a "Heavy" thick wall steel rim. I 'm not sure if people realize how much your basic stock thin wall steel rim will flex under hard cornering, but they do. Evidence of this is that Circle track racers that have to use steel rims for the local track rules will buy aftermarket rims that are actually quite a bit heavier because the metal is thicker, thus stronger!
Chevrolet produced a thicker wall rim for their pickup trucks and full size vans from 1976 to 82 that were a type of Rally rim. this means that they had a nice center cap and a chrome beauty ring but the rest of the rim was still visible. Another version of this was available on the Corvette.
So here is a picture of the 15X8 rims I used on the back, the 7 inch wide rims looked nearly the same.
and an example of these rims with similar width tires mounted on a Chevy pickup.
Having a ready supply of factory heavy duty rims was a bonus as I tended to bend even these from the odd time I clipped the apex of a turn a little too close.
Another thing I did was use a Front sway bar off of a 1979 Trans am which came with a 400ci engine and had factory 4 wheel disc brakes and HEAVY duty suspension. This option was called a WS6 code, which you can read about here:
www.78ta.com/ws6.phpThis is whole nother story about how I managed to have one of these sway bars in around the early 1980's
I used to buy salvage cars from the insurance company when they were written off.
Nobody wanted this 1979 Trans am because it was in a fire from the house and garage which was attached. All that wood from the house above it meant that the inside of the car had about 100mm of ash in it. There was no way to tell what the original color was. Even the 4 bbl carb melted away.
I got it for $40.00 bucks. took me forever to get it up on the trailer as it sat so low with all the rubber burned out of the suspension and the coil and leaf springs sagging. Jack and block and jack and block. I cut it up for the scrap metal once I shoveled all of the ash out of it. Then I saved and later sold the disc brake rear end and the front sway bar.
When I was under the Bel Air looking at my sway bar I was thinking it would be nice to have an even thicker one as the Police one was not that much thicker than the stock Impala bar was. So long story short I bolted the WS6 bar onto my car with a new set of Urethane as opposed to rubber mounts and end link bushings. Fit like a charm and made a big difference.
For a rear sway bar I had a thick one off of a 1974 Chev Station wagon. Now those were a big heavy car. the rear sway bar bolted onto the lower links for the rear end and they bolted right on even though That also was a different chassis!
In one of those books you could get from the publisher HP books that covered all kinds of performance topics was a mention of an aftermarket rear lower control arm that was made by TRW. It was basically a 1 1/2 by 3 inch rectangular boxed tube with hard bushings installed. Beat the heck out of the flexible u shaped stamping lower arms from the factory.
So 1 day I'm in the TRW warehouse picking up some new front ball joints when I thought on a whim I would ask the parts man if they had seen anything like what this book was talking about for the Chevy.
He comes back with these 2 boxes with a set of 2 arms each in them. they looked to be covered with 25mm of dust
but they were fine inside the box. Got them for cheap as they were obsoleted and someone had pitched them on top of the wracking and forgot about em.
Anyway these things were absolutely awesome in what a difference they made in the handling.
Looks like another company is still making them!
With the 60 series front tires, the heavy sway bars and stiff rear lower control arms, my car was a beast in the corners. If there was a nice series of corners- my car with a passenger could beat one of those modern rice rocket bikes WITH a passenger. The look on the bike riders face when he pulled up to me at the traffic light after being passed in a corner by a big old taxi when he was trying to show off to his girl friend was priceless.
Another time I accidentally cut off a guy on a motorbike and since I was alone and didn't feel like stopping to talk as he looked to be out for blood.
It took about 5mins of really intense ALL out driving on the abandoned 4.a.m. City streets, to finally lose him.
I'm confident that the car would handle as well as the then new 82 and up series Camaro and Trans ams.
More story times later.
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. So now I own a police spec car, which means it has a 240kph calibrated speed-o in 1k increments, a heavy duty suspension package, beefed up alternator & wiring with extra connectors for the police equipment, a beefed up radiator & transmission cooler & reworked ecu for more performance & beefed up transmission 
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. Over here rear wheel drives are still fairly popular. We will be loosing our big rear wheel drives in the next 3 years, as Ford Aust will be stopping production of the Falcon in 2015 & Holden will be stopping production of the Commodore in 2016 
. A sad day for Australia as there will be no longer any locally produced cars in Aus. as Toyota will stop producing the Camry here by 2017 I think 
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but they were fine inside the box. Got them for cheap as they were obsoleted and someone had pitched them on top of the wracking and forgot about em. 
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