Finishing up my t56 swap today. I already have installed the crossmember. I spent 2 weeks notching it to clear the Alston subframes. So today was the torque arm installation. I slid the arm over and bolted it to ths axel.

Now the problem. I am going to attach the front of the torque arm to the upper bolt on the crossmember and guess what........ it hits the fk'n drive shaft loop. I do cannot move the arm over enough to put the bolt in. Then I said OK, I'll remove the botton bolt. Still hitting the loop. missing by a 1/4 inch. There is no fn way this is going to fit. I spent $430.00 for a piece of crap I can't use.

Tommorow I get my driveshaft. If that hits the loop I am going to fn kill someone. I didn't even want the torque arm, but I thought I had no choice with the aftermarket t-56 swap. I herd that someone on this board managed to fit the stock TA. I am going to try this tommorow. If it fits, I going to call Steve and see if I can return the TA and get some of my money back. This sucks

 

I'm disappointed in my spohn torque arm also. It has caused me alot of headaches with my exhaust. After I spent another $400 to have the pipes redone all the way back I scrape on everthing. It hangs down too low now. Also, I'm not hooking any harder than with the stock TA. I have sfc's, spohn relocation brackets and lca's. I am still thinking of selling the TA and getting one that lets me use the stock crossmember. The crossmember is really the big problem. I spent $430+$400 for the exhaust. Still unhappy.

 

Well I tried the stock torque arm, its just too long. So that idea is out.

Tried the Spohn TA again. There is just no way the torque arm will fit wit the DS loop there. I have no other choice but to saw it off. It is real nice that I paid an extra $40.00 for the DS loop that I can't use.

I bought this setup so I would avoid dealing with a bolt on DS loop. Well I guess I got to deal with it now!

Steve you got to hook me up with some silicone grease or something to make up for this. I'm very upset abot this!

 

mine went in fine it was a little tight but if you try it goes to gether. BTW I have a T-56 as well.

 

Uh, with the aftermarket T-56 you have to shorten the TA 2'.Just take it to a welding shop and tell them you want it shortend 2", they'll make it fit for about $20-$25.

I reused my stock arm after shortening it and it fits fine. When I get an aftermarket arm I'll got for the BMR Trak Pak arm. It's shorter and uses it own crossmember.

 

Without pics to look at, I can't say for sure what the problem is. The arm should fit. Maybe take a break from it and then rexamine the situation. You may discover a solution. Just a thought.

Second, as for not hooking up any better, we need more info. What kind of power are you putting down? What wheels and tires are you running?

The T-arm isn't a magic bullet. The arm, along with your other parts, helps prevent wheel hop and puts more of the power to the tires. If your tires can't/won't hook-up, then no T-arm in the world is gonna help.

 

Thanks for your help guys.

I have been under there trying to get it to fit for 3 days. I loosend the bolts, that hold it to the chassis, and moved the crossmember in all different angles. I can tell you, with out a doubt, that there is no way the TA will clear the DC loop. I have given up, out comes the Sawzall, and out goes the DS loop.

 

mine is close but it doesn't interfere.

 

THIS PICTURE HAS CLEARED UP EVERY THING.

Steve messed up when he made my crossmember. You see where the DS loop is welded to the crossmember. Now look at the TA mounting plate, see where that is welded to the crosmember. The distance between the two is larger than mine. Mine has no space between the DS loop and the mounting plate, about 1/8 to 1/4 inch th most.

UPDATE: I finally got the TA on after cutting the DS loop off. I tried to mount the front upper bolt and it hit the tranny. I had to cut back the loop off the back of the transmission. All I have left is to bolt up my Metco DS loop. What fun this has been.

 

I'm also having problems with my DS Loop from Spohn....I really think its BS that a $400 product made specifically for a 3rd gen F-Body doesnt fit correctly on a friggin 3rd gen F-Body... And I refuse to cut off a $40 addition to my Torque arm just to make it work. I'll have to compare mine against the picture above, maybe mine was made incorrectly as well?

 

I don't have one but fro what I've rear and heard there is usually some problems with lowered cars, do all you guys have lowered cars? Or is it something more than that?

 

I'm thinking thats the main "problem". I think Steve should have thought of that before calling it a "100% bolt-in installation". This is unacceptable, my car is lowered only slighly, nothing drastic. I'm pretty pissed that I'm going to have to modify a part that cost me $40 extra just to make it work. I think I'm going to just cut a slot in the loop and bend it up to make it more oval shaped, then just weld a chunk of metal to fill the gap. There goes the powder coat.....

 

i had the same problem with mine. i had to chop the front loop. a waste a money in my part

 

No way in hell that I'm chopping off that loop. I think Steve should take note of this and make his loop adjustable. all he has to do is make it 2 pieces with flanges, and spacers between them.... Which is something I might do just for the hell of it. If I get something working, I'll post some pics so others can actually make thier $400+ part work correctly.....

 

I'm not sure if you could make it adjustable could you? From the looks of the one in the picture it looks like if you moved the loop down, which would help, it would hit the torque arm. It doesn't look like you could move it much to the left either.

 

Well, I dont need it to move left or down, it needs to be moved up a little bit. I bet if it were .25" higher, I wouldnt be having any problems.

Copy and paste this link:

http://www22.brinkster.com/elitefbod.../AdjDSLoop.jpg

The spacers I drew are a little extreme, but it gets the point across, lol. I'd probably only need .25" - .5" of spacer and I'd be OK.

 

I know this would probably ruin the powdercoating, but if you have access to a torch or something do you think you could heat up the loop enough to physically bend it, or get it real hot and whack it a few times with something. Not the loop itself but the square bar its welded too?

 

Hmmmmmm. My friend has a torch I could borrow. That area is pretty close to the fuel lines... I'll weigh my options before I try anything. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

Scott, would it fit fine if there wasnt a loop??? maybe Steve would take it back and replace it with one that doest have a loop .

 

Yea, it would fit without the loop, but thats the whole reason I ordered it with the loop, so I didnt have to buy another aftermarket piece. I'm just going to have to get a little creative to make it work.

 

Like I stated in my reply above, mine comes close but hasn't touched. My car is pretty low with the edelbrock springs, much lower than other cars with the eibach prokit.

Maybe you should adjust your PHR if your rear is no longer centered

 

I adjusted it, and the rear is centered as good as I can get it by using the plumb bob and tape measure method. I'm sure I'll be able to get it to work, I'll quit whining now....

 

Before anybody gets out a torch, maybe a trip to the hardware store is in order.
Some longer bolts and a spacer made from some scrap metal, or a stack of washers, or just some nuts could be used to raise the top of the DS loop. 1/4" or so is all that would be necessary.

Whether or not Steve wants to do a production change to make the DS loop more of an oval shape to accomodate everybody is up to him.

Been there, done that. Good luck.

 

I jacked the car up, placed a few bricks and a piece of wood under the bar that extends out with the loop on top, then lowered the car slowly. The bar bent upwards and now I have plenty of clearance. I'm now having other major problems with this thing, but I decided not to post in the Suspension board. The post is in the Aftermarket Product Review board right now (https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=170920).

 

I installed mine and had no problems....

Been in there since almost day one when he came out with it....