Tube K Member Fabrication??
 

Has anybody fabbed their own tubing K member to replace the stock one? Also I'm looking for a sub frame connector design that allows clearance for old school corvette side exhaust.

Re: Tube K Member Fabrication??
 

Unless you're very good at steering and suspension geometry, you will be much better off buying an aftermarket replacement. There are many to choose from.

Side exhaust on the corvettes was only because there wasn't enough room under the car to run a large dual exhaust system.

Re: Tube K Member Fabrication??
 

I'm not sure why you'd have to have much suspension/steering geometry knowledge unless for some reason you wanted to move the LCA pivot points. The rest of the suspension does not attach to it, and WRT to making one you'd mostly just need to set up a fixture to locate the body mount points, LCA pivots and spring pockets and connect the dots.

A more important consideration is having a good concept of mechanical properties and the strength you need in your structure.

Re: Tube K Member Fabrication??
 

Yes you can fabricate your own, I did mine because of the Corvette suspension I installed. Alky and Crossfire both make good points, there are a lot of companies that sell these, and it is as easy as jigging the LCA's and mount points and connect them together. Welding skills are the deciding factor, this is not for a first time project. As far as the sub frame connectors, Global West makes a set that are tubular and mount along the pinch weld (actually weld them to the pinch weld), which would give you a convenient place to mount the side pipes to with some tabs.

Re: Tube K Member Fabrication??
 

Thanks for the help guys. I"ll definitely be looking into those subframe connectors you mentioned soloc4. I've definitely got the necessary skills and i should be able to use inventor to run a stress analysis of my design.

Re: Tube K Member Fabrication??
 

being able to run a piece of software to run a stress analysis is quite different than having some talent for designing and building this kind of thing. AAMOF, I feel that you kind of have it backwards, you come up with what should hold together based on your materials and skills and then as a last step test it in the software, maybe I'm old school but I don't feel like software can replace common sense and experience, it can just add a quick check to make sure that you didn't miss something.

Honestly, thinking about this I don't see the gain. I have the skill to build something like this but didn't bother since by the time you build a fixture significantly beefy to build this on you've wasted more money in materials and time than just buying a good one. The only way it makes sense is if you're going into production, and honestly, if you're asking this question you shouldn't be considering going into production, you're going to kill someone.

Re: Tube K Member Fabrication??
 

Nothing can replace common sense and experience, but combine common sense and experience with the capability to find the exact point at which a design will fail without having to doing a destructive test and you can fine tune your design. After taking into consideration the point you brought up about costs I'm most likely going to shelve this project because lowering the cost was the whole point of it.

Re: Tube K Member Fabrication??
 

Eh.. The spohn ones are way off. Perhaps some suspension/steering goometry knowledge would have helped him!

-- Joe

Re: Tube K Member Fabrication??
 

siphon stuff is surprisingly off and I've never thought it was well designed, PA is another one. I've seen their K-members fall apart (supposedly their newer stuff is better) but there are good choices out there. UMI seems to have their **** together, I'm sure there are others.