Rear Leaf Springs

[vintageracer]

I have not seen any "reversed eye" or "mid eye" rear leaf springs offered for 1st Gen F body cars. These are used extensively on many road race Mustangs to achieve the proper stance and suspension setup. The can be configured to also reduce rearend rotation under acceleration.

Why are these not offered for 1st Gen F bodies? If not appropriate or needed, why on a Mustang and not a 1st generation F body?

[wendell]

The T/A camaro I work on is set up with "mid eye" rear leafs. The car has as much bight at corner exit as the 302 needs. I don't know what other first gens are doing. Maybe Chicanne will chime in.

[silver69camaro]

Is there another supplier of performance leafs instead of DSE and Global West? Who do the track guys use?

[wendell]

There's a whole world of technology that doesn't live with in the pages of polular hot rodding. Our leafs were put together in house. Made with a special blend of authentic hobo spices.

[6'9"Witha69]

Our leafs were put together in house.

Do tell.

Mike, I remember always seeing mid and reverse eye for mustangs. I had totally forgotten until you posted it. Now I too am wondering . . .

[wendell]

Not much to tell. The car owner/driver is an old tymie ME. He knew what he wanted the springs to do. He took a bunch of leafs, dynoed them and made them into a spring pack. They're about 200#, heavily biased to the front, almost flat, and the front eye is inline with the leaf. I know enough about leafs to know I don't know enough about leafs.

This topic comes up every few months. It's a WAY better topic than air bags or tubular CAs or 4 links. If a search doesn't answer all your questions, try to get Chicanne talking. He's got first gen leafs wired.

[vintageracer]

I run reversed eye rear leafs on the 66 Shelby I race that are also heavily biased to the front to reduce axle wrap. I have not seen much if anything discussed for Camaro and did not find anything in a search.

Since I have been banned from Corner Carvers I cannot research the question there!

[Marcus SC&C]

Made with a special blend of authentic hobo spices.

That caught me off guard I almost spit coffee on the keyboard!!!

Not much to add about the springs other than building a really good set of performance leaf springs can be almost as art form. We`ve used offset eye springs in customers Mustangs before with good results. It would make sense to have them for Camaros too.
Many years ago I worked part time in an off road racing shop. I can vividly remember building 4 custom packs for an aluminum bodied,center seater race jeep. At that time we`d calculate the rates each leaf to get the progressive rate we wanted and arched them by hand with a huge steel arching block and a short heavy sledge hammer. My arms were numb for about a week! Mark SC&C

[bretcopsey]

I had this company build a set of springs for me a few years ago based upon a design Chicane67 provided. The second leaf wraps the front eye of the main leaf and the rear eye was reversed. http://www.pohlsprings.com/leaf_springs.html

Sad to think how long it's been and the car is still nowhere near complete

[Rick Dorion]

Ahh, yes. I'm looking at my set on the floor

[pdq67]

I just drilled the front spring eye mounts about 3/4" to 7/8" higher and used my drill and 4.5" angle grinder to cut the tops out so the eyes fit!

I also had washers welded on each side of the holes to strengthen them too..

pdq67's First Gen. Camaro car..

[Skip Fix]

When moving the front spring eye up it is supposed to help the anti squat (old Herb Adams trick),but you need to also be sure pinion angle stays where it should for good traction also.

There is a company that makes a drag spring like the old Mopar Super Stockers used with the second leaf all the way to the spring eye. They worked great on my drag car. Tri City Engineering. Alot of the "stockers" used them before the Cal Tracs came out.

How much were the custom springs Pohl made?

[chicane67]

Moving the front eye will change anti-squat a little, but it will change your pinion angle and the IC. One of those is a good thing and the other is not....

The reverse eye thing isnt new, the idea and it use has been around since the 50's... its just not really talked about outside of the real spring builders. Most companies that actually build the springs for the planet, use the original designs that were pretty much used in the OE standard builds. There is a buncha stuff that the mainstreme doesnt know about in the little tweaks to the pack that make them work so well.

Its is funny that someone would mention the TRI-City Comp spring... as this always comes up in leaf discussions at some point. The cat that builds my professional racing leafs... is the very same cat that builds the TRI-City / Landy springs. They are not the cheapest in the book, but in my opinion, they are the very best leaf spring builders in the industry.

I was hoping by now that Bret and Rick would have had theirs installed and got some time to beat on them by now... so we could also attach some kind of driving impressions from those who have custom leafs, but it seems that most of us are still just shy of being on the road.

We did a group purchase for a spring that I designed a while back... and I think they came out to something like $250-300 a set ?? Rick can you correct me on this please ?? I know Bret did his through Pohl and I dont know what he was charged for his one off set, but if I remember correctly the GP that Rick was involved in was thru Bett's Spring.

[Rick Dorion]

You have a good memory, Tom! I'm in the process of putting my new 410 in which I think will be a better match to the Bett's springs than my Hotchkis set. Not really looking forward to transfering over the GW delalum bushings, though Hmmm. Maybe I need a set of their cat5 bushings.