71OLDS
11-30-2016, 04:22 PM
So it’s not exactly on the level of the 2008 financial crisis but it’s a sad tale none the less! I’m referring to the B-body spindle “kit” for a 68-72 GM A-body that was all the rage and had quite the sales pitch going back to around the turn of the millennium. My 1971 Olds 442 stock suspension geometry puts the front wheels like this (if you look at the car from the front): \ / The problem with that (as the sales pitch went) is the car is already “set up to lean” before you even go into a corner. Want to see a video that shows that lean? Here you go. Watch the slow motion part going in and out of the cones. Note the top of the tires are leaning “into” the turn before the turn even starts. Love this video BTW – basically my car but with black stripes, top, and green interior. OK and it’s a W-30 (mine is “just” a 442) but it’s a great video to show what the stock suspension does on hard corners. This is how I drive my car ALL THE TIME in case you were wondering!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzBOsbcvOxk
Over a decade ago the big “fix” for this was to go with the B-body spindle “upgrade” which of course also required you to get aftermarket upper control arms and oh while you’re at it you might as well upgrade to bigger brakes. But of course you need bigger rims/wheels to fit those bigger rotors since my stock 14 or even 15” repro wheels can’t hold a 13” rotor. There just isn’t enough room. So if you’re like me maybe 15 years ago you bought B-body spindles, upper control arms from say Hotchkis or Global West, plus why not get the lower tubular control arms too, then a nice set of 4 wheel disc brakes from Baer or Wilwood for example (let’s say 13” front and 12” rear – most weren’t doing 14” rotors back then). Then to fit these big breaks you probably upgraded to let’s say a nice set of 18” wheels maybe 18x8 front and 18x10 rear with some wide tires to help with both cornering and traction in the rear. Maybe 255s front and 305s rear. And let’s throw in some nice sway bars front and rear, better springs or coilovers, and some high end adjustable shocks…oh yeah and a quick ratio steering box for good measure.
After all that you would think you are ready to take your 4,000 lb car and compete in the corners with the new Mustangs, Corvettes, Camaros….might as well throw in Nissan 350Zs and even Porches too….but is that really the case?
The problem is what no one told us back then is all the negatives that came with that first piece of the puzzle – the B-body spindles!! It felt like the car was cornering much better but was that just the wider rims/tires with smaller side walls, stiffer springs, better shocks, and meaty sway bars not to mention my quick ratio steering box? It feels like I can corner better but something doesn’t feel quite right when I REALLY get into a corner hard. Plus doing U-turns or even parking the car felt like something was slightly off. Hmmm maybe it’s just the alignment isn’t quite right. There are lots of aftermarket parts on there. Getting the alignment perfect will take some trial and error right? Or maybe it’s the bigger tires? After all the car just went from 14 or 15 all the way up to 18” right? What I tell myself is at least I know my suspension geometry is good now because the B-body spindles make the car look like this: / \ from the front now so going into a turn the car isn’t already set up for leaning like it was stock (in the video) but…..what we were NOT told over a decade ago about the B-body spindles was all the negatives:
1. They are really heavy – about 14 or 15 lbs. each!
Here's a pic of the stock spindle set up (top) vs B-body bottom - you can see it's taller but also much heavier than stock:
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2016/12/YtPHMGc-1.jpg
2. Even with the custom upper tubular control arms, the steering arms put the tie rod ends in the wrong location – meaning an A-body car like my 71 442 starts out with massive bump steer (about 1.5” of total toe change over 6” of suspension travel) caused by the vertical misalignment of the outer tie rod ends.
3. The steering arms are also 1” longer than stock. This slows down the final steering ratio making the turning radius much larger. So trying to make U-turns in my 442 isn’t as easy as it should be and that 12.7:1 quick ratio AGR box I spent $500 on doesn’t feel very quick!!
4. Then there is the Ackerman error – which is a fancy name for something that causes a lazy turn in when cornering and more tire squeal when you’re just slowly trying to park your car. Apparently the B-body spindles make that worse too.
