Has anyone installed sfc's on their convertibles? I did a search, turned up zero hits. With the large Rocker Panel supports that have large pop rivits, installed by ACS, I don't see a lot of room to install SFC'S. Spoon Engineering offers a set for the convertible, but just where am I supposed to weld the sfc's in? Looking for ideas.

 

easier then a non ASC vert car..


put them in the "corner" between the ASC bracing and the floorpan...... gives more support then if it was just the SFC...


spohn and kenny brown have vert connectors amoung others.

or you can weld in a tube yourself.... theres a nice straight shot next to it on the drivers side, and the pass side only has the bends to account for the cat converter hump...

 

The Alston SFC's I sell also fit a ASC converted 'vert.

Lon Salgren
Top-Down Solutions

 

Ive got a set of MAC tubelar connectors on mine that weld up directly to the subframes.

 

I have the alston SFC's....they do a nice job. By connecting them to the front and rear subframe points, you create 2 large triangles in the chassis. Triangulation is good. Triangulate as much as possible.

The typical 'ladder bar' suspension setup (2 parallel bars with a couple of crossmembers) does not do a good job of resisting torsional forces. Why? Because, with a ladder bar setup, you have divided the chassis (1 big rectangle basically) into smaller rectangles/squares. If you squeeze opposite corners of a box together, they dont resist forces nearly as well as a triangle does.

The trans tunnel in the f-body is also a great stabilizing factor as far as torsion is concerned. It serves as a 'bulkhead'. With the alstons mounted juxtapositionally close to either side of the trans tunnel (the strength of this area is only increased).

But...I don't think that you should just stop after doing the Alstons. I'll tell you why after friday . I am going to triangulate the front subframes better by welding in a 1" round 12 guage tube welding at 90 degrees to the ASC sfc's and connected to the front subframe point where the Alston in welded in. See pic below. The BLACK bars are the Alstons. The RED bars are what I'm welding in. The YELLOW lines are imaginary triangles to emphasize my point.

Spohn makes a good set of SFC's for verts, but I'm not a fan because they dont connect the fron and rear subframe points. But I do like the way they triangulate the front subframe area. Guess I'm mixing 2 designs together.

 

ok here it is

 

Has anyone welded all the seams around the asc reinforcment? I'm thinking about doing this along with the alstons, then welding in bars like your talking about to connect the alstons to the asc stuff.

 

i havent finished yet... i have undercoating gunk that i have to get off first.... so its slow going... but yea, im welding the ASC seams, the factory seams, everything that i think may help...

 

Don't know about the ASC seams...prob a good idea. The SFC that spohn selld are very similar to the non-vert SFC's. If you have the alston/MAC sfc installed, I'm not sure that the 1.75" tubing that runs the length of the ASC sfc's matters much. I'll let you know after tomorrow.


When I installed the Alstons, my car felt very "straight" when driving. Very good feeling, but some of the torsional resistance just was not there. Hopefully, what I intend to weld will resolve alot of that.

 

Well, I order the Alston SFC's along with the wonder bar. Lon from Top Down Solutions recomends MIG welding. I don't have access to a MIG welder, so I will try to stick weld them in. A little at a time, so as to prevent setting fire to the car. I like the triangle idea, but before I start to redesign, I think I will use what's recommened first. It can only make things better. The car isn't really all that loose, but I don't want to take any chances. More after I get them installed.

 

They may be too big for stick welding. Not sure. If there is any muffler shop in town, they could prob do it for $40-50. Good purchase though.

With the wonderbar everyone seems to have a problem with holes not lining up 100% perfectly. Mine didn't. The bolt holes on mine were too close to the inside in the driver side and I had to grind them out a bit with a drill and die grinder. Guess because everyone drives differently and that particular area that the wonderbar fits really "spreads" with time.

Make sure that with both of those suspension pieces, your car's suspension is loaded; all four tires on the ground/lift.

I put those bars on yesterday. I also changed all my spark plugs yesterday, so that after I was finished with my tune up, I was too tired to care about how differently my car handled.

Will let you know later. And that cost me $40 for welding plus $5 for some 1" round 12 guage and some flat bar.