scott,

i appreciate your response... i have several sets of your LS1 conversions and all those work great... i agree with many of your points, it is a tough situation for development items like these items and the balance of doing it or not in some cases hinges entirely the development $ of certain options vs the likely payback.

your direct experience with the factory spindle illustrates that forgiveness that was intentionally inherent in the OEM design. i am very interested in seeing your success in this project as i think this would be a fantastic improvement option... my points are just the concerns that i have

thanks
alan

Have you decided on how you're going to accurately locate the tie rod mount?

No, have not yet- but we are looking at that right now. It does have some small degree of tilt and cant, I`m not sure if the intent was to have that pad level at ride height or intentionally canted that small amount to lessen joint angle or to give better rim clearance..? it`s not much but it is there.

how is your project going?

Nothing new to report yet, waiting on finalizing the concept still, between a few holidays and short absence hopefully we can get the momentum back

FYI not sure if it was mentioned but Detroit Speed has the plans all drawn up for a new C6 style spindle for the 3rd gen camaros. Not sure now that Holley owns it what the actual plan to mold and cast these is beings they are now under corporate control instead of a hot rodder. Anyway maybe with enough prodding from the community we can push them to manufacture a proper C6 spindle that will be strong and effective.

Good luck with that (Holley) and are you sure it was a C6 spindle ? little late to the market for that ..10 year old setups long discontinued now with so much better being offered since 13' If I had the slightest inclination that Holley was going to do a hub bearing knuckle for the 3rd gen I would not have bothered honestly. Surprisingly with the proper connections and Will, it can be done and you dont need to be a conglomerate to do so, look at the new "1LE" spindle hawks just put out

what would really add attractiveness to this is if a package of modified spindle, power rack, and k member would be developed... a new spindle with better bearing selection is great, but the ability to have the right size steering arms that would work with a power rack, etc could be a really big upgrade

I know this was covered briefly already, but absolutly look to move the steering arm. Shorter and move the tie rod connection outboard to help correct Akerman. Raising the location of the hub would benefit those with lowered cars as you would bring the control arm back to a less flat, or inverted angle.

I`m more concerned with just having a starting point right now for a stock replacement, there will be time for that once we have a product to start with. Moving the steer arm out will run into most wheels bead lips from what I am seeing (16 & 17`s at least) Shorter should be no issue however, lowered (1.5 inch) is something I want to do as well.

Oooh interested in these.

Any headway on this project?? I'd buy up a set for rack and pinion in a heartbeat

Not much yet, I have two manufactures quoting but both are busy as bees it seems like but both have continued to promise quoting and pricing so I`m in limbo still

Ah I see I see. Either way I'm pretty excited to see what's going to happen

I suspect that if there was something new to report, then you'd be doing so. Or maybe you're about to? Mainly I was just so tired of seeing the Billet Hood Hinges thread at the top of this forum for the last two weeks that I went looking for a good thread to bring TTT, and here we are.

The only update I have is that it seems like no one around here wants any part of making this. My regular manufacturer is now down on work due to the UAW strike. They had asked for some changes after reviewing it for cutting about 2 months ago, we had those done and they brought the file over to my folder just this past Friday and said yea we will start cutting some parts. I had quit putting in PO`s with them at the end of July and still to this day they have not even recognized that I moved my laser work to another vendor !? The only thing that I have asked for is this knuckle and still nothing. The owner has two brothers that work for him, one runs the laser the other the paint department, both asked me to work on their stake truck because both know that I used to do that work being a master Auto / HD truck mechanic, I always helped them out when possible and still offered too but this time I said "fine, I`d gladly work on the truck for you guys but you are going to be making my prototypes while I am here.." - All agreed it would be a good idea. its almost been a week now and nothing, so either they decided they would have the brakes and engine maintenance done elsewhere or they are driving without the needed services.

I have a constant flow of inquires at my site and email about this, some are regulars that check in every two weeks (used to be once a week) some are one timers asking when and how much, which I do not have concrete answers for still- it is frustrating.

I think the problem is they cannot build 100% of this assembly. Right now the 1 inch thick lower ball joint block has to be machined, it has a 30 degree angle cut where it attached to the main body of the knuckle - Maybe I will focus on getting those parts done, at least a few so that they have them for the assembly, I guess in my head I had thought once the laser parts are done I`d work on that but maybe it needs to be first for these guys. Thanks for the bump!

It would be pretty cool seeing Titans of CNC hog this out of a solid block

Would have to be completely redesigned to do it in aluminum, just like if it were cast, parameters for the material used are different. We have a new outfit looking at this now, again because of the UAW strike they are looking to fill some time so fingers crossed!!

If you need any additional design help, feel free to reach out! I'm a bit wrapped up through the end of the year finishing up an MSME, but I've got near on a decade of experience with mechanical design and Solidworks / Solid Edge.

The assembly looks really promising! Looking forward to seeing more about it.

This is very late to the party and I totally forgot until i was doing some cleaning the other day but I have a copy of the original Saginaw blueprints for the spindle if it's at all helpful here.

