schmendog

iTrader: (10)

My car is getting closer to being ready, iron/forged 346 twin BW S300, TH400, goal of running low 9's. The IRS back there has to go, many people make it work but its too expensive to make it bulletproof. So Im putting a 9 inch from Quick Performance in the car, bare housing so Ill need to find all my own brackets and MIG them on, set up my own suspension etc.

I have zero experience with an SRA, torque arms, 4 links, adjustable LCA's etc. All I know so far is I'm going with Strange double adjustable coil overs, a pan hard bar instead of a Watts link for simplicity, and fully adjustable lower control arms.
So where the best place to start when doing this from scratch? Get the housing centered up on jack stands and start measuring? Any help is appreciated

schmendog

iTrader: (10)

bump.

Panigali899

wow..I guess getting your pinion angle is the ball park is most important since your going to have adj. LCR and torque arm. Your 9 inch is for a 4th gen f-body..i guess? That panhard bar mount is pretty solid. You'd have to mock everything up very well and fab up the pockets and some sort of mount for a torque arm cross member.

leadfoot4

iTrader: (1)

I wasn't able to copy the direct link to the topic, but look this up in this (LS1Tech) website. The title of the thread is "Independent Rear Suspension (IRS) in a 4th Gen".

The discussion is about a fellow by the name of Jay Cutshaw, who put a C-4 Corvette IRS in his 4th gen Firebird, around 7-8 years ago. Why I think this might be helpful to you, is you're doing that job in reverse, and it MIGHT give you some ideas on what to expect.

I had a direct link to the complete article on how he did the job, but I just checked, and the link no longer works, otherwise I would have posted it. You might also want to search "Zeus Performance", as they were also involved in this conversion.

schmendog

iTrader: (10)

Well I just ordered my 9 inch, torque arm, and entire rear suspension from Eric at Midwest Chassis. Awesome people, can't wait to get everything on the car.

smitty2919

If I was doing this (and I have not done this before) I would have the car in the air and level on jackstands, I would then have the axle under the car on jackstands and positioned where it needs to sit.

With the control arms mounted to the body, the DS hooked up etc, I would attach brackets to the opposite ends of the LACA's and "swing" them up to the SRA then tack the mounts into place.

Same goes for the TA and coilovers. A true rear coilover on a GTO will need custom upper mounts to be made. Look on LS1GTO.com for threads of this. This hasn't been the first time it was done and a lot of guys over there will know what it takes to do it.

http://www.ls1gto.com/forums/showthr...&highlight=sra

schmendog

iTrader: (10)

Thanks. Sounds like what I had in mind as well. As far as the upper coil over mounts I'll likely just weld in a tubular crossmember between the rear frame rails.