Hey A friend of mine told me I might be able to get some good info from you guys about building my 85 IROC so I thought i would post and see what you guys had for suggestions This is what I have so far..... a clean 85 IROC minus motor tranny and interior, in the process of building a 396 BB 0.30 over with a 454 crank (427) a TH400 tranny, a race shop building the frame connectors and 8 point cage, I have looked into trick springs (front)and a 4 link for the the rear and I have an 8.8 rear end for it. I want to be able to still drive this on the street but I was wondering what you guys would suggest for gears, shift kit, any suspension tricks, or anything I'm forgetting.
Thanks for your time, John

 

Your best bet is to put all that info into a signature, then post on the appropriate forum for each part there. Suspension should be here, but gears and shift kit are probably better answered on the gears/drivetrain forum. If you put your engine/car info into a signature it saves you having to re-type it.

As far as suspension goes, why have you decided on a 4 link with 8.8 rear? Why not a bolt in aftermarket rear and stick with a torque style suspension? Is the car going to be 50/50 street/dragstrip or predominately a drag car? You can go plenty fast on a torque arm style suspension, and still have the perks of that, vs a 4 link.

Frame connectors are a great idea. Are they making them from scratch or a specific aftermarket one?

 

Thank you for replying and the info about putting the stuff in signature and different forums. I was going to go with the 8.8 and four link because i have the whole rear end from an 88 thunderbird that is actually an inch and half narrower than the stock camaro rear so with offset I can get a little wider tire under it and the four link was to get the car to hook up off the line unless you know of some other ways to do that without costing me a small fortune. I was looking at going with 373 gears so that the car would still be streetable because i do want it to be a 50/50 street/strip car. The shop that is doing the frame connectors is DSR Chassis and Derik the owner is custom building the connectors for me so they will actually be stronger than aftermarket bolt ons and he is connecting the roll cage right to the frame so the car should definetly not twist. If you have a better way to do the rear suspension please let me know cause I haven't started that part yet and am always open to advice from people that have already been through it.

Thanks again, John

 

Well, what kind of prices are you looking at to convert the rear, and car, to a 4 link setup?
I believe a 4 link isn't well suited to the street, hence why i'd suggest sticking with a torque arm setup. However i'm not overly familiar with a 4 link setup in the first place.
It is a fair bit of work converting an 8.8 to a torque arm setup, most of that is in figuring out a reliable way to mount a torque arm. (LCA's, shocks, springs etc are the easy part). Obviously the bolt in ready to run rear end costs the small fortune you're talking about, $2500 or so.