ls68

My car is a '68 camaro that i'm dropping an LS1 into and right now i've got that shitty single leaf rear with drums on the car that came with the standard trim camaros. i'm thinkin (being as GM doesn't change too much) a cheap way to switch to a better rear end with discs would be to get an old rear end out of a 98-02 camaro SS and see if i can bolt it in somehow with some minor fabrication. Anyone done this before?/Have any idea how it might work?

726.0chevelle

iTrader: (17)

major fabrication 4th gen has coils panhard bars and tourqe arm plus lower trailing arms you have to fab mounting brackets for all of them plus build coil spring mounts for your ride height and your factory 10 bolt is way stronger disc brake conversions are not very expensive you can prob get a kit for around 600 maybe less id stick with the factory set up just my .02

Shawn MacAnanny

iTrader: (12)

the 98-02 rear end is the same as the 93-97 rear end with just better disk brakes (different e-brake setup). The are far weaker than the 10 bolt thats in your 68. The rear end in your 68 is an 8.2" rear end. The rear end in the 93-02 is a 7.5" 10 bolt. I would reccomend an 8.5" 10 bolt for cost effective strength for your 68. They are pretty darn strong. The 12 bolt is only an 8.875" rear end. Not a whole lot bigger. I am running an 8.5" in my light car and its seen a couple 5500rpm launches on slicks and i wouldnt hesitate in the least to drop the clutch at 6900rpm on the 30" et street radials when they get here.

If you are really set on using the crappy 7.5" (I've broken 2 of them, one in an auto 95 with 2.73s, and another in a friends 87 LT1/T56 i was driving) then you would need to fabricate coild spring perches on a crossmember between the frame rails, a panhard bar to run to your frame rail. a lower control arm setup on your spring perches (easier if you have subframe connectors) and a custom length torque arm that attches to the transmission. It would have to be longer.

Idealy you want a 4 link 9" setup but thats something like $3500.

thunderstruck507

iTrader: (18)

...don't even think about it

those rears are among the biggest pieces of junk gm has made

The Batman

iTrader: (4)

these rear ends where originally put in the crappy little citations or whatever. stick with what you got

Kenova

iTrader: (4)

Close, but no cigar. The design is actually older than that. They were originally used in the Vega and Monza.

Ken

ls68

Well that clears things up quite a bit! It's probably obvious that i didn't do any research on this yet whatsoever (except of course for this thread). I didn't realize that the rear end was the same 10 bolt used in the V8's and the I-6's (my car originally had a I-6) and i'm surprised the newer rear end is worse. I also never did get a chance to get under a 98-02 camaro and see what needed to be done. So, i guess I'll be converting my single leaf to the multi-leaf, and doing a disc conversion! However i will say that the rear end disc conversion kits that i've seen are pushin' $1000.

can you tell me where you might've seen one for 600?

oneslowbowtie

iTrader: (3)

You can use the backing plates from 98-02f-body on a older rear end. Try a search there is a lot of info about that swap on here. That is what I am doing. There is a company that has the metric fitting for the caliper and SAE fitting to the original brake line. Try searching 'kore 3" Sorry i dont have much more info than that

ls68

thanks a bunch man i'll look into this a little deeper.

12thstreetjunkman

iTrader: (16)

I just put the 98-02 rear disc on my 69's stock 12bolt, super simple to do.