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I have a question directed at Rick Andersen ,, but anyone with similar car I would like to hear from ,, originally it was stated by Ted that only a coupe should be used to build a Crown due to strength issue . or lack there of , in a convertible ,, I have seen Hector Gonzales old car and a few others ,, just wondering how convert is working out ?? when I started mine I went with coupe because that was thinking and I didn't have enough experience at the time to know otherwise ,, I realize now that it would be easy enough to strengthen a vert with some additional frame work ,, I do like the profile of one ,, so just wondering what anyone might have to say on the subject

I've just about completed a rebuild on the car with an early first generation Crown kit, using a 327 small block. Previous to that the car had a 401 cu in "Nailhead" Buick engine with a 6-71 blower into a Torqueflight - into the Corvair differential. I have experienced some amount of body twist, but never anything that I would call excessive. It's pretty much the same thing I have experienced in any unibody convertible. I do recall reading where Chevrolet put an extra layer of steel in the rocker panels on the Corvair convertibles. I'm sure a coupe would be less flexible, but for what I use the car for, I am happy. One thing I like specifically about using a convertible is that dispersing the heat from the engine isn't nearly as difficult as with a coupe.

I keep thinking how much easier it must be to get hands on the engine when working on it than leaning in thru quarter window , and roof forces you to be bent down , with a low car its a pain

Hmmm. I've got a convertible, and I have absolutely no body flex at all. The additional tubing probably helps.

Rick do you still have the 401" Nailhead engine? What is different about the early Crown kit?

I sold the Nailhead with the blower on it and threw away the Torqueflight a few years back. The blower drive was to close to my wife's hair when it was blowing around with the top down. The transmission ended up losing high gear and I was more interested in a Crown setup with a 4 speed. When the car had that setup, the original builder won an award at the Streetrod Nationals for having the Best Engineered Car that year. If you could have seen the engineering, you would have thought twice about driving the car hard!

As I think you noticed in one of the photos of the rear of my engine, my subframe has smaller square box tubing and has a round tubing section that runs under the oil pan from motor mount to motor mount. It also had a bronze bushing inside the input shaft of the transmission rather than needle bearings. I was told by the fellow that sold it to me that it was a genuine Crown kit and read someplace years ago, that the initial few Crown kits were much different than the beefed up rectangular tubing that we are all accustomed to seeing.

Dang it, lol I'd love to pick up that Nailhead if it ever shows up again. I buy up all of them I can when they are local or a good deal when not local.
Thanks for the info on the early crown kit, I've seen a few various differences before but didn't know about an early design.