mattimus13

hey ive wondered for a while now if any one has considered the task of cutting out all the rear coil sus. and fabing in a old fashioned leaf spring setup.

i kow this wouldnt be practical or necessarily better, its just a idea the popped in to my head with all the rear end problems ive had as of late.

again just thinking out side the box not really considering doing it hahaha

Mirror Image

iTrader: (2)

Hey you may be on to something its probably not what you are thinking but the the C6 Corvette had leaf springs not used as we remember them

mattimus13

intresting... not what i was going for however that would be a slick way to build the front end of 30s ratrod...

Twin_Turbo

iTrader: (25)

Corvettes have had dual mount composite transverse leafs since 84. They act both as a spring and a roll bar, their characteristics are quite interesting

//<86TA>\\

iTrader: (14)

Ive seen I done a few time over the years. Its a step backwards. If you need a new stronger axle get a bolt in 9" housing from either Moser Currie or whoever and use a junkyard center chunk.

mattimus13

you may have missed the point. im aware of the traditional way to beef up the rear i just want to know what other options people have come up with. i couldn't be the first to think about welding leaf perches to one of these cars hahaha. and it is a step backwards, however thats not necessarily a bad thing.

i cant find any pics of it done id love too find some if possible...

InfernalVortex

iTrader: (4)

What's the advantage? The torque arm setup is probably the most versatile and effective live rear axle suspension design out there.

LX_SS

Sums it all up in 30 seconds

406TPI

iTrader: (1)

Most people try and get rid of leaf springs...lol

AlkyIROC

yes and no. Although the torque arm suspension works very well, it's not as good as triangulated trailing arm suspension. The same suspension originally used on 60's GM pickup trucks that was copied and used in every NASCAR built today. There's a reason they use it. It's one of the best suspension designs made.

Can you do a trailing arm suspension in a third gen? Sure, if you move the floor up to make room for the trailing arms but that won't give you a lot of room inside. Third gens have a very low floor compared to other types of cars. The diff sits very high up into the body making other types of suspensions difficult to use. There have been Corvette suspension swaps but it's a major project and isn't cheap to do.

basiccamaro

I'm a big fan of leaf springs. If you know how to set them and the car up, they can work very well. Some of this may mean changing things that you may not want to change on a normal street car, so it's definately not for everybody.

I don't care about making huge changes in my car. I don't mind deleting or changing stuff around to fit my needs. From my circle track days I found several advantages to leaf springs if you can set them up properly. They can weigh a little less, they are simpler, more durable, and can leave a lot more room for large exhaust tube clearance up over the axle. You can use the axle wrap to your advantage to soften the hit and make them hook really hard. I never had acceleration wheel hop on my cars with leafs. But you do have to make compensation for decelleration/braking wheel hop when you got them really hooking, especially with bigger tires.

I've heard a lot of people bad mouth leaf springs, and there are definately some other very good modern suspension systems that surely offer advantages over leafs. Sometimes these newer systems are more costly, more complicated and more finicky as far as proper adjustments are concerned. In some cases a more modern and complicated system may be absolutely necessary to get the desired job done.

But Sox and Martin, The Ramchargers, and others in Drag Racing, and Richard Petty, Nichels Engineering and others with their Mopars, and even Holman and Moody with some of their Fords won tons of races back in the day, with high torque Big Blocks, often going over 200 mph. A Mopar leaf spring rear suspension with nothing more than a pinion snubber has won BIG races pushing a lot more HP than many of us will ever see in our daily drivers.

Granted, time has moved on and a lot of guys are making power that was never imagined years ago. But in my opinion, there is still a place for leaf springs in some cases. I have often thougfht about converting my '83 over to leafs. But I'm a glutton for punishment, fabrication-wise. I even want to put a 2nd Gen front stub under my car.

AlkyIROC

Leaf springs have their place but not in a modern suspension car. Even the monster trucks all originally used leaf springs because they were simple but when Bigfoot showed up with coil over and 4-link systems, he dominated the sport and was banned for 1/2 a season to allow the rest of the trucks to change up to the technology.

The old 60's and 70's nascar were also full frame production cars that all used leaf springs. When the modern tube chassis car was used, coil over or coil spring and shock was far superior to leaf springs.

Good luck converting a 2nd gen front subframe onto a third gen. You might as well cut the whole front off the car and do a front tube frame system. The third gen body design needs a lot of fabrication work to do that kind of conversion since there is no real frame on a third gen. Same does for the rear. If you want to make a leaf spring suspension, you'll be cutting out all the floor to put in frame rails for the springs. Might as well just do a complete back half with a 4-link.

basiccamaro

Alky- first of all, I've always enjoyed reading your posts. From what I can see you are a hard-core camaro/drag racer/builder kind of guy. I wish that I lived in a fantasy world where I could try to build a similiar car to yours, practice enough to become somewhat skilled at Drag Racing, and then visit your area and try to whip your butt with leaf springs under my Camaro! All in the spirit of respect and fun. That's what racing/hot rodding is all about to me. One of Smokey Yunicks quotes was, OK you S-O-B's, let's hike up our britches and let's have a race! Or something to that effect.

