Well, I thought I might actually get my k member when he said. A few weeks ago he was talking about it going to powder coating and it would be shipped the 16th. I emailed last him this week and he said it's in the batch being built and he would send me a tracking number. I don't need the k member now, if I got it tomorrow it would just sit. I just don't like being jerked around. I know he's busy. But just be straight with your customers. I have delt with Spohn on many occasions and have had nothing but positive things to say.

 

Maybe I got yours. He shipped mine the day he told you yours would ship. Of course he was a total of 5 weeks late with mine.
Definitely a nice piece. Unfortunately 2 of the bolt holes don't line up with my car. Now I have to flat bed the car to a body shop to pull things straight.

 

ViperKiller,

Do you have a known frame straightness issue? Has the car been accident damaged?

If not, then I would persevere with trying to fit the new K-member. The trick seems to be to have one person looking in from the top, helping to hold it up when required. Check firstly that the ?Captive nuts are mobile in their holes, give them a good spray with some penetrating oil etc.

Then try to put one bolt in each side of the KMember, even if the rest look way off, as if they are not going to go in. Start off with only putting in each bolt by finger onto a few initial threads.

When I was doing this I started thinking 'Have Spohn sent me the know type of K-member?'. As it looked so far off. The angles of the K-Member supporting brackets seemed different also. Again, with the bolts that connect it to the K out, loosen the other one to allow it to pivot/swing.

When you try these things it should line up, and start looking better when you tighten the nuts slightly. Just don't torque any of them fully until they are all in finger tight. Then do each a little at a time.

The real fun will come when you put in the Spohn A Arms and try to reinstall your springs................

I spoke to Steve on the phone last week about the spring install with his K and A's. In his own words, it is a pain, a bitch etc. He recommends tightening the compressors down fully with air tools, i.e. until there is no real space between the coils.

For the spring to slide straight in it would need to be only 10inches long (or compressed to that length). For your information, the stock spring is about 14inches long and the Eibach Pro Kit is 12.5inches.

I've only now managed to get one spring in, and have already broken a set of coil spring compressors doing so. For those who haven't done this yet, I'm not joking. Installing coil springs on the stock A-Arms and K-member is really easy in comparison.

You need to use two spring compressors inside the spring, ensure that the threaded rod will not move upwards outwith the top of the spring and hit the locating part on the K. Tighten each compressor slightly in turn, as if you do one side fully before the other one, the spring will bend over and could jump out at you. While doing this disconnect the A-Arms at the engine side, where they meet the K-member and leave them connected at the outer edge/ball joint edge. You then need to fiddle with jacks to raise the A-arm whilst keeping the spring located in the perch.

One compressor broke and one bent over, so I can't install the other spring till I buy another set.

If I'd realised this was going to be such a pain, I would have either went with Spohns coilover setup and either boxed and powdercoated the stock A-arms or went with his coil over A Arms.

I'm going to go out now and get some other work done, nuts torqued to spec, antiroll bar reinstalled etc.

If you need any more advice then let me know.

 

My frame's straightened and K-member's in. So now I still have to deal with the steering issue. How did yours turn out?

 

Well, I wont know for sure how it turns out until I get the motor and trans back in. I ordered a new set of heads from AFR, and it has been 5 weeks, and they still have not shipped.

 

Are you still rubbing even without the engine and trans? That's where i'm at right now. Trans is done and sitting on the floor, engine is done on the stand, i'm just waiting on my converter. In the meantime I have this issue (being the major one) among several others to attend to.

 

After straightening the center link, everything is clearing OK...I just cant tell what it will do after full weight is on it.

 

Finally got mine in right. I ended up having to move the idler arm forward a 'lil bit cause my center link wasn't perfectly parallel with the k-member. Also had to adjust it up somewhat to get it level. Apparently everything was previously adjusted to match my crooked front end.
I also had to grind my inner tie rods where they were rubbing. Had to keep dipping in water and going slow since they're heat treated.
They still hit a little on the bottom of the channel but not when the suspension is loaded. Also, I don't have my sway bar or end links in yet to help with the issue of how low my spindles currently are. Once I put that on, i'm sure I won't even have an "unloaded" hitting issue.
Now onto other issues.

 

Well mine was finally shipped today. I hope the install goes better than the ordering did.

