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American Motors eXperimental
AMX Owner 36, 1970 AMX
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Larry's 1970 AMX
I've made alot of little modifications over the years that may be of interest to others. At one time I replaced the spindles, calipers (4 piston Bendix) and rotors (solid discs) with those from a '72 Javelin, which gave me 1" thick vented rotors and single piston Kelsey Hayes calipers with larger pads. I had already installed an adjustable brake proportioning valve in the trunk, since learning AMX's had the same proportioning valve as the heavier and longer wheelbase Javelin, which led to some exciting incidents involving the back end of my car wanting to lead when the rears locked. I was appreciative at those times that I had ordered the quick ratio manual steering, which allowed me to make corrections, avoiding catastrophic consequences. (I remember one rainy day on my way to church, when I entered an intersection a little too fast and the correction and regaining of directional control was completed as I skated between pumps of a gas station on the opposite side of the street, that fortunately was not open for business that morning.) Just recently, I have replaced the KH calipers with Wilwood Billet Dynalites and the stock flex lines front and rear with stainless braided lines. They are very effective stoppers.
In the engine compartment, the Offy Dual Port manifold does a great job of retaining that wonderful bottom end torque, while the secondary runners permit very efficient intake flow at higher RPM (relatively high, I don't push it past 6 grand). Along with the manifold, Holley and headers, the most amazing improvement came when Jan at Riverside Engines (Tiffin, Ohio) discovered that small block Chevy rocker arm studs fit my heads, which then permitted use of inexpensive stamped steel adjustable rockers. For the first time, I was able to adjust my rockers instead of just torquing them down to 35 or 40 ft. lbs. and I couldn't believe the difference. Prior to that I was probably using only a small part of the performance potential of the cam.
After seeing Trans Am Javelins with staggered rear shocks, similar to my friend's Boss 302's setup, in 1971 I replaced the left side bottom shock/leaf spring plate (attaching bracket) with one intended for the right side, but rotated it, putting the shock on the opposite side of the axle housing from the other side, for staggered shocks. This past year I also replaced all springs with Detroit Eaton parts, using urethane bushings from a GM application (supposedly none available for AMC cars), the front coils being custom units that lower the car 2" (before I had stock coils cut/shortened to lower it about 3 to 3-1/2") and the rear leaf springs also were modified to relocate the rear wheels/tires so they are centered in the wheel well. Previously, they were closer to the rear of the wheel well opening and I wanted as much clearance as possible for the 16" 245-50 Goodyears, without flaring the wheel wells/fenders. I guess the more I go on about my car the more I remember having done to it in thirty years.
Larry
