The C5/10

[stab6902]

I'd be interested to hear from those who think using C5/C6 suspension in a muscle car/truck would be a bad idea. I think it could be made to work great with a few "minor" changes.

To maintain Corvette-like handling characteristics in a C10 (or almost any muscle car build) with a C5/C6 suspension, you will certainly have to increase spring and sway bar rates to compensate for:
- Higher weight
- Higher center of gravity
- Greater track width (for trucks, there will likely be more "leverage" on the suspension from wheels with less positive offset)

Stiffer C5/C6 springs, sway bars, and shocks are readily available from the aftermarket. You'd have to do some math to determine what rates you need based on your vehicle's weights, CG height, desired ride frequency, and desired roll stiffness. If you tried to use stock C5 rates on a C10, the truck would feel soft and wallowy and likely not have enough suspension travel. Vette's can get away with relatively low rates because of their light weight and low CG; that's why people are impressed with how the handle great and still ride good. A truck will never handle as good as a Vette AND ride as good; you will have to give up something due to the higher CG.

If the truck turns out to be close to 4000 lbs with tall sticky tires, you could argue that the hard parts of the C5 suspension (A-arms, spindles, hubs) would be under much more stress than they were designed for, which is a fair point. For what it's worth, there are Corvette race cars running slicks and aero that pull way over 1G and stay together, so you could probably get away with it.

Despite the above concerns, the C5 suspension will have great geometry that you'd be hard pressed to beat, and since you're doing both the front and rear, the roll centers, camber curves, etc will complement each other nicely.

That said, I don't have any first hand experience doing this type of swap, so I'd be interested to hear what others have to say.