Help with rear frame rails.

[scherp69]

I'm new to this site and thought I'd finally post a thread. I'm building a 68 Acadian. It will have a 427 small block this summer with 525-540hp. I have a Tremec TKO600, 18" Foose wheels and many other new toys waiting to be bolted on. Hope to be a pro touring car. I've posted some pics of the progress. I have a question about replacing the rear frame rails. I want to put them back into the stock location as I will be using a leaf spring/ladder bar set up. I thought I would replace the rails as I will be welding in a shock relocation bar, ladder bar crossmember and Global West subframe connectors. I read in one of the threads that when you are replacing the frame rails, not to drill out the spot welds, to just cut as close to the floor as possible as this will keep strength in the floor. My question is, what if I was to drill out the spot welds to get rid of the rusty sheetmetal and with the new rails, weld on new sheetmetal on the top of the rails following the contour of the rails. This weld would be a solid weld along the entire length. I would then weld the sheet metal to the floor using spot welds. Would this work?? Hopefully this makes sense. I've also added a pic of the rear frame rails to show the area I'm talking about.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd68/scherp69/Newclipincarwithoutspindles.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd68/scherp69/Picture298.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd68/scherp69/Picture287.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd68/scherp69/Foose18sonevencloser.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd68/scherp69/PICT0007.jpg

[ProdigyCustoms]

Drill through the spot welds with a 5/16 drill bit and then plug weld through the holes

[awr68]

First, welcome!

Second, are you sure you want to use a ladder bar suspension? That's not a very road friendly design...more for drag racing.

[scherp69]

It's not going to be a straight ladder bar suspension. Going to use leaf springs and regular shocks for the suspension. Then going to add ladder bars for traction using a competition engineering floating housing mount so there's no bind between the two. Using this: http://www.competitionengineering.com/catalog/CategoryDisplay.asp?CatCode=10047

Is this a common set up? What are people's opinions about a set up like this?
The way it was explained to me was that it was street friendly, but gives you the benifits of ladder bar traction.

[ProdigyCustoms]

Ahh, Old Shool drag racing technoligy. Your probably not going to get a warm reception for this suspension design here. I know from experiance you can hook on a dirt road with this stuff, I used to pull the front tires at stoplights (litterly) with this set up, but here we are trying to get through the corner. And this slider set up is white knuckle city soon as you need to turn.

A better combination to possibly do both would be drop leafs and Cal Tracs, or a 4 link (G Machine 4 link)

[awr68]

I'm with Frank on this! If you want to do leafs...then just add cal tracs.

[whytry]

Caltrax and leafs, that's what I got now, but that's because I'm saving up for Air-bar.....

[scherp69]

After looking at a number of different setups....I think I'm leaning towards an AME tri 4 bar clip package. I was going to replace the frame rails anyways, so with this kit...the new rails are already all welded together and all the brackets are in place. Then I'd have a good handling car. I have to be realistic, if I ever make it to the track I would be lucky so I don't want to build a race set up. Does this sound better now?

[awr68]

yes! ;)