Succesful Steps In Building a A-Body Suspension

[HWYSTR]

I went through this whole delima myself several years ago, mainly with deciding which route to go on my A-body's suspension. Couple things I want to point out.

First, it's very easy to get carried away, and lose sight of the final config. So, decide once, and see it through.

My 'opinion' on coil overs. It was once explained to me that a coil spring is like a big lever, and the larger the diameter spring, the more linear the rate of the spring. Due to the curb weight of these cars, it only is amplified, not like in a 2500 or so pound race car, in which coil overs work best. There's a ratio in which weight and diameter coil spring is optimum, if you can imagine. So, it is thought by many that the traditional coil spring that came on these cars will track much better than a coil over. My suggestion would be to stick with the traditional coil spring. Global West has many years experience in testing spring rates, and I believe they can advise a 'consumer hobbist' very well, not to mention a max-effort corner burner.

Control arms, front, after much looking around, from dealing with ATS, and the fact that Global West designed the control arms around the ATS spindles, AND since ATS developed their' spindles for improved suspension geometry, I believe the Global West upper and lower control arms with ATS spindles is about as good as it gets, within a reasonable cost. This as all know allows the use of C5/6 brakes, another bonus.

Rear control arms, since the front GWs were selected, makes the rear selection easy in my opinion, GW again, and the spherical bushings/del-a-lum setup is second to none when it comes to articulation.

Lowering. The front driveline angles won't change when you lower the front, only the back will, and that can be corrected easily with the adjustable uppers. If the Instant Center or Roll Center is a concern, you could add the Metco Instance Center Mod brackets or similar. (I believe GW has addressed the RC issue, call them). If you really need to, you could lift the rear of the trans to improve driveline angles, and the amount you can would be dependant on the trans and body bushings used. As a reference, on my A-body, TH-400, 12-bolt, lowered with the GW and ATS 'stuff', I have no driveline vibration at any speed, even above 150mph (high driveshaft RPMs).

Roadbuster - Sweet ride! LOVE IT!! As for the Doug's being tighter to the body, yes they are, but I have still ground the heck out of mine on the daily driver! I cringe every time too! (Guess going air-borne will do that!). On the McLeod bellhousing, on the 'bird, I trimmed the entire lower lip off to avoid any 'contact', which by the way destroys the bellhousing to block alingment. To a point that you have to replace it. Check over on PY and see how I trimmed it, even cut off the extra starter bulge. And yes, it will still protect you in the event of a clutch/flywheel/etc failure. No, it won't pass SFI, or a strict drag track tech. What's your engine specs on that?

-Mike

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2Od_KQq1ms

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