Do they call out the tapers for the ball joint and tie rod? We know the tie rod pad is tilted back slightly and outward slightly but to see the actual numbers would be good. If your willing to share those that would be great and very appreciated !

That would be extremely helpful. Is the print scanned into a portable format?

I'm new to this thread but I've spent a lot of time mocking up and working on a spindle concept to replace the stock 3rd gen that would fix the geometry and clearance problems of the original. It’s so good to see some math data for the concept and the wire frame for the original! You all deserve a lot of credit for getting it this far. I don't have the ability or equipment to do the 3rd D stuff, so I really respect you for the work.

I have a set of stock spindles I converted to 1LE that I ran on my daily street car for 10 years. Also, a set of brand-new in the box Bell dropped spindles I have never used. For mock up purposes only, I have a set of Racecraft fabricated steel dropped spindles I have cut the steering arms off of and converted to bolt on steering arms. These are drag-race only spindles- they will never be used on the street. All three of these spindles come with their own set of problems. I have never been able to find a really good spindle that solves all the problems unless you want to modify the car to coil over which changes the way the chassis input loads are fed into the body (through the shock towers).

So, I really hope you can find someone to make these spindles. The pure stock geometry design type will work well with longer ball joint studs for lowered cars. If you could make 2 iterations, I would suggest modifying the design for a bolt on type steering arm that could be used on various wheel offsets and steering geometries.

If you don’t find someone to build it, I have a couple of other ideas that could be checked out. But I don’t want to derail these ideas, so let’s see what happens. Good Luck!

Thank you, I am still leaning on a few places to start this, it literally has been a stick in the mud and a thorn in my side, I hate that it has lost momentum- I`m going to start going door to door at these industrial subdivisions around here haha..

I hope you keep trying to find a suppler- that really is the hardest part of this. I like the concept of the laser cut plates. Nesting them together allows the stacking which gives geometry similar to the stock spindle- very clever!

What I can't tell from the pictures of the model is if the shank of the spindle where the strut clevis bracket attaches has the same compound angle that the stock spindle has. Stock is skewed some to the rear of the wheel bearing center line- it isn't parallel when viewed from above. Then it is also tilted from vertical (it would be tilted to the rear of a vertical line drawn through the wheel center when looking from the side).

If it does have this compound angle then the overlay of the stock spindle wireframe on the math model must prove it does- but I can’t tell if it does by looking at the pictures. Do you know if the model does have the compound angle?

That strut mount maintains the stock king pin inclination angle, the mount however is rotated to be 90° to the hubs mount flange.

I'm not saying this to criticize the design but I think this may be a problem if you want to just want to bolt it on the car without modifying the location of the top mount in the strut towers. But I understand why it may have been designed that way. There is not much clearance between the shank of the spindle snout (where the wheel bearings ride) and the lower strut bolt in the clevis on the production spindles. That's the basic problem with the Racecraft spindles, for clearance, the material removed from the spindle snout weakens it, making it a drag race only spindle. So, if I understand this design, it trades off that problem for the top mount problem. Please correct me if I don't understand the design.

However, your design uses a cartridge bearing type unitized design where there is no spindle snout. There might be enough clearance using the cartridge unit. So, I think you may be able to modify the math model to include the production angle for the strut clevis mount shank on top of the spindle. I have wanted to see a design where the cartridge type bearing was incorporated for this application.

I don't want to derail this project; I think it’s great and you have done good work so far. I'm just trying to understand the concept. I have a couple of ideas that might be a work around for this if it really is an issue. If what I said here makes sense, let me know and we can discuss them.

No the strut it self remains in the exact same axis, lets assume the strut is fixed at the upper mount at the angle it would sit stock, all that has been done is the strut is rotated to have the mount at a 90° angle to the main plate for the bearing. so we are not changing any angles of the strut top or bottom- only rotating the strut's cylinder which has the tabs to mount to the knuckle or spindle.

Thanks for the explanation, and I understand you. Since I don't have the ability to look at the digital data or an assembly layout, it is hard for me to visualize. The ideas I have may work better with the geometry you have created rather than the stock spindle geometry. So, all of that is good.

So now I think it would be good to have a conversation about a different manufacturing concept if you are open to that. I would like to have a private conversation with those who created the design. I think that would be you and maybe Banditt92 (I understand he created the math model of the new concept). So, if we can find a way to exchange either phone numbers or emails that would be great. I don't want to post either of those on this public message board. Maybe the moderator can help with this. Thanks, I hope we can work this out.

When we embarked on this concept a choice had to be made for type of manufacturing, I choose this route (bar stock) for many reasons, we could have gone down the casting road or the billet road as well. Billet would have been awesome aside form the end price of the block and the machining, casting would be a low cost option but again a very high upfront investment sized cost, the bar stock method I could get behind since it offers strength and reasonable material and labor cost per unit. But its all just hot air without a single part cut yet.... No mods are needed, you can contact me at Bigbrakeupgrade@gmail.com at any time and we can exchange numbers there in private