Choosing Chassis Mods for Rods & Muscle Cars

 

Posted By John Katz, July 16, 2012 in Chassis & Suspension, E-News

From HotRodandRestoraiton.com

Back when today’s classic muscle cars were the baddest new arrivals at the local Dairy Whip, chassis upgrades consisted of dropped spindles, lowering blocks and, maybe, traction bars. Since then, we’ve seen the performance aftermarket move from heavy-duty springs, shocks and sway bars through bolt-on front and rear subframes to complete replacement chassis—all with increasing sophistication and with the end nowhere in sight.

Like so much else in the hot rod market, the demand for a more-sophisticated chassis is driven by the high levels of performance and refinement that folks can now buy right off the showroom floor.

“People love nostalgia but we’ve been spoiled by modern daily drivers that are really good cars,” said Jeff Schwartz, president of Schwartz Performance Inc. in Woodstock, Illinois. Even compared to what was available just a few years ago “a new Chevy Malibu or Ford Taurus handles amazingly well, so people who have a bought a collectible car, after they’ve had it for a while, they say, ‘Man, this isn’t what I thought it would be.’”

That’s your cue, of course, to offer your customers something better, so I surveyed the market not only to find out what’s available, but also who’s buying what parts for which cars.

Money for Muscle

The first thing I found out is that the real action in aftermarket chassis is happening mostly in the muscle car arena.
“The muscle car segment remains the most robust and promising,” said Bret Voelkel, president of RideTech in Jasper, Indiana. “We see the level of modification and investment in these cars taking the same path that street rods took in the early ’90s: extreme quality, lots of horsepower and lots of time invested for creature comforts.”

Mike Hawley, sales manager for Heidts Hot Rod Shop Inc. in Wauconda, Illinois, also reported “significant growth in the muscle car market, and in ’50s and ’60s pickups,” he said. “The Tri-Five market has always been strong but now this segment also wants better handling.”

Dave Kass, customer service lead for QA1 Precision Products in Lakeville, Minnesota, has “seen a growing interest in Pro-Touring ’60s and ’70s muscle cars,” he said. “It seems this trend has shifted the emphasis from straight-line performance to corner-carving and all-around superior handling. These new goals require a more-advanced overall suspension package than these cars once needed—including more-sophisticated shock absorbers. Adjustable shocks and tubular control arms help shave weight and allow these cars to corner smoother and more predictably.”

The G-Body Generation

Schwartz even sees “the street rod market declining, and muscle cars gaining momentum,” he said. “It’s the demographics, the age of the people who are buying and building cars.” And these young rodders are looking for an even higher level of performance. “We’re in a good time, when you can have a 1,000-horsepower twin-turbo street engine that you can drive every day,” Schwartz said.

On the other hand, these same younger buyers don’t want to spend as much buying a car to rebuild. “So instead of a rusted-out ’69 Camaro for $10,000–15,000,” they’ll spend $1,500–2,000 on a 1978–1988 Buick Regal or Chevrolet Monte Carlo. “They were 18 in ’84 when the Buick Grand National was new, or in ’83 when the Monte Carlo SS came out, and those are the cars they idolized,” Schwartz said.

Voelkel agreed.

“A growing number of hot rodders recognize the ’78–’88 GM G-bodies as tomorrow’s mainstream muscle cars,” he said. “They are stylish, available and affordable.”

Mild or Wild?
Of course, every customer has different expectations and a different budget. You’re not going to make many friends if you disappoint the former or seriously exceed the latter. The best way to avoid either is always to ask the right questions before you close the deal.

“The first question to ask the customer is, ‘What are you going to do with the car?’” Voelkel advised. “Components such as 14-inch brakes, triple-adjustable shocks, independent rearends and zoomy subframes all serve their purpose, but with simpler components and thoughtful modifications, the customer can likely go 95 percent as fast for 50 percent of the money. Our triple-adjustable shocks perform at the highest lever—and we think they are the coolest thing in the world—but they’re overkill for 95 percent of hot rodders who might run two autocrosses a year. A customer can buy single-adjustable shocks instead and invest the remaining $650 in tires, brakes or track-day fees.”

“The most-critical step is to determine the end goal of the project,” Kass agreed. “Is the car going to be a cruiser built for comfort, a weekend warrior to be driven hard or a full-out purpose-built race car?”

“Customers have to be brutally honest about their goals—and their pocketbooks,” added Brent VanDervort, president and founder of Fatman Fabrications in Charlotte, North Carolina. “With a limited budget, limited fabricating skills and a desire for reasonable performance, bolt-on upgrades make a lot of sense. You see this regularly with the typical resto-mod muscle car that has been modified with dropped spindles, bigger sway bars and disc brakes. For a very reasonable outlay of cash and time, one can get a very capable car. We proved that in the first Super Chevy Challenge with a ’70 Chevelle powered by an iron big block. With $3,260 worth of bolt-on parts, we ran in the middle of the pack, on street tires, against LS1-powered ’69 Camaros with custom IFS [and high-performance rubber] and we proved how viable the low-dollar approach can be. But that Chevelle would never be a contender for Muscle Car of the Year.

