Big Blocks and Handling

Had a '68 383 Dart, a '69 440 Dart, and a '68 Hemi Dart. The Hemi was the bee's knees in a straight line which was just fine. It may have handled better with sway bars, decent front tires instead of the little drag race skinnies, street shocks, and a differential instead of a spool. The '69 was a "street" car but it had 2" primary fenderwell headers which limited the amount of steering lock available, not to mention the 6.95X13 tires needed to get the tires off the headers some of the time. It was OK as long as you didn't get in a hurry when the road got crooked. Of the 3, the '68 383 was the best handling, but it was limited and by A body standards was a nose heavy pig. It should be fairly good with modern tires but the best we had at the time was E70X14 Polyglas bias plies. Once you got the hang of throttle induced oversteer, it would hustle along pretty good. Biggest gripe I had with it was the fact that the front suspension was so stiff it was almost nonexistent. With some judicious weight moving, decent tires, good shocks, sway bars, and power steering, a big block would be a livable car. There is no rush quite like nailing the throttle on a big block A body. Almost made the shortcomings acceptable. Almost. If I ever get the itch for another one it will have an aluminum block and heads. That should give me small block handling with the big block throttle. :-D:-D:-D