78 trans am suspension ideas

[Johnnyjr]

Hello all iam new from el paso and have a 78 trans am.



i am wanting to redo my suspension on my car i want it to handle like a modern day sports car and i want it alot lower.

iam new to this but this was what i had planned just need some help from you experts. thanks in advance for all your help. please throw in ur ideas and opinions on this.

here is what i have planned
FRONT
1. qa1 coil over kit
2.global west control arms both lower and upper
3.c6 corvette brake conversion
4.drop spindles
5.also wanna use a KORE3 billet hub kit
Back
1.allready have a nice drop with the hotchkis drop leaf springs
2.wanna put some slide a link traction bars
3.afco t2 double adjustable shocks

and i wanna run z06 rims on the car all around like these http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/yhst-2978744..._2077_40229783

this car will be for my son so this car will just be a street car and a everday car wont be pushed all the time just every once and a while so i don't wanna spend a whole bunch of $ money either but don't wanna go cheap as he is my son. i will post pictures of the car in a while and me and my son just redid the suspension on the car but he wants it lower so we figured while at that might as well do it right.

[formula]

I'll wait for the leaf specialists to speak on the rear, but the front setup sounds pretty good.

You'll also want to consider chassis stiffening, any way you can. The easiest ones are subframe connectors and g-braces and fender braces. Those are all bolt-in and make a pretty big difference.

[Johnnyjr]

forgot to put in subframe connectors slipped my mind but i was checking out the g brake and the connectors at profbody and ill probably pick up a pair.

[Johnnyjr]

let me post some pictures of how my car is and stands as of now
http://tinyurl.com/yfs4c8w
http://tinyurl.com/yk6n5sh
http://tinyurl.com/yza4r44
http://tinyurl.com/ykt6d3s
http://tinyurl.com/ylsfd7f

[Johnnyjr]

here is some more
http://tinyurl.com/yfeqstj
http://tinyurl.com/ylqqmr9
http://tinyurl.com/yzbwx24

[wedgehead]

nice car We are also building a 78 T/A for one of my twins first car. Yours looks to be further along than ours. We are looking at doing the same mods on his with a ls 6 liter for power.

[Johnnyjr]

sounds cool and thank you and haha me and my son have changed our minds on alot of things thats probably why we are going kinda slow lol hope this thread helps you out then. we are probley gunna do a 455 in ours our goal is like between 450-550 hp

[opnwide]

Try the photo links again.

Sounds pretty solid. Lots of camaros and firebirds ran fast with leafs back when that was all we had (ie Herb Adams et al). I'll be doing similar with my car (3" drop DSE leafs and speedtech control arms.
However, If I don't like the way the leafs work, and if I can't fix it, I'll pay the $2K and upgrade to prodigy's 4link. But that's $2K that I can use to get my car running right now.

[Johnnyjr]

are u sure the links aren't working? and yeh i don't really see my self spending another 2k on suspension on top of about 4k

and suggestions or things i should consider or focus on?

[93Polo]

Links are working for me. Looks like a very nice project.

[formula]

are u sure the links aren't working? and yeh i don't really see my self spending another 2k on suspension on top of about 4k

and suggestions or things i should consider or focus on?

Only other thing I can think of is that drop spindles on top of coilovers may be too much drop...

[Johnnyjr]

there is such a thing as to much drop :O ???
like if the spindles are 2 inch of a drop then the most of a drop could be like 4 ? or 3.5? or what you think?

[formula]

this was my car when it had too much drop...wheels were sitting on the fenders



That was mostly because the wheels weren't what I'd ordered, though...

Since I've been on airride for years now, I honestly have no idea what stock height is anymore haha so 4" may be fine--I guess if worse comes to worst, you could always swap the spindles out if it was too low.

[Johnnyjr]

that stance is so perfect though i really like it but i dont want to damage my car or do anything that will affect me in a bad way thanks for the info and yeh i could and it would just be a waste of 500 lol no biggie :P

[Johnnyjr]

to me i think this is like a perfect stance and is probably way to hard to accomplished on a trans am though

http://tinyurl.com/yfuce8k

[79T/Aman]

if this car is going to be driven I would not try to lower it too much, skip the drop spindles, honestly a set of conventional front springs and shocks, also consider our body bushings so that you can lower the body on the frame this will give the ower look without affecting the suspension.

[formula]

to me i think this is like a perfect stance and is probably way to hard to accomplished on a trans am though

http://tinyurl.com/yfuce8k

Without airride, that's gonna be way tough...

With airride, you just push a button. That's pretty close to how mine sits when it's aired out. Might want to look into going that way--then you can ride tucked and slammed when you want to, but hit a button and still clear potholes etc.

[Johnnyjr]

http://www.pro-touringf-body.com how would you go about getting the car lower i allready put eibach drop springs on the front and hotchkis drop leafs in the back i want to go a lil bit lower in the back but plently lower in the front but keep in mind that the car has no engine in it as of the pictures of the car. and i also want to run corvette rims like these on the car http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/yhst-2978744..._2077_40229783

[Lowend]

I like everything but the QA1 shocks. QA1 has awful consistancy in their shocks. I would go with static springs and custom valved Bilstiens

[79T/Aman]

well how much more do you want to go in the rear? the options are 1/2" lowering block or the HA mod to the front leaf perch that will give you about 1/2" as well, but in all honesty I think without having the engine in and no wheels you are getting ahead of yourself.