Monster Trucks could not get as much travel with leaf springs as they could with coil overs and link bars, and man, those big leafs had to be heavy. But I'm not going to be jumping over cars with my car.

Those old Nascar cars did have have stock frames and floorboards, or unibodies, with stock suspension types as per how that model of car came from the factory. For example, Petty did much of his racing with Hemi powered, and later small block, Chrysler unibody cars with torsion bar front, and leaf spring rear suspension. The Holman Moody Ford products used a lot of coil spring front, and leaf spring rear cars up until about 1972 when the fastback Torino and Cyclone bodies became too old to be considered a Late Model car in Nascar. For a while, Bobby Allison ran his independent (of Factory Support) 65 Chevelle with stock-type coil springs on all four corners and managed to beat Petty and the others at a few short tracks from time to time. He also ran a H +M small block Mustang with coil/leaf suspension at some cross-sanctioned Nascar short track races, once again sometimes beating Petty in his Hemi Road Runner. During these races a lot of bad blood developed between Richard and Bobby. Because of both on track skirmishes, and because Petty felt that it was unfair to have to race against a smaller, lighter car on a very short track.
During this time Chevy did not have a big block Hemi and was mainly uncompetitive at Nascar's highest level on the mid sized and larger tracks. That all changed after Daytona in 1971 when Nascar put restrictor plates on all hemi-headed engines, including the Boss 429. I was at the May 1971 World 600 in Charlotte when Junior Johnson put Charlie Glotzbach in a white, #3, '71 427 Monte Carlo (with coils on all 4 corners) on the pole for the race. It brought the Chevy fans out of the woodwork. In 1972 Bobby Allison was in the car which became the #12, red and gold Coke Machine. He won a fair amount of races that year. In 1973 the big Chevelle Malibu and Lagunas came out and were very aerodynamic on the big tracks. By this time Nascar was changing the rules and allowing differing suspensions under different models, and moving toward small block engines. almost all of the cars except for Petty, and the K & K Insurance #71 Dodge Chargers were on 3 or 4 link coil spring rear ends, or truck arm setups. The differing coil spring setups do provide easier wedge and track bar changes during a race, and in Nascar that is huge nowadays. But whether they were on a short track, superspeedway or road course, the leaf spring cars were still very competitive and winning races for many years against coil spring cars. When Petty left Mopar for GM, it was due to horsepower issues and engineering support and money, not chassis issues.

Depending on how much work a guy minds doing, I don't think putting 2nd Gen stuff under a 3rd gen would be that bad. Remember, I don't care about cutting my car, or having anything other than a race-inspired interior. The 2nd gen front subframe would be cut off behind the down turns, and would have short side (rectangular) tubing connecting it to rectangular tubing cut into the floorboards and running directly along the rocker panel pinchweld area, and possibly tieing into the rear lca mounts, depending upon how I would need to set it up. It would be a pleasure to cut the spot welds out of those goofy front frame rails (along with other surgery) and be rid of them. At that point, I don't think it would be all that hard to stuff a shortened 2nd gen subframe in there.
Also, I don't mind taking out the spare tire tub, or taking out the trunk well in order to fabricate room for structure to catch the rear of the leafs. I realize that this kind of thing would not be for everybody. I know that most people wouldn't want to go that radical on their car. I don't mind, I enjoy doing stuff like this.

When I raced, it was circle track, and that is quite a bit different than drag racing. But I have done a very small amount drag racing. I also want to pursue autocross and track days someday. And that kind of thing does have some revelance to daily driving.
I learned quite a bit about leaf springs because of Ed Howe, and owning a Howe chassis. I saw a local Late Model driver with a 1st design Howe coil spring chassis totally dominate our local track, They would start the feature handicapped, with the top qualifiers in the rear. He would come through the entire pack like a hot knife through butter and to the lead in about 20 of 25 laps. The next year the crew changed the car to leaf springs and he fell off to about a 6th place car. A coilover car started coming from another track and started beating everybody.
A couple of years later, a guy built a 4th design Howe car with leaf springs that couldn't be touched, not even by the coilover car. The car ran absolutely straight on a dirt track, just like it was asphalt, and opened up car lengths on everybody every lap. He would finish the feature in a different zip code. So you have to know how to set them up.

My car was a 5th design Howe offset, or straight rail car with a stock clip and all steel body to be legal in the limited late model class. I could drive in under anybody and out under anybody, and managed to win fast 4 car dashes, fast heats and a couple of features with a .030 327 with a stock bottom end and 186 heads, and using a cast iron intake to stay legal at a nearby asphalt track. Other cars in my class ran 388 strokers, and big blocks and fiberglass bodies that weren't legal at my other track.

I wasn't the hottest thing around, and I wish that I would have won some more races. But it sure was fun. My point is that if you know a few tricks (not just anti-squat or pinion snubbing) leaf springs can suprise people.

