Gas Pedal Conversion?

I have never liked the early A and B body gas pedal setup and thought there has to be a way to convert it to the later style. Has anyone ever done this? Or, do you have any input on how to improve upon this original setup?

The problem I have is I don't get full use of the throttle. Limited throttle travel. No matter how I adjust the cable, I still don't get enough pedal.

Photos are of my stock setup.

i went with Lokar kickdown and throttle combo on a Holley, you can get just the throttle cable by itself if you want to keep factory kickdown or a manual tranny, it gives the ability to cut the cable the length you want as well as some adjustment on the bracket that mounts on the intake. i get full open throttle when peddle is pushed to the floor also mine is a Duster and the peddle is fastened to the metal bracket and never touches the floor until you push the entire pedal, yours looks to be what i had on a B body,looks completely different than an A body,at least 1970 and above

Heat the pedal rod and bend it up so you have more pedal travel. You can probably do it cold, but it would be a lot harder.

Remove padding from the back of carpet under throttle.

Both my favorite kind of fixes....free!

I would try to relocate the cable pivot point closer the center
axis of movement on the carb. I can't tell from the pic how the cable is attached to the carb.

Detroit Iron said:

I have never liked the early A and B body gas pedal setup and thought there has to be a way to convert it to the later style. Has anyone ever done this? Or, do you have any input on how to improve upon this original setup?

The problem I have is I don't get full use of the throttle. Limited throttle travel. No matter how I adjust the cable, I still don't get enough pedal.

Photos are of my stock setup.

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What's your stock set up and what intake do you have now. Say if you started with a 318 2 barrel and added a aluminum 4 barrel intake you will need a 340 throttle cable bracket to get full throttle opening.

toolmanmike said:

What's your stock set up and what intake do you have now. Say if you started with a 318 2 barrel and added a aluminum 4 barrel intake you will need a 340 throttle cable bracket to get full throttle opening.

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I think you may be on to something here. Yeah, the car started life as a 273 2bbl. I got a 4 bbl throttle cable, but I think the throttle bracket is the original 273 unit.

Make sure the place where you have attached the cable to the carb is at the proper distance to the throttle shaft. This usually requires a Mopar specific adapter.
As to the bracket, I see I was treed;
But the 4bbl bracket moves the clamp higher and further forward, which in this case I don't think will work. The picture shows that your ferrule is already moved back as far as it will go; and the 4bble bracket would only make that worse,IMO.
I would compare the cable travel available, to the throttle anchor travel required and see how far yo need to go.
Bending the pedal lever may only get you a higher pedal.
It may be the ratio that is wrong, and perhaps you only need to move the attaching point on the carb.
On one of my projects, I cut some of that cable end tubing off , up at the front, because it was hitting on the clamp-anchor, before the pedal was on the floor. When I did this, I lost that steering bell on the end there. A better solution would have been to move the clamp/anchor back towards the firewall.

On another project I slipped a nut over the cable on the pedal-end before slipping it into it's anchor and locking it in with the plastic pin. I don't recall what I used to keep the nut on; probably a flat-washer; split and pliered into submission,lol.

When I first converted from /6 to a 318 in my 64, I used a pedal assembly, cable, and throttle bracket out of a bronco. It was $20 from a parts yard (I was a broke 19 year old). Had to make little spacers for where the pedal bracket mounts and drill bolt holes into the floor pan, but the cable throw was perfect size and the throttle bracket bolted up to the 318 intake.
Still have that setup on my 440 Valiant with a little more fab work on the throttle bracket.

OK. There is absolutely no reason to modify your factory V8 firewall throttle bracket setup. It's what I have in my 65 Barracuda and has plenty of travel to fully open any four barrel. If you don't have enough travel, it's one of two problems: 1. the throttle cable is attached to the carb at the wrong spot; or 2. the throttle cable is bolted to the manifold bracket at the wrong place. As for (1), your carb has a lever bradded to the front throttle shaft. The farther you attach the throttle cable from the throttle shaft, the more cable travel you need to fully open the carb. If your running a generic, non-Mopar specific carb, whether Edelbrock or Holley, there is no Mopar-correct attaching point on the carb for the throttle cable. You have to either drill a new hole, or (better), get an inexpensive Mopar adapter that will have the correct cable attachment location. I've seen many installations with the throttle cable hooked to the carb any old place and there's no way to get full throttle travel. As for (2), once you know the throttle cable is attached to the carb at the proper spot, then you just need to figure out where it should attach to the manifold bracket. This is simple: Just loosen the attaching bolt, then pull the body of the cable rearward until the carb just begins to open. Then let it slacken slightly to the point just before the carb opens. That is where the body of the cable need to be bolted to the manifold bracket. If the bracket you have is in the wrong place, just cut it, move it to the right place, and weld it back together. Pix below are, first, the 340 in my 65 Barracuda. Since it has the Holley adapter and the factory 340 4-barrel manifold bracket, it all works without modification. Second pic is the slant six in my 63 Valiant, where I modified a factory 2-barrel bracket to work with a 4 barrel. Notice it has been cut just below the cable attaching bracket and welded back together about half an inch or so forward. Because this is an automatic car, I also had to modify the kickdown linkage, which in my case meant lengthening the flat kickdown lever coming off the carb by cutting the original 2-barrel lever and welding a portion of a 400 ci 4-barrel lever to it. Obviously, I measured before cutting and welding. (Also, because I was using a seventies style kickdown in a 63, I also cut the rod going down to the trans and welded it to the cut-off original 63 rod.) I don't know how difficult this sounds in writing, but for me, it's simpler and works better than aftermarket cable setups - and a lot of them are installed incorrectly.