The bottom line is the B-body spindle conversion actually DOES improve the suspension geometry of our old muscle cars but it adds weight, trashes the steering geometry, steering ratio, and Ackerman.
So what are we (those of us with 68-72 GM A-body cars that have the B-body conversion) supposed to do now or what options do we have if any? I have spent lots of time researching this and spent several hours talking to Mark Savitske at SC&C. As a matter of fact I “stole” most of the details here either from our conversation or from info I found online or on his website. To be clear this is NOT an advertisement for him and I don’t work for his company!! Haha… Just putting it out there. I’m sure some of this written here is not 100% correct but I think most of it is pretty close. Here are the options available today as I understand it:
Option 1: Do nothing and live with the known issues of the B-Body spindles. I think there are lots of us out there that have been doing this for years anyway. Obviously the cars can be driven like this. It’s just sad the lack of performance for what we paid.
Option 2: The cheaper “fix” is to go back to your stock spindles and go with a taller ball joint (instead of taller spindle) for the suspension geometry improvement but if you already have moved to the b-body spindles you will then have the wrong upper control arms and your rotors won’t fit. Did you keep all that stuff from over a decade ago? I certainly didn’t. Plus I would feel like I was going backwards to start putting all the stock 1971 parts back on but apparently if you do it in combo with the taller ball joint it will be better than the B-body spindle option. How sad is that? Make sure you get more details for this option if you go there because there’s more to it than just the taller ball joints but since I’m not going to do this option I didn’t investigate much further.
Option 3: The best option as far as I can tell and of course the much more expensive option is to go with the AFX spindles (replacing the B-body spindle), compatible adjustable tubular upper arms (replacing your Hotchkis or GW B-body compatible arms), and then swap out your B-body rotors for a set of AFX compatible rotors. All for the low, low cost of about 3 grand (around $2k for the spindle kit and control arms and another grand for the Baer 13” GT rotors that go with the AFX spindles)!!
So for $3k what benefits would you get?:
1. The AFX spindles are aluminum and only 3 lbs. each!! How about dropping 7 lbs. off of each side (aluminum spindle is much lighter but hub is heavier. Net drop is 7 lbs from B-body to AFX spindle including the hub)?
2. The AFX spindles give you the same improved suspension geometry as the B- body spindles {so using the old sales pitch / \ explanation above – the car is NOT set up to lean into the corners like it is with the factory suspension (\ /)}
3. The steering arm mounting holes have been relocated for near zero bumpsteer
4. The kit for my 71 442 would include the factory 68-72 GM A body steering arms not the 1” longer ones that caused some of the issues with the b-body spindles.
5. All kinds of other nice features can be found explained on the SC&C site with their “street comp” kit.
Bottom line is “have your cake and eat it too” for lots of $$$. You get the suspension geometry and steering geometry solved with one set up. Very little car lean in corners, near zero bumpsteer, and greatly improved steering . That 12.7:1 steering box should REALLY feel like a quick ratio now. No more lazy turn-ins when doing hard cornering or squealing tires when you’re parking your car and let’s not forgot the 22 lb. drop in weight for the front end!!
For all of us with the B-body setups still on our beloved muscle cars, is it worth the $3k price tag? Hmmmm?? I guess that depends on each one of us and how much we care about cornering/steering. I’ve read about several guys with the B-body setup that say they don’t notice any issues. I like to corner REALLY hard in my car and it always felt like something was not right but I thought the alignment might be slightly off or maybe my 12 year old AGR steering box just needed to be rebuilt or replaced. After learning about all this stuff I now understand all the negative steering geometry issues I’ve been experiencing. I’m leaning toward dropping the $3k and seeing if I can really have my 442 corner like a Porsche!! Actually I’ve never driven a Porsche but my wife’s car is a 2004 Nissan 350Z. If my 71 442 could corner, turn, make U turns and feel as good as it does, I would be a happy man!!
