nd Gen Camaro pro-street style rearend setup to better road setup

[laspisa]

Folks, apologize for my ignorance up front! Pretty new to all this. I've googled and haven't had any luck.

Basically I want to change the rear end setup in my 73 Camaro to a more road friendly/better handling rearend. The car was setup for drag racing and kind of pro-street. Don't know the exact name of the design, but it's called a Floating axle with ladder bars, ford 9 inch. Love the 9" and the 4:11s but want to go drive it in circles without the rear clunking around...

So what would be an easy conversion to make it go around the corners better? I can send some pictures if it would help. Thanks in advance for everyone's time and help! This site is awesome, dave

[glassman]

Go back to leafs if you can. There are a hose of companies that have great parts for a gen II. There are a couple of sponsers on this board that can help you along, for instance, Ron Sutton, Speed Tech, BMI, Detroit Speed, Ride Tech...for starters. I had leafs on my Gen II and was faster on leafs that I'm am now (thats an example of the car now being better than the driver)

cheers, mike

[dhutton]

Are the frame rails intact? Post a pic so folks can see what you have to work with.

Don

[BMR Sales]

This our Torque Arm Kit on my '73 Camaro!

https://s6.postimg.org/x70ft02yp/MG_2959.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

[laspisa]

Thanks everyone! The bmr setup looks nice! Here are some pics. Not the best as I haven't had it on a lift yet. Yes the framerails are intact and there are leafs on it, they are the corvette mono composite ones.

I saw a bolt on 4 link from ride tech that's reasonably priced, would I be able to cut out the ladder bars and install that? I don't need it to be the best road racing car just fun to drive and as you all mentioned I am sure that I wouldn't be able to drive to the cars potential anyways. Thanks again!

[Build-It-Break-it]

Since your car is already set up for leaf springs I'd keep it that way. I'd get the new ridetech composite leaf springs and call it done.

Take off the ladder bars and brackets of course.

[Ben@SpeedTech]

Welcome aboard! Many of us came from a drag race background and there's a little bit of a learning curve to learn about cornering better, you're in the right place to ask questions.

The biggest question before any of us give you any advice is what exactly do you want to do with the car, and how fast do you want to go through the corners? Knowing that will help fine tune what you'll need to accomplish those goals.

Consider this- pretty much all popular rear suspensions bind at some point. What you've got is a great drag suspension but as you know it's lousy for handling and is really good at binding up in corners. Leaf spring set ups work ok for a cruiser and can even be tweaked a bit for cornering but they also are bind prone and can suffer "axle wrap" where the springs get all out of shape. There isn't much tunability in them either. A triangulated 4 link is a popular upgrade but because you're dealing with different lengths and angles on the arms they bind up surprisingly quick too.

Your front suspension is designed to guide you around the corners and the rear suspension is supposed to follow along without argument. When a rear suspension binds it "shocks" the system and throws the balance off making a quirky and unpredictable ride. It can also unload one of your tires and of course the best way to corner fast is to keep as much rubber possible on the road at all times. Not all suspensions can do this equally.

For a street driver that sees some track time many folks like Speedtech feel a Torque Arm is at the top of the suspension food chain. There are several advantages to a set up like this, in a nutshell they ride very smooth, handle very well, are predictable, and have considerably less bind than the other more traditional suspensions. There's a reason GM went to this system for Camaros and Firebirds in '82 and didn't drop it until they went to independent suspensions on the 5th gens.

Speedtech offers complete front and rear kits for your car, from basic bolt in entry level cruiser parts clear up to our ExtReme kits for those that are serious about hunting trophies. Here are a couple pics and links to products so you can read up a little more.

Notice that with our torque arm you can keep your 9", our kit has braces that help strengthen the rear half of the car, we have Articulink 2-piece trailing arms that rotate to help reduce bind even more, and the strength of the center arm is built into the arm to give you a clean and simple installation with plenty of room for exhaust and such. If you're looking for a little more than just a nice cruiser check our parts out.


Our 2nd gen (70-81) F-Body suspension page- http://www.speedtechperformance.com/index.cfm/page/ptype=results/category_id=36/mode=cat/cat36.htm


https://i.imgur.com/ts6bok2.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/l1xTGMa.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/rfIvsbs.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/zRjGSFQ.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/GeRZTvy.jpg

[andrewb70]

It looks like he already has composite leaf springs...

Andrew

[dhutton]

It looks like he already has composite leaf springs...

Andrew

X2. Pull the ladder bars and maybe upgrade the shocks and see how it feels.

Don

[laspisa]

Ben, thanks for all the info. Not sure exactly what I want but I don't really plan on autocrossing it any time soon. The speed tech stuff looks really nice.

I think initially to save some mullah I will do as the guys suggested, take off the ladder bars and see how it goes.

Do you all think the floating brackets will then be an issue? Any way I can just weld the floating brackets instead of having to take the whole thing off to weld new leaf spring blocks?

Thanks again to everyone for the great info! Now I just need to go out there and do it, ha!

[laspisa]

It's a floating housing, it has something like these:

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/cee-2030?seid=srese1&cm_mmc=pla-google-_-shopping-_-srese1-_-competition-engineering&gclid=CjwKCAjw9O3NBRB3EiwAK6wPT_6dOKUba-WsGLYupiHDUPlegqfAKO1NnXreVc8PtDrQHc-6AQXJjRoCF24QAvD_BwE&ibanner=MobileSwitchNo

Was just doing some research on caltracs, can I have a floating rear end with those? I could just weld the housing to the floating brackets and it wouldn't float anymore, thanks!

[David Pozzi]

To go back to any kind of leaf spring, you need to have leaf spring perches that are welded directly to the axle housing. Your floating housing setup requires some kind of torque arm or linkage to prevent the rear axle from flipping over.
Is your car handling badly with the current setup? I've seen cars with similar linkage and they aren't all that bad, not the ideal for autocrossing, but not bad on the street. The main effect is some corner entry oversteer and corner exit understeer. Once you apply power, the car wants to go straight, steering does not respond so well.

What are your goals for the car as far as handling? Street cruising, or track and autocross? Are you going to minitub the car and run 18" rims?

[laspisa]

David, I really just want to drive it on the street and have it handle a little better. It definitely hooks up and goes straight with no problems now! It drives ok, but the rear end clunks and makes a lot of noises going around turns. Additionally, the ladder bar rearend mounts are really low so there is not much clearance and bottom out a lot.

I think for now, I'll probably weld up the floating attachments and remove the ladder bars. Maybe install a sway bar again and some caltracs. Considering the ridetech 4 link as it is pretty reasonably priced and would probably me more than enough for what I need at this time. The torque arm setups are nice as well, lots of choices!

Thanks again for your help

[Ben@SpeedTech]

If it's worth the trouble, leaf spring perches are super cheap and you might be able to pick up a few extra bucks by selling those floater cages and ladder bars to a drag guy on racing junk or ebay. http://www.racingjunk.com/

Good luck with it!