Pinto Car Club of America

1st thought: "Dayaaammmm if I could get this car to hook it'd be fast. Think I'll get some traction bars!"

2nd thought: "If this thing ever hooks it's going to break the windshield. Better get some subframe connectors too."

Base model no power anything '72 trunk model, '72 9:1 302 with Holley 600 & RV cam, Maverick 8", probably 3:1 gears or so. Tuned up & dialed in, what kind of performance can I expect?

Experienced traction bar recommendations?

Subframe connectors the way to go? (I searched, couldn't find any ready-made weld-ins)...

Thanks in advance for piping in with your thoughts & links, etc. I'm new to the blue oval world and to this wee beastie of a car. You know when you look at buying a V8 Pinto as a simple, low trouble, easy to finish project you've been working on '70s Mopars too long. :)

Subframe connectors are a must and more then likely will be custom made by you or a shop theres a few threads on here about them already.

But as for traction bars if you can get yourself a set of cal-tracs or make your own. They work wonders on stock spring cars.

http://www.hotrodsandhemis.com/Traction.html (http://www.hotrodsandhemis.com/Traction.html) thats a how to on making your own cal-tracs.

mid to low 14's

Yeah about high 13s is about all you can expect from that mild 302. you probablly have around 230hp with the manifolds choking up things.
Now if you were pushing near 400 hp with a stiff chassis, traction aids, gears etc all optimized to drag that pinto (read $$$$) then you could be doing 11s easy.

About the caltracs. Awesome traction aid. However the Pinto has no support at all considering the kind of forces that caltracs put on the chassis. Id be doing a lot of reinforcing before trying those with any kind of HP. Just food for thought.


I managed to find an OLD set of traction bars that have you remove the bottom leaf spring plate that were made for and supposedly fit perfectly on the pinto.


Subframe connectors are non existent. They were never made for the Pinto stock chassis. it has no rear "subframe". So nothing easy to connect to.
The only real solution besides installing a "back half" is to connect to the rear leafs. This is the way i did it.

I used 3 x 1.5 x .125 rectangular tubing and 1/8" flat plate. I don't know any of the dimensions off hand except the stock material i used. TIP when you find a metal yard ask for the rem section and the steel is ALOT cheaper than the "New" section.

Cut a 2.25 slot in the floorboard from front to back and bend down a "tab" to weld to eventually making the hole 3 in wide.

Push the tubing up in there, postion, tack , build it up to the leaf spring perch and then fully weld in.
Dont forget to seal and then paint.

The picures should tell the rest of the story.

Please excuse the crudity of these pictures , i was pressed for time (LOL)  The "floorboards" are roughed in. Not to scale. But they give you an idea of what to expect them to look like. The area at the rear and foot wells is fairly accurate for depth. I filled the "pockets" in with heat and noise barrier padding. You can barely tell with the carpet over it now.

Good luck and any questions let me know.
Robert

one more pic