Calling All G-Bodies

[turnin20s]

I have owned my '78 Malibu for about 6 years and its still in pieces, just like how I bought it. This winter I'm going to try to make it a roller, but I'm just looking for some pics to get me siked up :bananna2:

My plansare either big block 6 speed or LS2 6 speed, 9" with some 4.30 gears, nice big brakes, 17 or 18s all around (going to try to fit a 9.5 or 10" up front and a 12" out back) lots of cutting and bracing to the frame, full cage, all business

But anyway post some pics if you don't mind

[project hotrod]

https://www.pro-touring.com/forum/showthread.php?t=23398&highlight=g-body

Quite a few in the link.

The search option is your friend ;)
Type in G-body and you get 8 or so pages of metric chassis goodness.

[Norm Peterson]

Unless there's a video link that the corporate internet filters aren't letting me see, this is a rather strange place to introduce yourself and start posting.

Anyway, the car in the link below is a '79 and runs 8.5" wide wheels with (IIRC) -13mm offset, or about 4 1/4" or a little more in backspace terms. Was probably running 225/60's that end up looking about 245/55 on that width wheel. Up front, the critical clearance points are the outer tierod ends and the lips on the UCAs outboard of the ball joint. I don't know how much larger than 15's you'd have to go to get the tierods to fit into the barrel of the wheel. Tubular UCAs should help the other clearance issue, but again plan on taking your own measurements. Lots of measurements, including with the suspension and steering in various combinations of extreme positions.

Marcus at www.scandc.com has done quite a bit of work on the A/G chassis.

'79 Malibu (https://www.pro-touring.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=25749&stc=1&d=1221056735)

Norm

[GBodyGMachine]

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2008/09/27y7aqv-1.jpg
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2008/09/25hd8a8-1.jpg
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2008/09/e9x6wy-1.jpg

[GBodyGMachine]

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2008/09/25hd8a8-1.jpg
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2008/09/65u2y8-1.jpg
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2008/09/b4axom-1.jpg

[GBodyGMachine]

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2008/09/9s3ww7-1.jpg
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2008/09/v6t8va-1.jpg

[TPI Monte SS]

Here's mine - '88 Monte Carlo SS. The specs and link to my buildup are in the sig if you'd like to know more about it.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2008/06/88SS_graphite_centers1-1.jpg

[DAK]

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2008/09/byron004hc53-1.jpg

[Memphis]

whoa whats the story on this :)
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2008/09/v6t8va-1.jpg

[NOT A TA]

Here's mine, in the works.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2008/06/Yellow81Malibu012-1.jpg

[79_GBody]

whoa whats the story on this :)

I love this car
http://community.webshots.com/user/hybridt

[ManMadeTerror]

Love my monte wouldnt trade it for anything

[turnin20s]

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend anyone by making this my first post. I did look through the garage and didn't really come up with anything, a few malibus here and there. I'll search next time, I honestly forgot about that part of it LOL but it was 3:30 am

On the other hand great pics. My plan for wheels were the Boze Pro Touring with a grey or satin black face and a polished lip and the car is going to be painted in the orginal mint green :D I might be ugly to some, but I think its going to look pretty badass.

[Norm Peterson]

Didn't look at your post time :pat: (now that I have, it puts you somewhere in Central Time).

Not too big on smilies and they're not in the quick reply pane anyway.

Welcome aboard.


Norm

[turnin20s]

Didn't look at your post time :pat: (now that I have, it puts you somewhere in Central Time).

Not too big on smilies and they're not in the quick reply pane anyway.

Welcome aboard.


Norm

HAHA its cool man, no big deal. I did some searching last night, or early this morning and most of the pics in the "g body roll call" are dead. I only came up with a handful of pics and most of them I have already seen. And the thread is almost 2 years old, so mabye a new post will spark some attention :6gears:

But I introduced myself and posted some pics of my camaro so go check them out if you want. I'll try to keep this thread g body specific

[79_GBody]

Here are some other forums you can check out too...
www.maliburacing.com
www.gbodyforum.com

[Norm Peterson]

www.montecarloss.com has somewhat more cornering and handling content than maliburacing (don't know about gbodyforum).

My '79 is fast approaching some sort of major decision - whether to go a LOT more extreme with the chassis or just yank all the good stuff and drop it into something else.


Norm

[project hotrod]

My '79 is fast approaching some sort of major decision - whether to go a LOT more extreme with the chassis or just yank all the good stuff and drop it into something else.


Norm

Ugh, that is where I'm at on my 79 although it's the first time around on this build. All the research is hurting my brains.

The back is planned out (3 link and a watts) but I'm still torn on the front. Perhaps a full tube chassis so I can get the COG and ride height as low as possible while revamping the front geometry.

[turnin20s]

Not too many pro-touring Malibus here huh?? Thats cool the rest look awesome guys.

