C5 spindles on a '70 Chevelle A-Body

[FlyDoc]

Now that I am living in Texas, I have purchased a 1970 Chevelle, for a Friend in Hawaii.
with traffic in HI it will need power breaks & front disks, maybe rear disks if the budget allows.
I have a set of C5 spends left over from my Camaro that I had in HI.
but from what I have read, here is that they can be used, but shims must be used to get the alignment correct.
so with that how much shorter do the upper A arms need to be? this is all about out of pocket expense. as her budget is tight because of doing a full SS interior swap.

any advice will be appreciated.

Bryan.

[raustinss]

I'm 36 and got my 70 chevelle when I was 18 . This is the first time I have ever heard anyone ask about C5 spindles on a Chevelle. I don't believe they can be swapped over with simple bolt on stuff, reasons being this is why ATS AFX spindles were made in the first place. These spindles also have the provisions for corvette hubs to bolt on. Also this would be when the control arms would need to be swapped out.
I would definitely be interested if anyone does have info about doing a direct swap with c5 spindles

[MonzaRacer]

In a word DONT. I wont work even if you wanted to do it, and the geometry is so far out of whack you would not believe. After watching a fabricator redesign custom control arms to fix all the ills and wind up with more than he planned for.
$900 in control arms later he still had bump steer issues and inherent twitchyness he really hated driving it. He broke down pulled all the parts, scrapped the expensive control arms and bought Speedtech spindles.
As for some real world recommendations, call Markus at SC&C and talk to him, I am gonna bet tall ball joints and SPC upper arms might pose a better upgrade.
Trust this, Vette spindles work great on Vettes as they were designed for them.
Just dont,,,,please. The results for the effort are better off used acquiring properly planned parts.

[andrewb70]

Now that I am living in Texas, I have purchased a 1970 Chevelle, for a Friend in Hawaii.
with traffic in HI it will need power breaks & front disks, maybe rear disks if the budget allows.
I have a set of C5 spends left over from my Camaro that I had in HI.
but from what I have read, here is that they can be used, but shims must be used to get the alignment correct.
so with that how much shorter do the upper A arms need to be? this is all about out of pocket expense. as her budget is tight because of doing a full SS interior swap.

any advice will be appreciated.

Bryan.

Bryan,

There is no such swap. Perhaps you are thinking about a B/F body swap that was popular in the 80s and 90s and maybe mixing that up with the ATS AFX spindles that use C5 hubs and brakes. The latter is an excellent solution.

Kore3 also offer excellent C6 brake kits that will work with the stock A-bpdy spindles. If braking is your only concern, this is an excellent option.

Andrew

[Rod]

never seen such a swap.....if your doing it take pictures, make a write up, keep a parts list, let us see

[MrQuick]

There were a few out there but could they never get it worked out without big (expensive) mods. While your on the phone with SC&C ask Marcus about the G5 package and how it could work on the A-body.

[FlyDoc]

what I read was vague about the spindles used and talked about C5 breaks.
and yes they were the ATS AFX spindles, I think I will just make / buy the caliper bracket and call it good, and then get the tall ball-joints and call it done.

[Rwolf15241]

ATS works great on my El Camino

[bret]

This is what you need: http://www.ridetech.com/store/components/spindles/

Best $350 you'll ever spend on a chevelle.

[Marcus SC&C]

FlyDoc, if you do have AFX tall spindles you`re in luck. It`s the best spindle ever made for the A body, bar none. It generated fantastic geometry and C5/C6 brakes will bolt right on with no adapter brackets needed. To make them work on the Chevelle you`ll need two things, a pair of AFX- A body steering arms (without which you`ll have a bump steer issue) and a set of tall spindle format upper A arms. We like the SPC adj. uppers for this application. Stock A arms are the wrong length, offset and ball joint mounting angle to work with tall AFX spindles. Achieving a good alignment is impossible and the upper ball joint will run out of travel in bump. If you like you can use stock lower A arms, they work fine with the AFX spindles.
For those wondering about C5 Corvette spindles on an A body, yes, it has been done. We did a prototype package about 10-12 years ago we called A-5. It went on a `70 Chevelle that was at SEMA that year. It took a lot of machining on the C5 spindles, some reconfiguration, one off billet steering arms, one off springs and a one off splined end sway bar (which was 3 way adj. BTW). It generated good geometry but the car could only be run VERY LOW due to the extreme drop of the C5 spindles. Raising the car compromised the geometry too much. It was a fussy thing to install. We were still planning to do it as a limited production package when we started working with ATS on the then prototype AFX tall spindles. It was clear the AFX was a much better choice so we ditched the C5 spindles, prototyped the A body AFX package for them and the rest as they say is history. :) Mark SC&C