“Building a high-end competitive muscle car that can run and show with the best requires a different mindset, abilities and budget,” VanDervort continued. “In fact, the word ‘budget’ is best forgotten. The very latest drivetrain, suspension and body mod tricks will be required, but usability and affordability go away. There is a continuum from practical to radical that cannot be denied. At the extreme, these cars become as unattainable as a quarter-million-dollar ’32 Ford.”
Kass pointed out a common error.

“We see people ordering shocks, springs, rod ends and other suspension components well before the rest of the chassis is put together,” he said. “They select parts based on educated guesses and some rough measurements. It’s better to wait until the brackets are fabricated and the vehicle is assembled. This allows for accurate measurements of dimensions and weights, and saves the headache of a vehicle that does not sit or ride the way the customer intended.”

“Another key issue is to avoid mixing suspension components from different manufacturers,” Hawley added. “That’s just asking for fitment, performance and reliability problems. The last thing you want is to have to return parts because of incompatibility. Our products are designed to work as a system, so you are assured that everything fits and that you have access to service support from a single source throughout the build.”

This last can be particularly important because of production tolerances.

“It’s important to recognize that, even as they left the factory, no two cars were ever built exactly the same,” Hawley said. If a car has been crashed and rebuilt, critical dimensions may vary even further from the factory’s specification. Such variations can cause fitment problems for even the most carefully engineered aftermarket kits. “That’s where it really helps to have access to expert technicians with years of experience,” Hawley added. The result is “optimized customer satisfaction.”

“It is so, so important to make sure the suspension components you choose are compatible with each other,” Voelkel said. “This means more than just making sure they will bolt up together, it means making sure that the final combination achieves the suspension geometry goals that you intended. A good dealer who handles several different brands should know if the components a customer wants to use are truly compatible with each other. But, truly, the best way to do this is to buy a complete system from one manufacturer.”

Handling Hardware

Kass remarked that QA1 “has put a huge emphasis on new product development over the past year,” he said. “We’ve built a new fabrication shop next to our current facility in Lakeville, giving us a total of 60,000 square feet of manufacturing space. That’s allowed us to launch a full line of fabricated suspension components, including anti-hop bars, strut-tower braces, front and rear control arms, anti-roll bars, and more. These components are all designed to improve handling while saving weight. We’ve also developed a full line of direct bolt-in rear coil-over kits for many different makes and models. They allow ride-height adjustability with no major modification to the vehicle.”

Heidts’ Pro-G independent rear suspension won the Innovation Award at the 2011 Hotrod & Restoration Trade Show. The bolt-in kit, which includes upper and lower A-arms, a 9-inch center section with positraction, half-shafts with heavy-duty CV joints, inboard Wilwood brakes with 10.5-inch rotors, and fully adjustable coil overs, is available for 1967–1969 and 1970–1973 Camaros and Firebirds, 1962–1967 Novas, and 1964–1970 Mustangs. With subframe connectors, the assembly bolts up solidly to Heidts’ Pro-G front suspension system, which includes heavy-duty dual crossmembers, tubular control arms, Wilwood brakes, a power rack-and-pinion and, again, fully adjustable coil overs. The front-end kit bolts in to any early Camaro or Nova, according to Hawley, whereas early Mustangs require cutting and welding. The Pro-G system is engineered for up to 600 horsepower.

RideTech recently introduced a Tru Turn suspension system for 1977–1988 G-bodies, “to make them perform as well as they look,” said Voelkel. The package covers all of the G-body vehicles and includes springs, shocks, control arms and anti-roll bars for both ends of the chassis. “Our StrongArms control arms are jig-welded, powdercoated and engineered to improve suspension geometry,” Voelkel said. “Our impact-forged mono-tube shocks are available in fixed-valve, rebound-adjustable and triple-adjustable models. Tru Turn is completely bolt-on and compatible with coil overs or our Shockwave components. The kit even includes brackets to convert the rear suspension to coil overs or Shockwaves.”

Also new from RideTech is a Tru Turn system for 1964–1966 Mustangs.

Schwartz Performance builds engines and even complete cars, but lately has been promoting its line of full-length replacement chassis for both body-on-frame and unit-body cars from the classic muscle era, plus the GM G-bodies mentioned before. Sales, Jeff Schwartz reported, “have seen a good amount of growth.” The company offers 20 different chassis, mostly for GM vehicles, covering the 1962–1967 and 1968–1974 Nova (including related X-body variants), 1967–1969 and 1970–1981 Camaro and Firebird, 1964–1967 and 1968–1972 A-body, 1978–1988 G-body, Tri-Five Chevy, and 1947–1953 Chevy truck. Ford Mustangs from 1964–1973 are also covered, as are Mopar B-bodies (1968–1970) and E-bodies (1970–1974).

