ok,

would prefer drop spindle, to cutting or spring change, but........ cant find 3rd gen spindle drops, or where???

vs

eibach or bell tech, springs 1.5-2.0 drop springs. do repop drop springs ride better than stock??, corner better? or go back to spindle idea?


springs vs. spindle help. please 91 camaro thx ,, craig

 

Spindles will for technicality sake, usually be the better option simply because you retain the correct suspension geometry which is lost with drop springs. Changing to drop springs wont really help or hurt , theres a lot more to the suspension than just that part. There are still places to get drop spindles if i recall correctly but the most popular ones (belltech) are no longer made. You can find used ones floating around every once in a while. I found mine on ebay. Like you i went back and forth between spindles and springs and probably would have went springs if i hadnt found some spindles at a good price. If you decide not to go with spindles i would suggest weight jacks all around.

 

racecraft makes them. I use them and like them, with the exception that you are limited to the factory width front wheel and tire set up. The design of the drop spindle puts the steering arm (where the tie rod mounts at the spindle) right next to the hoop of the wheel on a factory 16X8. You are limited to the 245 width tire. If you wanted to add width to the front wheels and tires, you'd have to add the width outwards, as the drop spindles will not allow any clearance to extend the wheel and tire inwards unless you go to a 20'' wheel. (at that point the hoop of the wheel is large enough that the steering arm and tie rod will fit inside the wheel)

I'm starting to think that the benefits of keeping the correct front end geometry and only being able to run a 245 width tire, may not be as beneficial as sacrificing some geometry and being able to run 285's or something in that range. (for an all out handling application) If you dont have any desire to go to wider tires up front then I like the drop spindle route.

 

Yes getting stuck with the 8" wheel is a huge bummer. And probably the reason why more don't use them.

 

Is that only a problem with the racecraft spindles? Ive seen a number of cars online with belltechs that dont seem to have that problem.

 

Drill them out and put the tierods on top. Just use very strong bolts and rodends. Check with sites like AllStar products, Coleman Racing, or Speedway Motorsports for products.

 

And have your bump steer go to **** without a way to correct it

 

The only possible thing you could be thinking is if someone where stupid enough to put one end on top and leave the other on the bottom- I'll let you figure out which is best.

 

If you did that you'd hit the sway bar with the tie rod ends and I don't see how you wouldn't really screw up the bumpsteer since the angle of the tie rod is now way different than the control arm

 

you know, sometimes I do screw up- I owe rlewi771 an apology. I tinker with too many vehicles and forgot the 3rd gen center link to tierods come off the back side of the centerlink, and not the bottom- yes it would screw up the geometry. My bad. I need to buy anoter 3rd gen, I am no longer familiar with them as for clearances and such in modifications. There is ways of doing it but it would take alot of custom stuff and welding so never mind my suggestion. I had to look back on my old Camaro pics.

I was thinking more on lines of a rack unit. or what we do in NASCAR by drilling though the Idler arm and Pitman arm and using double rod center links ttop and bottom and we can set the tierods on top, or bottom whatever we choose.

Edit:To do this on a 3rd gen would require having the front A-arm supension point inwward more in line with the pitman and centerlink width wise. Custom Kmember, and custom A-arms required- like stated, too much work.

 

The Bell Tech spindles are one thing I wish the Chinese would copy. Bell didn't sell because the cost, so no volume. There was no volume because of the cost. Not a catch-22 in itself, because it could have been broken by Bell dropping the price and then enjoying the volume. In their greed for immediate RoI, they never fully recouped their costs. If anyone has a pair, I sure wish they'd loan them to the duplicators across the Pacific.