OK, I still have the stock 1968 front suspension (except competition drag shocks) on my car. I am looking to upgrade this winter and I am curious as to what some of you guys are running on your race cars. This car is never driven on the street, it is strictly a race car only. I thought about tubular a-arms and a set of trick springs. Just want to hear what some other people are running.
For front suspension, we are running stock uppers and lowers. 90/10 shocks. No front sway bar. Thats about it. Control arm bolts and bushings are modified to not lock in place, if that makes sense. Cut a coil out of stock front springs to lower the nose. Our money on suspension mods is going to the back to get those tires to stick. Front tires will be off the ground anyway. I have heard that the tubular front arms will help in weight reduction, but other than that, no real competition advantage. We also adjust the alignment to straight up and straight ahead with the front raised. Good luck. Winter mods are always fun.
Denny, If I could do it again,I would not have bought the tubular arms. I recommend stock parts with the global west del-a-lum bushing and Moroso springs. As for shocks,I have found more value in the Adjustable rears. I will type more later,Just had shoulder surgery so I'm one handed and slow.......... Don't waste the money on the tubular stuff :Smarty:
I have been thinking of going with tubular uppers and lowers and qa1 adjustable coilovers the r series. My car I think is losing alot of et when the front bounces of the ground and the front tire are all over the place though the travel .I have heard that the control arm geometry is better than the stock is that true? Right now I have trick spings CE 3 way shocks set at 30/70
To answer your question, no. Tubular arms do nothing to change the geometry of your front suspension by themselves. Your arms simply connect your pick-up points of your frame and your spindle, that is it. Tube arms are all about cornering and trying to eliminate flex under loads. These loads are not part of drag racing. Like was said already, proper shocks, springs, and Global West bushings are all that is needed for what you are doing. As for the QA1 coilovers, I have them on my Skylark and my Chevelle. I have no regrets. If you are planning on messing with an adjustable shock on the front of your car, these are sweet because you can get to the adjustment knob easily and the ride height adjustability is an obvious plus. My .02 Randy
The improved geometry Mike may be talking about is the Caster that is supposed to be built in to the aftermarket a-arms....... The ones I bought were not even close when we first tried to align the car. We ended up with about 15 hours in modifying mine and getting the alignment right.The most caster we could get was 2 degrees which you can get with the stock stuff I think.We settled on 6 degrees after cutting and machining and rewelding on the a-arms I spent $900 on....... The bounce you are speaking is not the quickest way down the track,That can be controlled with a good front shock.You'd be surprised how tight the extension can be on the front and these things will still leave the line. http://s290.photobucket.com/albums/ll269/GSK_70/?action=view¤t=gsk_2009.flv
Thanks, I'm along for the ride. I myself was considering new control arms for the front. My car is unstable at top end. What is a good front end alignment spec for a drag car? I think caster may be my problem, not enough
It has been my experience that unstable cars on the big end need to have the rear suspension looked at. Especially A-bodies. A search will probably yield you some good alignment advice. Randy
Thanks for the info Gary Pretty much what i was looking for, think i am going to stick with the factory control arms. Right now the car has the original front springs, will switch those out to some trick springs and think i will take the competition engineering shocks off and go with some QA1's. If the budget is there, then i will change the bushings to. The rear suspension is fine, might just have to upgrade to a HR bar since it is only pulling one wheel.
