melloelky said:
i've been building my elcamino for a while now.i was done w/the suspension long before i discovered this website,it was mostly carcraft&chevy high po.i've out fitted my car with monte ss sway bars
Should be OK, but out of curiosity do you know how the weight is distributed front vs rear? MCSS bars should be acceptable for street use and at least reasonable for somewhat harder driving for vehicles having anywhere between 52% and 60% front weight if you're willing to work with different spring rates.
ssm uppers&edelbroc lowers in the rear w/tubular braces
Tubular braces will be fine. But if you've got poly in both ends of all four arms, you have much more of a dragstrip setup than one that will like corners. What's commonly referred to as "bind" or "roll bind" is actually an "extra" suspension stiffness introduced by poly being a much more rigid material that resists roll to a much greater extent. It's enough to affect ride quality going over diagonal bumps, driveway entrances, and drainage depressions in the road - you get noticeably more lateral "head-toss" going over them if you've got lots of solid poly bushings back there.
It is possible to "tune around" this condition by using softer rear springs and a lighter rear bar than you'd otherwise use. Not the best solution, but do-able, and has been done by some of the "heavy-hitters" within the autocross community.
with two inch shorter springs.i had to run a shorter shock in the back because w/the shorter spring, the springs would fall out when i jacked up the rear end,has anyone run into this ?i had to source a shorter spring from a lowrider company.has anyone else lowered the rear and ran standard shocks without any problem?
I installed a set of Moogs that dropped the car too far for either the road conditions, bump travel, or good handling (lowering a converging/triangulated rearsuspension makes the car poorer at things like slaloms and lane changes where you first turn one way and immediately turn the other way). I added spacers under the chassis side spring seats to bring the rear ride height back up.
the front is stock control arms w/polybushings,stock replacement springs and 2"drop spindles.i'm running kyb shocks
Nothing wrong with stock control arms or poly bushings there (other than the poly probably not lasting quite as long as the OE rubber did). Spring stiffness chosen for handling really needs to be chosen with the rear springs and the front and rear bar sizes in mind. IMHO, 400-ish lb/in front springs are the "soft-ride/luxury-comfortable" springs. You need to be at least up around 600 lb/in in the front for semi-serious handling (this will be perfectly acceptable for daily use as far as ride quality is concerned). More serious, as in if this car was to be primarily for autocross and open-tracking, higher still.
KYB Gas-A-Justs are an OK-ish shock for up to moderate spring rates, but ride a little harsher than Bilsteins. GR-2's are OE replacement, don't count on them for much more than OE. Some like Edelbrock IAS, but I have no experience with those.
also.i'm planning on running a 17"wheel because the smaller wheel won't fit around the wilwoods.i'm not sure if even that will fit.my question is,is this going to ride decent?
17" wheels will ride a little more stiffly than 15's, given that both tires are about the same OD and load capacity. But it's not a deal-breaker. My wife's car runs on 50 profile 17's - and the fronts are actually inflated a bit higher than the "door sticker" pressure in order to gain a little better steering response and "turn-in". Neither of us likes a car that feels clumsy or numb when you want to go around a corner.
i seen posts where its been said poly will bind.is the monte ss bars to big for a elcamino because theirs no weight there compared to a sedan?
That's why I'd like to know what the weight distribution is. There are rough guidelines for establishing how much front vs rear bar and spring, but you need to know what you've got to work with in order to aim for anything particular. Without some direction, it's more likely that you won't be completely happy with the end result. I'm not saying that you absolutely wouldn't like what a "shot in the dark" collection of parts would give you, only that it's less likely once you start driving the corners hard.
oversteer maybe?i've been wondering whats in store when i yank the wheel to one side&stomp on the gas?
Count on it.
There's a concept called "friction circle" that says (briefly) that you can ask your tires to either do really hard cornering, or really hard acceleration/braking. But not at the same time.
Here's where a nonmechanical mod will provide the biggest and earliest improvements - it's about the driver learning how to use as much grip as the tires can provide without asking them to do more than is physically possible. It's about driving a good line through each corner (not just "staying on the pavement" or "in my lane") and gaining an awareness of what's actually happening between the tires and the pavement. Takes practice, lots of it.
Norm
