It's been a looooong time since I've been here, you can tell by the signature. I rid myself of my weak '86 car quite some time ago.

Has anyone ever given a thought to transplanting a C4 Dana 36 or 44 into a 3rd gen? I don't think it would be terribly difficult if you could weld proficiently...but I've said that before...

After I put the finishing touches on my 1991 Galant VR4 daily driver/drift buster (AWD, 2.3L turbo, 5sp) I want to build a track day sleeper and a 3rd gen was my first car when I was 16. For some reason they hold a special place in my heart. I'd really like an IRS because launching of curbing with a solid axle, no matter how good, sucks.

C4 IRS setups are dirt cheap and coil spring conversions aren't too pricey either, that's why I'm pretty excited about the prospects for this.

That and I think a later 3rd gen built like a GM factory special would be pretty slick.

 

http://s89724942.onlinehome.us/image...IRS%20rearend/

 

About 10 years ago in one of Car Craft's Real Street Eliminator contests, a guy from British Columbia won with a 3rd gen Trans/am that he'd transplanted a corvette ifs into.

 

Thanks for all the pics, I need to ask this guy exactly what he did.

I'm relieved to see that it doesn't appear as though radical surgery is involved.

 

It's pretty obvious what the guy did. He mocked up the suspension under the car, then figured out how to build the mounts, and weld them into the car.

That's the simple explanation, but here's the problems I see:

The 3rd Gen F-car is a unibody vehicle. The structure of the car is designed to support the various ways that the car will be loaded as it was designed. Cutting, splicing, and welding stuff into a unibody car is a recipe for disaster if you don't have a firm understanding of the engineering involved. The Corvette is a full frame car, so that suspension is supported from a frame that is designed to take point loading at the end of the suspension members.

I don't think that welding the bracket for the link bars to an area of the car where the wheel tub intersects the floorpan is a safe move. This mount needs to be tied to the framrails, and ideally into a rollcage that's welded on top of the rails, and triangulates the mount for the link bars.

The upper bracket welded to the framerail with angle brackets is probably okay, but I'd like to see some gussets on them to eliminate fore/aft deflection.

This is just the stuff needed to make the setup safe, that still doesn't mean that the suspension can cylce properly, and you'd definateyl need adjustable coil overs to dial in the suspension for the car. A change of anti-roll bar may also be needed.

Guys like Art Rasmussen (*** rest his sole) used to do conversions like this on 1st and 2nd gen cars. Art was a certifiable genius when it came to suspension and chassis design and theory. I'm not saying don't undertake a cool swap like this, rather I'm saying make sure you do it right, and realize that if something goes wrong with the car becuase it isn't designed safely it could cost you your life.