 

I just ran into another freakin' problem!!
I must've gotten a bad K-member but there's no way i'm going to wait another 3 months to get a different one.
I go to install the engine yesterday and find that it doesn't fit! The engine doesn't go low enough into the cradle for me to actually attach it to the K-member. 5 hours later and i'm still about 1/2" away from bolting the thing in.
I'll take a pic if you need but this is what i'm going to do:

Pull off the right side mount shell that's attached to the block and slot those 3 holes. This will allow me to pivot the engine in.

The engine is in there un-level yet flush with the mount blocks on the K. Proof to me that SPOHN MESSED UP.
I can't even type what I want to type due to forum etiquette. This sucks.

 

What is keeping it from dropping into place? Are the motor mounts possibly upside down?

Send me an email with the pic?

 

The motor mounts are not upside down. I wish they were.
Here are 3 pics. 1 is in and the other 2 pics show the left side where it's not in.
I figure if I slot one side I should be able to pivot the whole engine which will level my engine (currently crooked due to the K) and line up the mount holes on the other side. The mounts are sitting flush with the K which means it will not go down any further.

 

Are you installing new poly engine mounts? If so, then it may well take a 'few hours' of persuasion to get everything together. Also some extra weight may be needed to massage everything together. See the attached picture.

I have everything together now, and can say that I am 100% happy with the K member but can't honestly say that that about the A-arms.

Best of luck with things mate.

 

The Only Advice I can offer having done it with DR G is to put the lower mount sections on the K-member first and then offer the engine into these. I really wouldnt try and do it the other way.

It took us about 5 hours to get the engine from on the ground beside the car to in and bolted through the engine mounts. It was alot of fettling, jacking the tranny up and down, lowering and raising the rear of the enigne and making all the required adjustments to get the engine and tranny to be parallel and then getting the locating dowels to slot in. Once the dowels slotted in we dropped the jack on the tranny and let the engine hold the tranny. Then to get it to drop into the mount cups we pushed and pulled the engine forwards and backwards, lubed up the bushes to help them slip a bit and (as pictured above) ended up having to shock the engine untill it slipped over the bushes and all met up. Then a little more pushing a pulling to get the bolts through the mounts.

When we first offered it all up it looked like the engine was about 20mm too far forward, once the tranny locating dowels were in it was about 5mm to far forward, but as I've described above, this can be sorted. It was mainly a problem with the engine not being square to the K-member ect.

HTH
JAmes.

 

I think spohn should maybe comment on these problems. Maybe BMR and other companies have these problems and I don't know about it. But if you have to wait for 6 months for a product that may or may not fit. I am getting more nervous about putting my enging in.

 

What sucks is that it's never taken me more than 30 minutes to get an engine in one of these cars. This one, however, is has taken 5 hours so far. The only difference between any of these cars is that this one has the new K-member.

I also tried it with the mounts attached to the K-member first. I spent 3.5 hours trying to get it to fit that way.

This is what really sucks....waiting for 3 months for a part that had several problems. Bolt in my butt. Differences in a car I can possibly see but not differences in the width of a chevy 350.

 

My motor mounts looked just like that. I really wanted new mounts in mine, but I wasn't going to fight it. I reused the old ones and everything lined up just like the old k-member was in there. Maybe one of these days when I'm bored or something I will try and put the new ones in. Have only put like 300 miles on the car in 31/2 yrs, so as anyone can imagine, I just wanna drive the darn thing. Though 3.25 for a gallon of gas does dampen that a little bit.

 

This is going to work even if I have to put the car in a crusher to get the engine in with the K and the new bushings.

 

i was going to order the k-member and swap it in when i swapped in the 350 but i guess ill use the stock k member

 

Should I be mad?

When I ordered my k member back in january I thought, I will get mine on time. I have had good luck with spohn in the past. I will get my parts when he says I will. Wrong.

I did get my k member 6 months later after months worth of excuses. He said he would modify a set of his a arms that I got so they would work with his k member. A spohn k member working with a set of spohn a arms, sounds like a good concept right? So he says send them in, almost four months ago, so he can mod them and send them back. So he sends me my k member and he has forgotten all about my a arms. So now I am waiting for the a arms, that i sent in four months ago, so when I got my k member they would be done. I am so pissed off, I have to stay calm about it. Because no matter how much I curse or throw shi% in the garage, I will get them when ever he god dam# feels like getting them done.

I am no longer buying spohn products. I have supported him for a long time. I emailed him and told him I understand things happen but these series of event's are unacceptable. So now I am waiting on my a arms when he gets a batch together to send.

I am so mad there is nothing I can do about it.

This is fuc%ing ridiculous.