Sorry for the long post but I thought this might be helpful for others. I couldn’t find one place that really broke all this down so I figured I would write it all out myself. It actually helps with trying to make my decision for dropping all that $$$.
Oh cough cough….anyone want to buy a complete B-body kit for a 68 -72 GM Abody? Will be selling my B-body spindles, Hotchkis tubular upper control arms, & Baer 13” rotors as a set once I make the change!!
-Joe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzBOsbcvOxk
Over a decade ago the big “fix” for this was to go with the B-body spindle “upgrade” which of course also required you to get aftermarket upper control arms and oh while you’re at it you might as well upgrade to bigger brakes. But of course you need bigger rims/wheels to fit those bigger rotors since my stock 14 or even 15” repro wheels can’t hold a 13” rotor. There just isn’t enough room. So if you’re like me maybe 15 years ago you bought B-body spindles, upper control arms from say Hotchkis or Global West, plus why not get the lower tubular control arms too, then a nice set of 4 wheel disc brakes from Baer or Wilwood for example (let’s say 13” front and 12” rear – most weren’t doing 14” rotors back then). Then to fit these big breaks you probably upgraded to let’s say a nice set of 18” wheels maybe 18x8 front and 18x10 rear with some wide tires to help with both cornering and traction in the rear. Maybe 255s front and 305s rear. And let’s throw in some nice sway bars front and rear, better springs or coilovers, and some high end adjustable shocks…oh yeah and a quick ratio steering box for good measure.
After all that you would think you are ready to take your 4,000 lb car and compete in the corners with the new Mustangs, Corvettes, Camaros….might as well throw in Nissan 350Zs and even Porches too….but is that really the case?
The problem is what no one told us back then is all the negatives that came with that first piece of the puzzle – the B-body spindles!! It felt like the car was cornering much better but was that just the wider rims/tires with smaller side walls, stiffer springs, better shocks, and meaty sway bars not to mention my quick ratio steering box? It feels like I can corner better but something doesn’t feel quite right when I REALLY get into a corner hard. Plus doing U-turns or even parking the car felt like something was slightly off. Hmmm maybe it’s just the alignment isn’t quite right. There are lots of aftermarket parts on there. Getting the alignment perfect will take some trial and error right? Or maybe it’s the bigger tires? After all the car just went from 14 or 15 all the way up to 18” right? What I tell myself is at least I know my suspension geometry is good now because the B-body spindles make the car look like this: / \ from the front now so going into a turn the car isn’t already set up for leaning like it was stock (in the video) but…..what we were NOT told over a decade ago about the B-body spindles was all the negatives:
1. They are really heavy – about 14 or 15 lbs. each!
Here's a pic of the stock spindle set up (top) vs B-body bottom - you can see it's taller but also much heavier than stock:
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2016/12/YtPHMGc-1.jpg
2. Even with the custom upper tubular control arms, the steering arms put the tie rod ends in the wrong location – meaning an A-body car like my 71 442 starts out with massive bump steer (about 1.5” of total toe change over 6” of suspension travel) caused by the vertical misalignment of the outer tie rod ends.
3. The steering arms are also 1” longer than stock. This slows down the final steering ratio making the turning radius much larger. So trying to make U-turns in my 442 isn’t as easy as it should be and that 12.7:1 quick ratio AGR box I spent $500 on doesn’t feel very quick!!
4. Then there is the Ackerman error – which is a fancy name for something that causes a lazy turn in when cornering and more tire squeal when you’re just slowly trying to park your car. Apparently the B-body spindles make that worse too.
The bottom line is the B-body spindle conversion actually DOES improve the suspension geometry of our old muscle cars but it adds weight, trashes the steering geometry, steering ratio, and Ackerman.
