Newbie Olds nut

Hey kiddies, new guy here. Got referrered to this by my pal Scotty, and he usually can't shut up about the H.A.M.B., so I figured I'd give it a whirl. I'm neck-deep in hot-rodding various stuff in various ways, all loosely considered "hot rodding", I guess. I have a 1950 or 51 Olds 4-door that someone modified all to hell, with taillights frenched in with soup-cans, and headlight buckets extended with what I figure to be paint cans. It has a '78 Olds 350 in it, nicely louvered hood, shaved rear door handles and a vacuum-operated trunk lid, brown leather seats that defy description, the original dash, and some lovley gray indoor/outdoor carpeting, not to mention the copious addition of coarsely sanded "pink lead" under a judicious amount of black primer and the most atrocious flame job I've seen in some time.
Plans are to get the 350 motoring along better, or replace it with a recently-obtained 402 Chevy. I'm thinking a gasser theme, but first and foremost, I need to update the original brakes and suspension. If anyone can help with this, suggestions would be welcome! I have a huge amount of GM cars and parts available to me; has anyone tried upgrading the brakes on these beasts?
Other than that, I have some modern stuff, like a 1985 Olds Cutlass with a 355 SBC w/ Vortec heads, proform gear drive, comp XE268 cam, Weiand intake, 795 Q-jet, 4-speed Saginaw (yeah, that's right!), Hurst Comp/Plus, 3.08 10-bolt, and a full hotchkis suspension. It handles. It's pretty fast. It rocks.
Anyway, that's me. I get my hands dirty when I have the infrequent combination on time and greenbacks. I hope you enjoyed my show.

my best,
-Drew

 

That thing looks like a rock show after party turned inside out Dig it!