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I had a '94 Beretta and thought about something similar. I was going to use a 3.8v6 from a 4th Gen camaro, as well as the front/rear suspension from the same.
Front and back track width is right around 60" for both.
Then I was going to put the series III heads and Eaton m90 from a grand prix on the naturally aspirated shortblock.
Then I got deployed, again, came home and bought a Cadillac. Left the Beretta in Kentucky somewhere. Lol.
nice! a few guys have done the 3800 swap but left fwd. One guy right now is actually cutting the floor/suspension out of a gen4 LT1 camaro and grafting it to a beretta.
thanks! Ive always had more fun with the random cars, It makes you think more
hits the sides a little, needs to go a little wider, and I think a tad back but Ill figure that out soon.
from the inside!
modified the stock subframe so I could have something to sit the c4 subframe on thats level and solid to figure out the bump steer and roll center, then "tack" it all together so I can get the front temporarily rolling and get the engine figured out the rest of the way
Yeah lol, this would be the other modified beretta in oregon. It keeps adding up to more work every time I think I have something figured out. It's half the fun I guess
I made a bit of progress, changed my process a little bit.. I was trying to set the control arm angle by going off bump steer, then place the subframe in where ever it needed to be for the correct roll center. The least amount of bump steer the control arm was pointing WAY up.. so that theory was bad lol.
off to the corvette forums I went hoping to get stock angles of the control arms for a better guideline. Ended up getting a TON of help and a better way to go about this than I was. Huge thanks to "Churchkey" and everybody else from the corvette forums.
my bump steer idea of doing it.. that failed.
finding the roll center, drafting the whole front suspension out and getting everything figured out. literally took up my whole garage lol. talk about a pain in the ***! but I now know all the angles to go off of and can "simply" put the subframe in now.
sorry for the crappy pics. they looked good on my phone when I took them...
but thats where I am as of now. next step is to get it physically in place in the car and go from there.
While you're doing the suspension geometry and all that is still fresh in your head, contact Ron Sutton. He is the master of suspensions and offers a professional recommendation service, for a reasonable price, to set you up correctly. He will have you take a million very precise measurements of your suspension mounting points. He will discuss weight distribution, wheel alignment, spring and bar packages, he can even revalve your shocks if you want.
Point is, you're already ***** deep in your suspension, so you might as well have a professional run your exact suspension through the geometry software and make the changes he recommends.
Ok, I'll have to check that out. I do have a suspension analyzer program but can't figure it out to save my life.. I plan to dig into it a little more to hopefully at least verify it's setup like I believe. Can't ever check too much!
I don't know if you know this or not but gm build a rwd v8 beretta concept back in the 90's that was yellow and blue. they called it w8 or something like that. cool build none the less. I love it. always like this cars especally the z26's.
yeah they had a few different concepts. I swear the feretta was a v8 RWD but It says its a fwd setup still... one is saying they had a v6 awd TT setup and the other is saying its a v8 awd TT setup. I knew of the v6 so maybe they had both of those?? I know the feretta just sold on barrett jackson not too long ago for 6k.. now its street legal and being sold for 30k or something like that
I finally found some time to work on it a bit more. Juggling a few projects again.. Made some decent progress I think.
this is pretty much where its going to sit, I forgot my digital level so im not positive as far as height/control arm angle goes but its with in 1/2" up and down I think. just need to verify it and get it 100% now. beefed up the modified factory subframe a little so I can cut out notches for the control arms to pivot.
finding center. hard to see the yellow center line, but I guessed when I clamped the subframe down, it was less than 1/4" off center! pretty damn good if you ask me!! need to verify my measurements a few times before its set it stone, and get it 100% perfect. front to back is also within 1/8" to 1/4" of being perfect. little bit more tweaking.
fits pretty decent, well better than expected. definitely will need to get cut for clearance but not as much as I was expecting.
due to the caliper brackets hitting the spindles, I decided to grind the spindle down over grind the caliper bracket.
not machine quality.. but it will work. Polished it down to 220 and called it good.
Also modified the factory subframe a bit more. Now control arms actually move. Its VERY ghetto, but it only has to support the weight of the front end until the frame goes under then its scrap metal. As it sits it wont do that, I will box it all in and gusset it, probably going to tie both sides together too.
Had to toss it together real quick to see what the brakes were going to look like. Yes I know its upside down
sawzall is just for size reference
14" rotors dont seem that big with these wheels
I didnt measure anything when I put the subframe in for the brake pics. Thought it looked cool so I took a pic of this too.
I like it. It looks a little overwhelming to me, but I hope you have the energy to stick with it! I'm excited to see the finished project. I also enjoyed reading about thein house GM projects above.
Thanks! I plan to work on it this weekend if its dry out. Really want to get this front subframe squared away so I can start working on the firewall and rear end again.
09-17-2015, 05:53 PM
