Ok so frame connectors alone aren't enough? By stiffen up the front end you mean BBP spindles, upper and lower control arms right? The 9" looks awesome you make that all yourself or who did you use?
John built all of that stuff himself. If your starting with a slant car that has drum brakes all around, I would get rid of them quick and put large bold disks on the front. Like John said, build the car to handle the power that you want, then build the engine. Heck, you could have it all ready and just drop a 318 in it for the time being till you had the 440 ready too.
You could have 1000 rear wheel horse power, but it doesn't matter if the car is not equipped to handle it.