So what are we (those of us with 68-72 GM A-body cars that have the B-body conversion) supposed to do now or what options do we have if any? I have spent lots of time researching this and spent several hours talking to Mark Savitske at SC&C. As a matter of fact I “stole” most of the details here either from our conversation or from info I found online or on his website. To be clear this is NOT an advertisement for him and I don’t work for his company!! Haha… Just putting it out there. I’m sure some of this written here is not 100% correct but I think most of it is pretty close. Here are the options available today as I understand it:
Option 1: Do nothing and live with the known issues of the B-Body spindles. I think there are lots of us out there that have been doing this for years anyway. Obviously the cars can be driven like this. It’s just sad the lack of performance for what we paid.
Option 2: The cheaper “fix” is to go back to your stock spindles and go with a taller ball joint (instead of taller spindle) for the suspension geometry improvement but if you already have moved to the b-body spindles you will then have the wrong upper control arms and your rotors won’t fit. Did you keep all that stuff from over a decade ago? I certainly didn’t. Plus I would feel like I was going backwards to start putting all the stock 1971 parts back on but apparently if you do it in combo with the taller ball joint it will be better than the B-body spindle option. How sad is that? Make sure you get more details for this option if you go there because there’s more to it than just the taller ball joints but since I’m not going to do this option I didn’t investigate much further.
Option 3: The best option as far as I can tell and of course the much more expensive option is to go with the AFX spindles (replacing the B-body spindle), compatible adjustable tubular upper arms (replacing your Hotchkis or GW B-body compatible arms), and then swap out your B-body rotors for a set of AFX compatible rotors. All for the low, low cost of about 3 grand (around $2k for the spindle kit and control arms and another grand for the Baer 13” GT rotors that go with the AFX spindles)!!
So for $3k what benefits would you get?:
1. The AFX spindles are aluminum and only 3 lbs. each!! How about dropping 7 lbs. off of each side (aluminum spindle is much lighter but hub is heavier. Net drop is 7 lbs from B-body to AFX spindle including the hub)?
2. The AFX spindles give you the same improved suspension geometry as the B- body spindles {so using the old sales pitch / \ explanation above – the car is NOT set up to lean into the corners like it is with the factory suspension (\ /)}
3. The steering arm mounting holes have been relocated for near zero bumpsteer
4. The kit for my 71 442 would include the factory 68-72 GM A body steering arms not the 1” longer ones that caused some of the issues with the b-body spindles.
5. All kinds of other nice features can be found explained on the SC&C site with their “street comp” kit.
Bottom line is “have your cake and eat it too” for lots of $$$. You get the suspension geometry and steering geometry solved with one set up. Very little car lean in corners, near zero bumpsteer, and greatly improved steering . That 12.7:1 steering box should REALLY feel like a quick ratio now. No more lazy turn-ins when doing hard cornering or squealing tires when you’re parking your car and let’s not forgot the 22 lb. drop in weight for the front end!!
For all of us with the B-body setups still on our beloved muscle cars, is it worth the $3k price tag? Hmmmm?? I guess that depends on each one of us and how much we care about cornering/steering. I’ve read about several guys with the B-body setup that say they don’t notice any issues. I like to corner REALLY hard in my car and it always felt like something was not right but I thought the alignment might be slightly off or maybe my 12 year old AGR steering box just needed to be rebuilt or replaced. After learning about all this stuff I now understand all the negative steering geometry issues I’ve been experiencing. I’m leaning toward dropping the $3k and seeing if I can really have my 442 corner like a Porsche!! Actually I’ve never driven a Porsche but my wife’s car is a 2004 Nissan 350Z. If my 71 442 could corner, turn, make U turns and feel as good as it does, I would be a happy man!!
Sorry for the long post but I thought this might be helpful for others. I couldn’t find one place that really broke all this down so I figured I would write it all out myself. It actually helps with trying to make my decision for dropping all that $$$.
Oh cough cough….anyone want to buy a complete B-body kit for a 68 -72 GM Abody? Will be selling my B-body spindles, Hotchkis tubular upper control arms, & Baer 13” rotors as a set once I make the change!!
-Joe