Factory A body suspension is a very good set up. There's really no need to reinvent the wheel here. Everything Gary is saying is correct. There are brackets available to move the lower shock mount inward to get it away from the wheel. Moroso springs and decent shocks will create pretty good 60' times. Coilovers will allow you to control ride height a bit more and enable you to keep the lower control arm parallel which will improve geometry and 60' times.
Not to hijack the thread but im in the process of building my 72, was looking into putting the jegs lower control arms that lower the rear of the bar and putting the no hop bracket on the rear to raise the rear mounting point of the upper control arm, also with 50/50 shocks, basically a street car with occasional trip to the track. Hows this sound??
Really......For what you're describing,Save your money. A stock set up in good working order will go well into the 11's. I would not use aftermarket stuff until getting into the 10's and beyond.
A harder hooking car will always be a faster car, im sure the "stock" stuff will get the car into the 11 s with decent hp, but my question was will these parts make the car work better?? For $400 bucks your putting modern technology into your suspension and relocating your ic for better weight transfer.
By just adding the upper brackets you will see a big difference on the way the car's traction. The "50/50" shocks would help on weight transfer, but make the daily driveing somewhat diffacult. Save your money on the lower bars.
I agree with Gary on the factory rear suspension. I welded flat plates onto my upper stock control arms, to box them in, and left everything else alone, bottoms were already boxed along with the factory Anti-Roll bar, on my 70 GS. I have 90/10's in the front and 50/50's in the rear running a 4:10 gear and 28 x 12.5 x 15 Mickey Thompson ET Street Tires. 2 months ago I went 10.89 @ 121+ with a 1.49 60' Thats thru full exhaust (including tailpipes) and HEAVY car, like 4050 lbs with me in it. Thats full street trim. I know the car is .35 seconds quicker running open headers, but i prefer to run it quiet. I also prefer a tighter convertor cause I do street drive my car fairly often. My son loves being picked up from school in it. I'm still playing with things as the combo is fairly new but I can tell you that things like tire pressure and how hard a burnout you do will have an effect on your traction and 60' times. Getting the 60' times consistant should be your focus. I have found these tires to work great, especially if you drive your car on the street. It saves alot of time by not having to change things over. There are ALOT of variables to every car (like auto/manual trans and convertor stall, Trans gearing and rear gearing, torque motor vs. HP motor, etc) but I feel that at these power levels, the stock suspension is adequate. Could after market stuff make you quicker, maybe, but I have come to the conclusion that after years of playing with my 86 Monte Carlo, which is a very similar setup suspension wise, and the money I wasted on parts was not worth it. It all comes down to cutting a good light and having the car consistant to your driving style. Its nice to post the big numbers but you'll soon find going rounds is more enjoyable. The only thing I would watch for is at these performance levels, into the 10's with a heavy A Body car, is that the upper control arms want to pull away from their mounting points in the chassis. A local guy had this happen with his beautiful mid 10 sec 1970 Chevelle. This is not meant to change anyones ideas, just sharing what I have found to work for me.
