I'm a New GM Guy, Global west or Hotchkis

[Judgement]

I am the new owner of a 1972 Lemans Sport GT convertable with the GTO option, formally a MOPAR guy (1968 CUDA). I am looking to do the suspension but I am not sure if I should go with Global West or Hothckis. Can anyone help or point me in the right direction, is one better then the other.

[Derek69SS]

Neither.

Go to www.scandc.com to find parts that actually work well on an A-body. :unibrow:

[Judgement]

Thank you for the advice. I have never heard of this company, I have only heard of Global West, Hotchkis, Detrot Speed etc. How is their tech support?

[Derek69SS]

Tech support & service is the best I've ever dealt with. Mark is very helpful, and knows what he's talking about. He posts here occasionally too :)

Both Hotchkis & GW sell "tall spindle" setups that use B-body spindles which slow the steering ratio, widen the turning radius, cause serious bumpsteer, etc. SC&C's package uses stock spindles with tall ball-joints to get a good camber curve while keeping the turning radius and actually reduces bumpsteer.

Hotchkis pushes their rear setup with boxed arms and poly bushings which are nothing short of horrible for binding up the rear end.

[Blown353]

Neither, and this recommendation is coming from a person with GW suspension on their car (me.) I am not knocking GW's parts at all because of quality (the quality is definately there) but because of the design.

Both Hotchkis and GW's suspension are based around the "B"-body spindle swap which has a lot of drawbacks-- excessive bump steer, slower steering ratio, incorrect ackerman, and too low of a roll center. The only thing the B-body swap does right is put a taller spindle in there for more negative camber gain and also the upper arms put more positive caster in for better straight line stability. Other than that the swap is all negatives as mentioned above.

There are better options out there now that will give you superior handling such as Howe tall ball joints paired with stock spindles or you could go with AFX spindles.

One thing you can run though is GW's lower control arms, as they replace the stock lowers which have a tendency to crack by the lower ball joint over time.

As far as the rear suspension, the factory design has some serious issues and there is nothing that will get the design problems out of the picture. You can however make it smooth and predictable by eliminating all sources of bind by using spherical jointed lower arms and upper arms. I like Edelbrock or Currie upper arms with rubber bushings or Wolfe Racecraft spherical bearings on the rear end, and for the lowers I like Currie, Global West TBC-4 arms, or you can make your own from tubing and spherical joints on each end. In the end the rear end will still have way too high of a roll center but it will drive and handle smoothly and predictably. Taking it to the next level will require a complete redesign and custom fab.