I am going to start throwing things again.

I am going elsewhere, BMR, UMI or something. No more Spohn.

Jason

 

After this K-member fiasco i've decided not to buy anything from him as well. Me saying that doesn't really mean much though. There really isn't anything left to replace. I feel your pain. My 6 weeks turned into 14.

 

Spohn should look into getting more workers JUST for the K-members...I know they take a while but...hes obviously loosing busniess because of the delays...then turn to lies...then turn to just staright up BS...IDK just something I think he should look into. I wouldnt want to wait a half year for 1 part.

 

Actually he has 8 people working there and two are full time working on the k-members. Thts how far behind he is. Hell normally I dont have to wait for parts from him and it took me a month to get some bs stuff like strut mounts and vert SFC's.

 

i love spohn stuff. im not defending him but i was at his shop back around february to pick up my rear control arms and there shop is in a old cement factory, and is rented out to steve spohn and some others rent other parts of it. there was an electrical fire there destroying a majority of the building. they took me threw the whole building when i was there and it was bad. steve was running the whole business on generators for a while. he was doing that for a few days when i was there already. i havent talked to him since. but i know that hurt him and he only makes the k member when ordered to. he doesnt stock them. someone on here said his a arms dont fit the k member? is that true? i have his a arms and will get the k member sometime when money lets me.

 

this isn't good. it took me two weeks to get my pa unit and i didn't have a problem with it.. 6 months is out of the question for anything that isn't one off crazy concept design in mind.

 

I don't know if he thinks people will keep buying his stuff or what. but lying to people and keep putting them off isn't the way to keep business. I have defended him in the past because i have had good experiences with him. But not anymore. I'm not saying he doesn't have a good product, other things need to be worked on.

 

Well I got my a arms last week. I read in another post that these a arms drop the front of the car 1/2-2 inch. Anyone know about this or have any first hand knowledge? I emailed spohn tonight about it.

Viprklr, you ever get your engine in?

 

Yeah it's in. Ended up taking a grand total of 9 hours to do it. Total BS. I ended up having to slot all 3 clamshell holes on both sides to do it.

 

Well I just got my engine out to put my new 383 in. I was toying with the idea of getting a spohn k member since I already have there a arms installed but after reading all this Im not sure if I want the hassle. I do want the added space it gives you and the weight savings but Im really thinking of just cleaning and painting the stock one up.

 

IIRC the weight savings is minimal. ~8 pounds. Looks pretty though. It also made it possible for me to install both long tube headers with the engine installed.

 

I was able to do that with the stock crossmember. No jacking up the engine or any other funky stuff, they just slipped right in from the bottom.

 

Viprklr,

Would the poly mounts just not sit down far enough or what? I wonder if stock rubber mounts would do that.

Spohn emailed me back and said I had the newer design with the dropped spring boxes.

Don't know how to tell the difference.

 

In my case the stock rubbers would've been the same way. I had a brand new set of them laying around that I used to compare to my new poly's. Identical.
The problem was that the engine wouldn't go down far enough into the mount to put in both through bolts. No amount of jacking, prying, jumping on my engine, or convincing would work. I then figured i'd try it a different way. I removed the mounts completely from the K-member and bolted everything to the engine. Again, no matter what, I couldn't get both sides to line up enough to allow me to finish bolting. It's like the K-member was too narrow to fit my apparently fat 350. After slotting all the holes I was able to "convince" the engine to go down far enough for me to bolt everything up. About the only good thing about this whole ordeal is that there is no way the engine is going to move.

 

Looks like you and I have a similar problem (motor 1/2" off). In my case, it seems the passenger side mount is 1/2" lower than it should be, so I'm having a billet shim made to correct the problem.

 

Mine was level once I got it in. It was just such a pain to get all the friggin holes to line up so that it would be level.

 

Well I just received mine today, 13-1/2 weeks after ordering.

Both Kmem and Aarms are 4130 chrome moly, and weigh in
as a set at 57 pounds. (The stocker w/Aarms weighed in
at 84 pounds with just the motor mounts extra, so about
25 pounds saved)

I should have it (or attempted) installed this week, so
hopefully all the bugs everyone has been having are
worked out..



mike

 

85NikeTPI Lets us know. If it works out for you I will order one.

 

Start of Kmem install Pics

Well I made a good start, then got sidetracked with the Flu. Of the four
(correct me if I'm wrong) major problems reported, the first 2 didn't seem
to be an issue on mine.

