A simple wheel-and-tire swap...        read full caption A simple wheel-and-tire swap can work wonders for any car's image. This little Valiant ragtop got more than just new rolling stock, though. We also installed a host of parts to make it handle and stop better than ever.

The Master Power disc brake...        read full caption The Master Power disc brake kit was very comprehensive. It included new spindles, upper control arms, and steering arms, in addition to the brake components and master cylinder. We're only showing the big stuff here-all the hardware, bearings, and seals were still in boxes.

Disassembly was a typically...        read full caption Disassembly was a typically messy endeavor, but otherwise pretty straightforward. Trust us when we say those 9-inch drum brakes look positively puny in person.

Voila! Suddenly everything...        read full caption Voila! Suddenly everything looks clean! With most of the suspension apart, I took the opportunity to remove the lower control arms and spend some time cleaning and painting things. I had new bushings pressed into the lower control arms before replacing them.

The new upper control arms...        read full caption The new upper control arms also received fresh coats of black epoxy before being installed.

It's tough to tell in a photo,...        read full caption It's tough to tell in a photo, but the new Mopar Performance torsion bar in the background is larger in diameter than the stock slant six-bar in the foreground-.890-inch compared to .830-inch. The .890 bar came on big-block V-8 cars; someday the Valiant may get a V-8 too, but for now the larger bars should offer improved handling and stability.

Every project has to start somewhere, and mine usually begin at the bottom-with the suspension and brakes. I'd like to say it's because I approach car projects logically by stripping them down to bare frames and rebuilding them from the ground up, but that's not really the case. I'm not nearly so rational.

No, I tend to acquire drivers-cars I can commute in and, ostensibly, fix up as time and finances allow. Such cars usually come with worn-out original suspensions and sub par drum brakes unfit for Southern California freeways. Thus, rebuilding the suspension and updating the brakes is more or less necessary for regular road duty. Also, nuts-and-bolts chassis work is something I can do myself rather than paying someone else. Besides, I learned long ago that even a stock car with cool wheels and tires and a nice stance will turn heads, so at least I'll have that going for me even if other custom plans take time to materialize.

Which brings us to the project at hand. My latest acquisition is a '64 Plymouth Valiant convertible-admittedly not the most conventional project choice, but that's one reason I dig it. Additionally, I think early '60s compacts like this have a lot going for them. They remain some of the most affordable '60s cars around, have distinctive styling, and hold a lot of potential as practical daily drivers. Many also share a mechanical lineage with more common musclecars and ponycars of the era, making upgrade parts easier to find.

My Valiant, for instance, is part of the Mopar A-body platform, which includes Darts, pre-'70 Barracudas, Dusters, and the like. Chassis on these cars remained little changed from 1960 through the mid-'70s, so there's a lot of parts interchangeability and, as it turns out, several available aftermarket disc brake conversions. The Master Power Brakes kit I selected is basically the same as the common practice of adapting discs from a '73-and-later A-body vehicle (Duster, Dart, etc.), except it uses all-new components put together in one convenient package. This includes new spindles, upper control arms, steering arms, and caliper brackets. The upper control arms came with new bushings and ball joints installed, and the steering arms also had new lower ball joints, which minimized the number of parts I had to buy to complete the suspension rebuild. Naturally, the kit included new brake components like rotors, calipers, and wheel bearings, but I was impressed with all the supplied "little" pieces: hoses, fittings, dust shields, hardware, and so forth. Manual and power master cylinders are both available; I went with the manual setup.

Like any good project, this one snowballed a little. It only made sense to replace the remaining wearable parts (tie-rod ends and lower control arm bushings) while the suspension was apart. I also opted to replace the original torsion bars with stiffer V-8-spec bars from Mopar Performance. In the rear, the sagging original leaf springs were replaced with new de-arched versions from Eaton Detroit Spring, which were designed for a 3-inch lower stance than stock. To help all these new parts work as well as they could, I got a full set of adjustable Stocker Star performance shocks from QA1 Motorsports.

An added benefit of the brake kit was that it converted the front wheel bolt pattern from the stock 5x4-inch to the more common 5x4.5-inch arrangement, thereby increasing wheel selection and allowing me to get rid of the puny stock 13-inch rollers. I had an old set of 14x6-inch chrome reverse wheels sitting around that seemed like perfect replacements. The deep-dish wheels turned out to be too tight of a fit for the Valiant, but fortunately Wheel Smith was able to cut out the centers and weld them into new hoops for a better fit. So I ended up with 14x5- and 14x6-inch, non-reversed chrome wheels, which I had wrapped in 185/75 and 205/75 skinny whitewall BFGoodrich radials for '60s flavor.

As you'll see, installation was a pretty straightforward remove-and-replace process with no real surprises. Once I get the suspension aligned and dialed in, my plan is to do 60-0-mph brake testing and some handling evaluations to assess the improvements. We'll be sharing those results with you on the Custom Rodder Web site, www.customrodder.com, so be sure to log on and check 'em out.

With the new torsion bars...        read full caption With the new torsion bars installed, I bolted the caliper brackets and steering arms to the spindles.	The spindle assemblies were...        read full caption The spindle assemblies were then installed on the control arms.	No, the rotors aren't drilled...        read full caption No, the rotors aren't drilled and slotted (though it was an option), and the calipers aren't massive six-piston units, but these factory-style discs should be a vast improvement over the original drums.
The new wheel bearings were...        read full caption The new wheel bearings were packed with high-temp grease before the rotors went on. Look close and you'll see the dust shield behind the rotor-like we said, the kit was very thorough.	The new wheel bearings were...        read full caption The new wheel bearings were packed with high-temp grease before the rotors went on. Look close and you'll see the dust shield behind the rotor-like we said, the kit was very thorough.	Perhaps the most extravagant...        read full caption Perhaps the most extravagant choice I made was selecting QA1 Stocker Star shocks to replace the old tube shocks. There's value in their quality and design, though, as the aluminum-bodied shocks are rebuildable. You can also adjust compression and rebound simply by turning a knob, so it's actually like getting several shocks in one.
With any brake upgrade, it's...        read full caption With any brake upgrade, it's imperative to use an appropriate master cylinder. The Master Power kit included a new dual-chamber, disc/drum master cylinder, pushrod, and combination valve. Brake lines linking the master cylinder and combination valve were also supplied; making new lines to link the valve to the flexible brake hoses was my responsibility.	In back, the original leaf...        read full caption In back, the original leaf springs (right) were so worn out they'd been fitted with extra "helper" springs, so I thought it best to replace them. Eaton Detroit Spring assembled new, de-arched versions designed to lower the car approximately 3 inches from stock. New shackles, bushings, and U-bolts were included. I painted the new springs black prior to installation.	The finishing touches were...        read full caption The finishing touches were something most people will notice first: wheels and tires. I had some old chrome reversed wheels re-hooped in non-reversed 14x5- and 14x6-inch rims. Finding thin whitewall tires is getting to be a challenge, but I was able to round up matching 185/75 and 205/75 BFGoodrich Revelation radials that fit the bill just fine. The larger-diameter tires offset the lowering efforts a little, but filled out the wheel openings much better.