Schwartz also pointed out that there’s more variation among the various GM brands and models than you might think, and that his company’s chassis are engineered to accommodate these small but significant differences. “A Tempest is different from a Chevelle,” he offered as an example. “The frames are different in length, and the body mounts and bumper mounts are different.”

Such attention to detail makes installation as simple as possible. “For cars that came with a full frame, our chassis literally bolts in where the old frame used to be,” Schwartz said. “The frame rails are narrowed at the rear to clear 345mm tires and if you want that extra-wide rubber, you’ll have to mini-tub the rear wheel wells, but if the customer can live with smaller tires, no cutting is absolutely required. Even for GM unit-body cars that were built with bolt-on subframes (Nova, Camaro, Firebird), the Schwartz chassis is a direct bolt in, requiring at most the cutting of some brackets. With Mustangs and Mopars, of course, the front frame rails must be cut off, but no Schwartz chassis requires any cutting of the body floor.”

Another major feature, according to Schwartz, is serviceability.

“Our A-arms have needle bearings with grease fittings, and our wheel bearings are tapered rollers with a nut on them,” he said. “A lot of other shops use Corvette hubs and bearings, but if they have play in them, you can’t adjust them, you just throw them away.”

The Schwartz rear suspension is based on a GM triangulated four-link, but with a significant upgrade: Teflon-lined spherical rod ends at all attachment points, instead of urethane bushings, eliminate the binding that was built in to the factory original.

Schwartz’s “basic roller” includes the frame spindles, A-arms, four-link bars, a power rack-and-pinion and a rearend housing. Most customers will order the chassis with single-adjustable RideTech shocks and 13-inch, six-piston Wilwood brakes, according to Schwartz. “That setup gives you a smooth ride, with handling very much like a European luxury car,” he said.

Customers who race or autocross can step up to stiffer springs and triple-adjustable RideTech shocks with remote reservoirs.

Service With More Than a Smile
VanDervort expressed “surprise that many hot rodders wishing to upgrade their cars lack the basic mechanical skills to do even normal maintenance,” he said. “They often have more enthusiasm than experience. That makes the need for better instructions, more photos and real[ly] good tech support critical. Simply having people who can take orders by part number will not suffice, and the fact that installers are asking more questions of the manufacturers—rather than self-proclaimed experts on various web forums—reveals who can really support their products.”

If you’re selling to a DIY customer, make sure they have the installation instructions and that they read them “all the way through, a couple of times before beginning the job,” VanDervort said. “Most problems come from not reading the instructions.”

“Look at the manufacturer’s instructions prior to the actual installation,” Kass echoed. “This will give you an idea of how involved the installation will be and, most importantly, an idea of what tools you will need to complete the job. There is nothing worse than tearing something apart and then realizing you don’t have the appropriate tools to put it back together.”

Beyond the Bow Tie
Brent VanDervort of Fatman Fabrications presented a somewhat contrary view regarding the future direction of the hot rod market.

“The boom in muscle car resto-mods may be fading,” he said. “That always happens when a segment gets hot. Cars get better and demand rises, boosting prices along with costs.”

The growth area he believes “is going to be in other 1955–70 cars”—not muscle cars, and not Chevrolets—”for several reasons,” he said. “Compare the prices of a ’61 Chevy bubbletop and the same body style on a ’61 Olds or Buick. The other GM cars are still out there and still available for more reasonable prices.” At a show or cruise, “an unusual brand can get as much attention as an expensive build of a more desirable, but also more common, car,” he said. “Then there are all the Ford vehicles from ’55–’70 to consider.”

Any car from that era doesn’t have as many plastic parts as later cars, so “restoration techniques will be familiar to most hot rodders—many of whom grew up with cars of that era,” VanDervort said. “Since most of these cars came with more advanced ball-joint independent front suspension (rather than the two-part spindle/kingpin of earlier IFS cars) they can be more easily upgraded with bolt-on parts.”

Fatman Fabrications offers dropped, disc-brake-style spindles for many cars of that era.

“We’ve redesigned our dropped spindles for ’55–’68 Fords, so they can be used with more easily sourced calipers, rather than the Granada parts required by our earlier design,” VanDervort said. “We also cover Mercury and Thunderbird for the same range of years. For ’58–’60 Buicks, ’57–’60 Cadillacs, ’58–’62 Oldsmobiles and ’59–’62 Pontiacs we have a 2-inch dropped spindle that can accept rotors with either a 4-3⁄4-inch Chevy pattern (if the customer is changing the rear axle), or a 5-inch pattern (if the stock rear end is retained), and we are continuing to fill in that 1955–’70 range as sample cars become available.”