1) Hard to install/line-up mounting bolts - Mine went right in on 5 of the 6
bolts. The 6th bolt just needed a slight prying of the rear of the kmem
over, to get the bolt started by hand.

2) Steering linkage hits Kmem - I check with the suspension unloaded, and as
loaded as I could get with a floor jack and no motor. Only my Hochkiss
adjustors come close, and I'm pretty sure once fully loaded, they won't be
an issue either.

3) Motor mounts not lining up - Hopefully test this soon. Motor is sitting next
to the car and should be dropped in shortly.

4) Rake of car is exaggerated with Spohn Aarms - I think this was an issue
with an older design, but I'm checking anyway.. This will be the last item
I'll be able to check..

HTH
mike

 

Great pics. I saw in one of the pics how close the front tires are to the rear of the fender. I noticed that as well on my car when I put the spohn a arms on. The tire outer edge just rubs the fender well and ground effect when turning close to and at the lock.

 

I was finally able to drop in the motor/trans today. The suspension settled
some, but will settle more after driving a bit.

Motor mounts were not much trouble at all... They didn't drop right in like I
was use to, but one went in fine and I bolted it, then WD40'd the other side
and let the engine jack down fast and the weight of the motor slid the other
side right in.. These are 8year old Poly mounts.


Car is still about 200# light with parts still waiting to get installed, but it
looks like with the cut Moog 5664 springs in the front, and Eibach Pros in the
rear, it doesn't look like rake will be an issue.

My front tire does hit the very corner of the front fender, but I can't
blame the Spohn Kmem or Aarm on this. I'm 99% sure it was hitting
before the swap as I checked after coming out of the body shop and
it looked like the fenders were put on a little forward... <shrug>

mike

New Pics added since Engine Install

 

My spohn k-member and a-arm install has just been so fun...........NOT.

Tried to get the motor in today but no sir its just not going to line up anymore. Im installing with fresh new poly motor mounts. I can get one side bolted but the other i can only fit a small flathead through its not going to budge anymore. So at this point it looks like i'm slotting holes...






I have tried mounting the motor mount/clamshells to the engine then trying to line up the 8 bolts to the k-member and its just the same problem so very close but i cant get the bolts through. So i guess slotting them in the answer.

 

How about just loosening the 8 nuts on the clamshells, to see if you can line it up? It looks VERY close, too close to go through all that work in slotting?? (IMHO)

mike

 

Before you slot, check your oil pan and see if it is level and that the engine/transmission sits straight front-back in the car. I had to make a shim for my Spohn k-member and motor mounts to fit with new clamshells and poly mounts, otherwise the engine was crooked.

 

oil pan is level, everything looks like it will sit fine once i get it bolted in.

I have tried it with the clamshell bolts loose and it was actually harder because the plates wanted to separate from around the bushing. Which is why i have zipties holding them together. It is still like 1/8 from getting the bolts centered through. I can pry and hold one as far as i can i still cant manage to get any of the bolts through. I actually already drilled out the clamshells so that i had a little bit more movement with the bolts but i think i just need to slot the k-member itself. I think i don't see any harm with this??? Other then occasionally check the torque to make sure they haven't shifted. I wish they just made it bolt up like the BMR crossmember with the circular bushing similar to the a-arms...

 

When I put my spohn k member in I had the same problem. I put the passenger side bolt in first and then the driver and it would just not work. I fought and fought it. Then I tried the driver side first then the passenger side and the damn thing fell right in. I don't know if it's issue with the mounts on the engine or what.

I used the poly mounts to.

 

I have found its the same for both side, same gap same type of deal. I have more clearance to work around on the pass side so i was going to keep with that. Im going to have another go after work today, ill post up results later.

 

On an aside, is the bushing on the other side installed in the clamshell correctly?

One other thing that helped with the install was standing on top of the engine and basically jumping up and down on it.

 

Well i tried a few other ways before i gave up and decided to slot the k-member. Slotted the k-member on the pass side, just enough to be able to get the bolts through. I hardly had to slot them just kinda grind them more round so i could slide the bolt and hit it through then it went straight. Done deal. Motor is in the car!






The motor is tilted back some because the transmission is not in yet.

 

Looks good man. Are those hotparts upper strut mounts? I have mostly spohn stuff but I like the look of those and the benefits they have.

 

Ya they are the newer design. I really like the fit and finish of them. They included the new brackets that mount underneath the strut tower also. These have adjustable caster im not sure if you can adjust the caster on the spohn ones? Plus you can get these red .