I keep reading not to use drop spindles since they cause bumpsteer and a few other problems, but my brother has a '94 s10 with a 5 and 6" belltech drop and he has no clerence issues or bumpsteer problems.

I was planning on running a 2" drop spindle and a 1 or 1.5" drop spring to get the stance nice and low. I'm planning on using an 18" wheel so hopefully they will clear everything. And there is a bunch of brake options for s10s and the g body type spindles.

For the rear I still was going to keep the factory 4 link setup with reinforced points and hopefully a 3" drop spring if anyone makes them or else have a spring made to get the ride height where I want it. I know that Aafco has alot of different coil springs to choose from so I should be able to find something that will work.

Any thoughts on the setup? Good or bad let me know

[Norm Peterson]

Up front - measure and calculate carefully.

Out back - springs won't fix the geometry and bushing compliance issues. Yes, you can make it pretty quick around steady state corners. But it'll still hate to slalom. And too much lowering without geometry correction (or suspension revision) only makes poor slaloming worse. Maybe you don't autocross, but the lane change maneuvers that you'd take to avoid hitting road debris can be close enough to a real slalom that being picky about the definition of a slalom is a waste of time.


Norm

[turnin20s]

Ok So the front will be ok with drop spindles and springs then? And the rear problem lies in the rear suspension? The lowers would be really easy to correct the angles and just add a LCA drop mount on the axle to correct things. But the top would be difficult. You could either move the front upper mounting points up to help correct it but thats about as far as you could go. Would just adding relocation brackets help correct the rear at all?

I don't plan on doing any autoXs with the malibu, thats for the camaro, but I do plan on doing some road racing with it every now and again. I guess I should have added that I plan on getting tubular upper and lower arms for the front. And I'm pretty sure I will be doing the car with a big block since I will regret it if I go with an LS motor. But it will be aluminum headed and will pack a punch, I'm either going to do a 540 or a 489 or so.

But if the front will be ok with tubular arms, 2" spindles and a 1" spring I'll be happy, but how should I go about the rear suspension? I have no problem fabbing anything up or making something custom so let me have it LOL

Thanks Norm

[Norm Peterson]

The front geometry is hardly ideal either, and drop spindles won't fix that. Consensus is that the G-body knuckle (commonly aka "spindle") is too short, and the taller B-body knuckle swap that fixes the roll center and camber gain brings with it more bumpsteer. Extended length balljoint studs with the G knuckle and a revised caster spec appears to be a better solution (Marcus and probably others). I'm not sure how well tall balljoints and drop spindles play with each other, but should be OK if the only change with the drop spindles was the positioning of the "axle" in the knuckle. Drop spindles vs bumpsteer is a separate matter.

LCA relo brackets will help the axle steer but no matter what you do with the OE 4-link the rear roll center is still way up there (somewhere around 17" or so). Either a 3-link or a torque arm (with Panhard bar or Watts link for lateral location) in place of the OE uppers would be a better solution, as doing so separates the duties of resisting axle torque from the determination of the roll center and axle steer. The 3-link is probably easier to adapt in this chassis. It's worth mentioning that Ford moved away from a very similar converging/triangulated 4-link arrangement in their Fox/SN95 Mustangs to a 3-link with PHB for the S197 chassis. The difference can be felt even on Interstate entrance ramps taken with some enthusiasm, so it's not just a 20-pace autocross slalom phenomenon.


Norm

[turnin20s]

Ok very good points. So does anyone make a b-body type drop spindle? And what options do I have for upper and lower arms with the spindles? Global West and Hotchkis, or are there more now?

I just want a really low stance with the car and good handling aspects too though. Do you have any links to a 3 link setup to show how it was done?

Thanks again Norm, you really seem to know the g-body suspensions

[Norm Peterson]

At least for uppers there are also tubular circle track items, available either in various fixed lengths that you determine or as adjustable pieces. Just make sure that the plate the ball joint attaches to is angled appropriately for your case so the ball joint doesn't run out of angular travel over the full range of suspension movement.

I've seen a couple of 3-link adaptations that add some bolt-on structure to the OE axle side ears that you'd then attach the 3rd link to, but I don't have any links (sorry). Another arrangement mounted the 3rd link offset to the passenger side to a standoff clamped/pinned/welded to the axle tube (similar to the way that some of the axle side PHB and Watts link kits work - this being primarily a Fox/SN95 Mustang trick BTW) was done by Factory Five as a suspension upgrade to their stick-axle Shelby Cobra replica kit and used in their Spec Racers. There might be something on Factory Five's site. For the offset arrangement, adding a brace back to the pass side UCA ear sounds like cheap insurance particularly with BB levels of torque and a heavy car. Discussed here (http://forums.corner-carvers.com/showthread.php?t=780), but there was a Philly Region guy who used to autocross (and open-track) a Cobra replica who did that particular upgrade and was really glad he did.


Norm