Brakes & Suspension

The stock drum brakes, even working perfectly, were terrifying.  They'd fade noticeably during a normal freeway-offramp deceleration, and any kind of quick stop was out of the question.  The solution turned out to be fairly easy- just swap the entire front disc brake setup from a 1970 Impala.  Everything from the ball-joints out was replaced with 1970 parts (you can't use a 1971 or later setup, since Chevrolet changed the entire front suspension design after 1970), and I put in the master cylinder, booster, proportioning valve, lines, etc. from the '70 as well.  The rear brakes remain stock.  The entire swap was done in one afternoon and was 100% bolt-on.  The only problems were wheel size (you need 15" wheels to clear the rotors, so I had to ditch the old 14" wheels) and spindle height (the '70 knuckles make the front end ride about 2" higher than the '65 units).  Since the 1970 Impala weighs about 500 pounds more than the 1965 model (and probably about 800 pounds more than my stripped-out '65), the car now stops hard enough to detach your retinas.

Rebuilding the front end and installing a set of KYB Gas-A-Just shocks helped the handling some, but the car still suffered from the classic 60s door-handle-scraping lean on turns which, coupled with the massive understeer which was another hallmark of 60s suspension design, made the car handle like a cement mixer riding on a set of space-saver spare tires.  So, I used my Year One employee discount to get the fattest available front and rear Addco swaybars.  What a difference!  Now the Impala handles like a cop car, with hardly any lean and lots of fishtailing throttle-induced oversteer.  Of course, the 235 front/275 rear tires help, too.