Hoping it is not too late to offer some information on this subject. I have spent the past year working on developing both a front and rear suspension set-up for my 1970 Stage1 stocker.For what its worth I agree with the consensus on the stock front suspension uppers and lowers and global west bushings. You might want to rethink shock choice based on your power level. Put another way if you have a boatload of power are light on the front-end and wheels are way in the air, you have a different challenge which is not necessarily the lift but coming back to earth without catastrophe. If you have a heavy nose car like my stocker which has a hard time "pitch rotating" lifting the nose is the challenge in which case spring choice is everything. After ruining/bending 4 sets of Moroso supertrick springs, I finally custom designed a set of both front and rear springs and had them made by a local manufacturer. They are not cheap but they worked well, so well in fact the front end pops up so quick causing the fuel to splash over into the secondaries on the Q-JET. It took me all last season trying to figure out why the car was porpoising, something I had never had an issue with before installing the new front springs. (read this as a season of frustration) When you fix one problem you usually create another! <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/jaqvUOs_RKI&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/jaqvUOs_RKI&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> This is a link to my Youtube site - I do not have the most recent video which shows fixing the porpoise issue but at least you can see the car popping up at the hit. If you review some of the earlier runs - QA1 Procoil system - the car would not lift at all. Regarding the QA1 front shocks, find somebody with a pair of these and check the range of adjustment. I have found that even though are 12 clicks on the dial they are basically locked up at click 4 or 5 - don;t be fooled by fancy machined aluminum housings and knobs - there are many decent shocks out there that actually work well depending on your budget. If you get the springs and rear suspension sorted out you may be able to get away with some inexpensive 3 way adjustable fronts. ( I am running a cheap set of summitt 3 way adjustables and also have a set of cheap 90/10 non-adjustable calvert shocks.) Make sure you do not overlook the rear-end- Springs, Rear upper arm relocation to optimize IC and anti-roll bar. The front end and rear-end work together so it is important to optimize rear ride height as well and spring rates. Sorry for the long wind here but just wanted to share my experiences from this past season. Jody
Jody Never to late for information. I am still gather as much info as i can before i really do anything anyway. I have all winter before i really get into it, just collecting data right now. Thanks
What exactly should I be looking at in the rear end? My car has Edelbrock upper and lower rear control arms, rear sway bar and spring jacks to adjust rear spring load. Everything is tight and car leaves good and straight when track is good. I'm thinking it must be front alignment as I have to continually steer it at top end. It wants to move one way or the other Any help on alignment spec's? Last alignment was done with front end at a raised height like on full pull.
Gary, what front shock sping set-up are you running ? I like the way your car settles right down after the wheelie ,I have bounced the front tires over the sixty boxes a few times this last year . I have had to keep the launch rpm and ing. timing down to soften the wheelie ( 2-step @ 2500 and timing @ 29 degrees ),havn't had the time during the race season to try to fix it so that is on top of the list this winter.This thead is good timing....:TU:
QA1 Coil-overs with the 350lb springs.......If I recall,My car is just under 1800 lbs on the front wheels. There is not much energy in these springs and I've contemplated going back to a Moroso spring and a GOOD double adjustable shock to regain some consistency. If starting now, I would buy AFCO shocks and Moroso springs. 64 Hardtop, Seems like a complicated issue......Just deliver the car to me and wash your hands of it.(I've always wished mine was a 64/65) Seriously........If there is no exessive play in the front end parts or steering box,You probably need to add positive caster. My car drove ok at 138+ with 2 degrees and is VERY comfortable at 141+ with 6 degrees. What's your MPH?
I doubt you can get it,But 4-6 degrees positive would be nice. I'm not sure how close the tolerances were at the factory but w/o some cutting and welding you might not get more than 2 degrees w/ all being stock. I've seen guys cut an re-weld the upper a arm and I've heard of people moving the mounting pad that the upper bolts to. Either way tou need to "lean" the spindle back...... I wish I could explain better but I'm having a hard time typing one handed. :Comp:
That is why I was considering new control arm, I know I've only got 2 - 2.5 positive now. Thanks I'm going to see how much I can get. Thanks for the numbers. So then the ads I've seen for angle relocation of spindles is really not so?
I'm going to be posting my experience with sorting out a GM A body suspension soon but here's the front suspension I run. Front. Autozone fcs5380s front springs. Stock for a 1968 Special 350 2bbl (Skylarks were different springs for some reason). Moog springs in a Duralast box for less than Moroso springs. Moroso springs wear out. Moog springs don't. I lop off 1/4 coil at a time until I get the ride height right. I use a 1" tie down rachet tied around one side to compress it into a slight "U" shape, wedge it in place. Summit 90/10 shocks, pass side 90/10, driver side 80/20. Cut down upper control arm stops to get maximum travel. No front sway bar. Future plans, a better set of shocks, the cheap Summit ones work but are very cheap a lightweight Wilwood or Strange disk brake set up.
