72 monte carlo for street and track use

[72monte]

I was wondering if anybody has done a Monte Carlo for auto crossing or track days.
I've been researching but have not found one set up for both.
Anybody have any good part combination's for the front end and rear end setups so i don't have to purchase twice.

[406 Q-ship]

Looks like there is more than just I silly enough to try to cut corners with a Monte. I have a 71 with a 406 SBC Th400 (maybe swithching to TKO600) and 3.31 Posi 12 bolt, my suspension is pretty straight forward. I currently have tall spindles off a B-body but they are coming off due to the horrid bump steer and achermann (returning to stock spindles), it has 550 lbs front springs (I will switch to 650) and 125 lbs rear (basicly eibachs for a Chevelle). 1 1/4" front swaybar and a 7/8 rear bar with boxed lower arms and adjustable uppers with trailing arm braces, Bilsteins on all four corners. Monte are great in the fact that they are just stretched Chevelles so most all the parts in the suspension work well on them. No one ever really does a Monte other than a cruiser, some drag racers but have yet to see a true G-machine Monte Carlo. Good luck on yours.

I was going to make mine a Bobby Allison/NASCAR clone car with a Smokey Yunick style paint job to get a vintage NASCAR look, but did not go with the paint job in the end........It still would be an extremely cool looking Monte Carlo, the look of the years when Montes began their long and great career in Grand National/Winston Cup.

[Norm Peterson]

http://www.scandc.com/suspensions.htm

In general, the approaches that work for the rear suspensions of the '78 and later G-body or the Fox/SN95 Mustang ought to work on the earlier car. The different weight and wheelbase (and perhaps personal ride quality preferences) affect the final details of things like spring/bar rates and possibly pivot point location.

406's bars are the same as what I have on a '79 Malibu and his current springs are somewhat lighter than mine (the proposed fronts are about the same as mine). If you're going to get at least semi-serious, you'll want to go stiffer. I'm not entirely happy with 640/165 springs and 1.25"/.88" bars as it is (3450# car).

About getting serious - I'm convinced that the rear axle's own roll axis is too steeply inclined toward roll understeer to let the car ever be very happy doing slaloms no matter what else you do. Brute-force with big tires and stiffer suspension may be enough to mask this out on an interstate on-ramp or road course where you aren't really slaloming, but can't overcome this geometry issue in an autocross environment.

I'd like to see the amount of roll down to maybe 2/3 of this . . .




Norm