LX_SS

Really, Get out of the freaking 70's and get with the times.
There is no logical sense that a person would take a more modern suspension setup and turn it into an ancient stone.

Our rear ends are awesome, even better with a watts link conversion. The only other setups that exceed this are the 4 Link units(2 lower arms forward, 2 upper arms rearward).

Why the hell would you change the front end of our vehicle to the subframe or stubs ?
I know the standard units are rated, the tubular units are not.

AlkyIROC

You can built whatever you want but when you screw up your third gen, don't go asking for help on how to change it back.

Start with a plan. Get into the project. Document all your modifications for the forum to see. Finish the project with a reasonable time and budget. Since it's a step backwards in suspension design, don't expect a lot of advice from TGO members on how to do it. Just go ahead and do it yourself and let us know how it turns out.

basiccamaro

Well LS_XX- I guess I found one of the "I realize that this kind of thing would not be for everybody. I know that most people wouldn't want to go that radical on their car." people.
And just because something is out of the '70's doesn't mean it can't be any good. A car doesn't know what year it's technology is from, heck, it doesn't even know what year IT is.

Why would I do this to the front end?

1. It works for me, I know how to build it and set it up fairly cheaply and have it work well.

2. I like it. I own a Drill Press, a Mig Welder and a Plasma Cutter and they are fun to play with. I'm still waiting on a Dump Truck.

3. My car is straight and rust free, but the paint and interior are fairly trashed. The tired, stock motor only runs at barely acceptable standards. Almost any total mod on this plain old, tired Camaro would be an improvement. I would not do these things to a nicer car.

4. Can you take the Anti-Dive out of your front end? Can you then run 5 laps on an Autocross track, and then put the Anti-Dive back in if you did not like the results- all within 15 minutes?

5. I've still got the Howe front sub frame templates for component locations from when I built my car and still remember how the crafting made things work.

6. It's hard to properly run long tube headers past those stock front frame tails by the transmission.

7. I don't like the method of or amount of caster and camber changes that can be made to the stock strut suspension.

8. I don't like the upper bearing ring setup on top of the inner fenders.

9. If I ever get this project going, I will be moving the spindle centerline (the whole sub frame stub) forward 1 to 2", while leaving the engine where it currently sits.

10. Oh, and I don't like how turning tight corners at slow speeds with wide front tires can rip the steering box out of the frame rail. We won't go into how the steering knuckle or tie rod end can hit the front wheel.


Now as to the rear- our rear ends are awesome? Really?
There is nothing really wrong with a good 3-Link or Torque Arm setup, but a 3rd Gen has a weak rear end, that requires extra work and complication, and possibly an aftermarket torque arm to replace it with a better rear end, a goofy transmission hookup on the front end of the arm, loss of room to run wires or lines down one side of the tunnel, extra structure and components in the rear to control panhard bar movement, loss of clearance for true dual exhaust, funky exhaust tip placement due to the spare tire well, and in my old car at least- not that good of a ride. Many people even feel the need to add modified lower control arm brackets in order to get the cars to hook.

I've seen a few Watts links at the race track. Some of them ran well. Were they consistently faster than other cars running other setups? No. Were they worth the extra expense and hassle to set them up for every track condition- Not so much. I don't have the proper knowledge to keep them properly adjusted for differing conditions, so they don't work for me. And they are more complicated and expensive. But there will be Watts Link cars winning races somewhere out there this year.


Alky- I would like to do as you suggest and do a story on the forum like the IROC Road Racer guy. Maybe someday I will. As of now, I lost my shop space. Someday I hope I can start in on it again.

Also- I looked on the interwebbs and found a site about Ray Barton's Vintage, Hemi, leaf Spring, Dart running 8.80's at about 149mph. So leafs are still somewhat usefull at least.

LX_SS

Well in case you haven't looked at my car for 'radical', i don't see any other like it done on this forum. I have my share of equipment/tooling and i'm a cert welder as well.

I picked the 70's cause its just about every car you listed.

I personally still don't see why you would do so much work (unless its drag only which im starting to suspect)and not invest it in a good proven IRS rear end and updated front but that's my view.

Anyway good luck to your build.

datraum

It looks like somebody here in St. Louis has done it
http://stlouis.craigslist.org/cto/4353953715.html

InfernalVortex

iTrader: (4)

So definitely not because it's mandated by the regulations.

Packaging concerns are just as legitimate as functionality and versatility.

Suaveat69

Says the man with 1950's technology in the front on his 3rd gen (struts) LOL. I would not change out the rear for leafs.

InfernalVortex

iTrader: (4)

Porsche and BMW use that same "1950's technology (struts)" on their cars. Mostly due to packaging limitations probably. None of them use leaf springs. The modern corvette leaf spring setup is very clever and the R&D + production costs for those only make sense in something as high volume as the vette, which is why it doesn't get used in any other more exotic cars.

basiccamaro

Looking at post #18, interesting!