Naga1337

Hello,

I'm going to be swapping an LQ4/T56 into a third generation Camaro. It seems that drews over at ThirdGen.org has disappeared, so I can't get my hands on one of his nice crossmembers. This leaves me with few options. One is the Spohn crossmember. I hear it is a quality piece, but everyone says it is a nightmare when it comes to routing the exhaust system, as it makes it so that the exhaust has to be REALLY close to the ground. My other option is the Skulte piece. There are three problems with that one, though. It says on it's website that it is set up for an LT1-style T56. Would it work with the LS1-style T56? The second problem is that it doesn't have provisions for a crossmember mounted torque arm, though I don't know how big of an issue that is. Is that really important? Lastly, I have heard a few people saying that it is a low quality piece. Is it?

There you have it. Can someone advise? Thanks for any help.

V8Rumble

iTrader: (9)

Personally, I have a Spohn crossmember coming to me (it's basically free, I just paid the cost of shipping) so I'm going to hack & weld on it a little bit to see if I can make it work. If not, I'm not out much except for the time & effort I've put into it...

I THINK that ghettocruiser has a Skulte crossmember, he might be able to answer your questions about it...

fast377

iTrader: (52)

Spohn's crossmember blows. It's constructed well, but it's designed stupid. It hangs down way too far. I have one right now...but whenever I get a chance I'm going to make my own.

89 formula350

iTrader: (8)

make your own! it's easy as heck. some of the desighns I see being sold make me wonder if they have ever completed the exhaust much less drove the car down the street to check ground clearance.

the torque arm mounts to your trans just like it did on your original trans. just get the correct clamshell for the trans you are using. spohn has a good idea relocating it to the crossmember but his overall product just hangs way too low


when I did mine I used 3/8" steel stock. and a couple steel U-bends to clear the exhaust pipes. if you don't have a welder it will make it much harder to do but you can still cut and mark.

find a local welder real close to you and have small tac welds done where you think the welds need to be based on your markings and go home and check fitment. if it's close you can bend the welds enough and then go back to have the final welds.

89 formula350

iTrader: (8)

here is a drawing of how I made mine. others have used steel pipe in the 3.5" OD and just cut it in half to get the hump sections.

ghettocruiser

iTrader: (17)

I built mine. I had a spohn piece, and was 100% happy with the crossmember. And I was 100% dis-satisfied with the way the exhaust had to be made to work with it. haha.

So I ordered a Drews (sold it) and tried to use that. However...I couldnt get that to work. Bolt holes were weird. I also wasnt really happy with the quality. It was really light, and since I needed to mount my torque arm to it, I didnt trust it.

My next step was to build my own. So I did. Spohn sold me the parts to build the torque arm mount (greaseable bushing and support). Its made from 1x3 tubing and some thick angle iron. It utilizes ALL 6 of the crossmember mounting holes because...well they are there so why not?

I then built my Y-pipe to work with my crossmember. Turned out how I wanted it, with the clearance I wanted and the flow to go with it.

Skulte seems to have a nice unit though. And Ive dealt with Andres (Skulte) a couple times for other things and his service is great. I wouldnt hesitate to buy his crossmember. But it depends what you want to do for a torque arm mount. I almost bought a chassis mounted torque arm from BMR (i think)...but decided not to.

Here are a couple shots of my x-member...in case youre curious.









J.

ghettocruiser

iTrader: (17)

OH and one more random pic I found. Here is the Spohns x-member...after I had to chop it to pieces mind you... and the Drews. The drews seems like its designed well, and is probably easy to re-produce. But its two sides, welded to some plate in the middle. And its not very thick... For a stock car that needs that type of crossmember, it would work well. But for my car, and the torque arm set up, I just didnt fully trust it.

J.

BMR Suspension

iTrader: (6)

We offer a torque arm relocation crossmember that sounds just like you are wanting. IT also has multiple torque arm mounting provisions to help fine tune the arm. The page can be found here
http://www.bmrfabrication.com/F3-chassis.htm

ghettocruiser

iTrader: (17)

Thats a decent looking crossmember and mout set up. However...I think you'd still have some exhaust routing issues with it. Just judging by my chopped up spohn vs. the pic of yours... You can see where i had to cur away the angled steel right under the mount holes... That was to clear a y-pipe that didnt go under the x-member.

Cant say for sure because I dont ahev it sitting in front of me. But the issue is, with spohns and a "non-hump" crossmember, you have to go around the thing with the y-pipe. If you try to run it under, you loose a ton of ground clearance. If you run it like the Hawks conversion y-pipe, again, you loose clearance. The cuts on my spohn piece were a result of the hawks y-pipe interferring with it.

Do you have any installed pics BMR??? Ide be curious to see how it looks under the car. Especially if it does give good room for exhaust....because it looks like a really nice piece.

J.

Randy_S

iTrader: (1)

Ghettocruiser, yours looks very nice. Nothing better than home fab. With cleaning up the welds a little, I bet you could sell some of those for some profit. I like the way yours is tucked for the exhaust. Its a shame that I sold my '92 Z28 last week, always wanted to do the swap.

ghettocruiser

iTrader: (17)

Thanks randy. It wasnt the easiest thing to fab up. With it being boxed tubing, getting the cut angles right was sort of a pain. nothing is straight cut under there. Everything is at a funky angle. But I got it done. I could have ground the welds down, but since no one was going to see it, I figured why bother.

Producing them crossed my mind...and promptly exited my mind. haha. Just not enough time for that sort of thing...and there are guys out there that can make a better one easier than I did. Skulte's seems nice...and if they could incorporate a torque arm mount on it, I think it would sell pretty good.

J.

WS6_00

iTrader: (10)

would the crossmember still pose a problem if the exhuast was TD's and not a Y to muffler?

ghettocruiser

iTrader: (17)

Eh...might not cause the SAME problem. But it would still take some messing with. The problem is getting the pipes out from between the "chassis rails". Just isnt a whole lot of room down there, and you have to go over to the pass side or down at some point. And thats where you loose your options.

Some guys have modified the unibody to give more room. I wasnt that daring. Could just run open headers....hehe.

J.

WS6_00

iTrader: (10)

lol that too. I was planning on doing a x-pipe and add some round mufflers and dump them before the axle. possible cats also, we'll see when the time comes

BMR Suspension

iTrader: (6)

Sorry no installed pic's but it doesn't take up much more room than the factory transmission crossmember.

ghettocruiser

iTrader: (17)

Cool Lee...thats good to know. A tubular design always seems to lend itself to more room. Ide still be curious to see that sucker installed..like I said...it looks nice.

J.

CRCustoms

iTrader: (2)

For what it's worth the t56 crossmember hawks third gen makes has humps and is a nice piece.

jersyboyy

iTrader: (3)

Im going with the hawks crossmember but have no idea what to do with the torque arm situation.

Any way to have a tubular torque arm mounted to something other than the tailshaft using the hawks crossmember??