Hey guys....I'm new to the boards here but have been doing a lot of reading and there is alot of good info here!! I'm getting ready to start looking for a 82-92 camaro body to turn into a strictly strip only footbrake car for my wife to drive. I'm looking at keeping it pretty much stock with 10" tire. I'm looking at building a mild 355 sbc (roughly 475-500 hp) with a powerglide transmission. I plan on building my own subframe connectors basically with steel tubing or maybe even roll cage tubing tieing the 2 subframes together. I'm not worried about things like exhaust clearance because there will be no exhaust other than the headers. I'm on a limited budget so all the aftermarket goodies might have to wait and be bought little at a time. For right now I'm planning on boxing the LCA's and probably building my own tubular panhard bar with heim joints (solid hookup). I'm more than likely going to be doing the 10 bolt to 12 bolt swap by cutting off all the brackets and switching them over. I'm still undecided about the torque arm though. I'm assuming that since I will be running a powerglide that I have no choice to go with aftermarket because there will be nowhere for the stock TA to mount on the transmission??

As far as doing the 12 bolt swap, what make and model and year car are you guys getting the housings out of that are the right length?

I'm still unsure about what to do with the front suspension. I had thought about going with the lakewood 90/10 and keeping the stock springs and that pretty much about it. Anyone have any more suggestions on the front??

This car will be a 7.20-7.30 car at the most for right now. I'm open for any and all advice you guys have to offer!!

Thanks in advance!!
Jason

 

I also forgot to add that there will be a full cage installed in this car as well.

 

None. With the third gen's torque arm suspension, there are no stronger junkyard diffs that can be easily swapped into our cars without doing a lot of fabrication work or completely changing the suspension to something like ladder bars or a 4-link. All the other mounting hardware can be esily swapped over but the torque arm takes a lot more work. If you want a direct bolt in diff, you need to buy an aftermarket one.

 

What does footbrake mean?

 

Dragracing term......no transbrakes and leaving off the footbrake.

 

Foot brake, Please do enlighten thee. OOOOOOOOOh.

 

What stall are you planning for the converter?

 

I am running basically the same setup as you are wanting to run. Since you want to do this on the cheap here is what I would do at the minimum.

For the Front I would do the 90/10 struts. A set of Moroso trick springs are worth the money. In fact I have a set that I just took off my car for coil-overs that I can sell you.

For the rear, you are on the right track on boxing the LCAs. Save yourself some headaches and buy the relocation brackets for the LCAs. Without them you will have traction problems and inconsistency. Stock V-6 springs seem to work the best.

I am running a shorter than stock torque arm but I can't remember the brand off the top of my head. It has a cross member that is welded between my sub-frame connectors instead of connecting to the trans.

If you have any other questions or if you are interested in the Front springs just hit me up.

 

Spend some $$ on a good convertor...give Freakshow a call!!!

I would say go with a short arm (tunnel mount).

I personally prefer 9" for modding, so you don't have to deal with trying to weld to a cast center when you make your mount for the TA.

 

Put all of your time,effort and money into rearend,cage and suspension. Don't worry about the motor and trans as that's the easiest to change. 3rd gens are a pain when it comes to building a budget bracket car. The lack of rear end strength, the way the subframe is made, and the way that no part of the car is symmetrical makes it tough to fabricate on. All of that said I love the body style so that's why I built one.
I used a rear from a 71 Torino, it's very close to stock width. Quick Performance sells brackets for a 9" to install a torque arm if you're keeping stock suspension.

 

500 horses is mild for a 355? Lol