I followed a thread of yours that you posted in January about Tubular "K" Members & tube lower control arms.
I was planning on buying a k member from Performance Automotive (the carbon steel version, not the chrome moly one) and I was going to call P A and get advice on which LCA's they recomended , Coil over or the other style "my mind went blank and I can't remember what they call it".
I have the tpi engine out of my 89 Iroc and I'm getting ready to install the carb fed 427 Smallblock that I have built & I'm going to upgrade the front end in the process.
It will see more way more street use than strip & I'd appreciate it if you would share with me the pro's & cons of which avenue would be best for my application.
I was under the impression that you were going to be getting in contact with some different manufactures & I like to know what your findings were.
I'd reallly appreciate any help or advice you could give me.

Thanks, Bruce (70GTO)

 

Check www.thirdgen.org , he hangs out over there most of the time............

 

Jeff also hangs out in the Michigan section alot too.You might want to put up a post in there as well.

James

 

Thanks for the info Guys! I'll try & send this thread to his email address.

Bruce (70GTO)

 

Jeff stopped by the house the other night. He said he was having a little problem with the struts not going thru the coilovers correctly. There was a slight rub. he has not had a chance to drive the car as it was done about 5 min before AutoRama show. He was pretty tired because he was working on it 18 hours a days for about 3 weeks. I am sure he will turn up here after he gets some rest. Bruce send him a PM and he will reply. Check out his webpage in the readers rides. it's a 91 and is listed under you have got to check out this car. The last 2 pages is the new mods and you can see his car in the show. Make sure to vote on his car also. It looks so sweet.

 

Chris Ja,

Thanks for the update, I tried to send the thread to him Via email, but it was returned to me. I'm not in that much of a hurry, since I've got a few more weeks of house remodeling to finish before I can start back on the Iroc. I'm just trying to get my homework finished so when the time to get the parts arrives, Iwill know what I want & need so I get the right ones the first time.

Thanks, Bruce (70GTO)

 

sorry i haven't replied..........haven't had much time lately.

i made some calls to just about any manufacturer i could (pa racing, roadtech, anthony jones, etc) and i ended up going with the pa racing unit. i went chromoly only because their version of chromoly was a heavier grade then most and still lighter than the average mild steel piece. so i could keep the strength up for a daily driven car, yet have the advantages of the piece which was the whole reason in the first place.

i really liked the roadtech version but after using them on various 4thgen models i found that the extra room "i" needed wasn't available....while their unit has more bracing then most it is heavier and sacrifices room with the extra bracing. for a street/occasional strip use i don't care for it. that and the people at roadtech in general aren't worth dealing with.

anthony jones makes a beautiful unit as well, however it is rather expensive......they aren't as known for the thirdgen units, but they do make some beautiful pieces. you will definately hear more about them in the near future as they expand.

there are a few other companies as well that make pieces out there, however i have no personal experience with them. i went with the pa racing chromoly k-member and tubular a-arms with the coilover setup and i'm quite happy with it. mainly because i've seen them used on other thirdgens without any problems.

i do have some current issues with keeping my existing bilstein struts however. the sleeve for their coilover kit is only 2.200ths in size where as my bilsteins need a diamerter of 2.400ths to work. unfortunately my car is resting on the stock struts at the time until i can figure out a way to build or buy a larger sleeve. while this is an inconvienience it isn't something some koni's or kyb's couldn't cure.....but, i'd like to keep my current struts.

the room of this piece is excellent, i can easily do all sorts of under hood work now that i could have only dreamed of in the past. i also lost 21lbs on the k-member and 16lbs between the old a arms and the new ones. not only is it lighter but it looks really good.

email me if you have any more questions.....

 

Jeff,

Thanks alot for the very informative as well as time consuming response. You can take as much time as you like to respond, but I do have a few more ?????
I think I will Go with the Chromemoly K Member, since this is just my toy and not my daily driver that I must depend on. Is there any way you could send me a picture or two of the coil over style???
To be honest with you I am familiar with how the stock 3rd generations are made, but I really dont know what is so different about a coil over "unless it's like the Mcpherson Style on my 95 Camaro with the exception of having the upper control arm Vs,. a tower. It would be great if you could clear this up for me.

Thanks for everything, Bruce

 

i will have detailed pictures of the underside within the next few weeks.

alot of people told me that chromoly is brittle and it can break under heavy stress or "street" driving...these were the same people that told me you can't use wheel adapters on the street. there are plenty of versions out there and some are weaker than others. much like anything you have to look into it yourself and get the facts. i have yet to find anyone with a chromoly setup of any sort show problems like so many described when used properly. most have been through clear mis-use. anything will break eventually when not used properly.

i found that the grade of chromoly that is used on the majority of setups available for our cars is thicker or as thick than some mild steel applications. it more or less came down to price. the grade used on the pa version that i have is used in plenty of abusive applications throughout all types of racing as well as in military applications. while i wouldn't recommend jumping ditches with the car, for your use and the majority of others on here i wouldn't worry. just be sure to ask the manufacturer what grade they use and what they recommend for your situation.

the coilover "style" basically is a k-member minus the spring perches....you still have the same motor mount location but now you have all that much needed room without the spring perches in the way. while this isn't necessary for others it helped out greatly in what i was trying to achieve. i needed the extra room for headers and the reduced weight and great looks were an added bonus.

a coilover setup keeps the stock strut location.....it uses a sleeve that slides over the top of the strut along with a narrow coil spring that sits on the base of the sleeve.

there are threads on this sleeve that allow you to adjust the base of the spring for height adjustment. some kits use a little tool that will allow for adjustments on the fly while others require you to jack the car up releaving tension and then you can manual adjust the spring by hand. the one that came with my kit has both. it really doesn't matter what you have as typically it's adjusted once and never again unless you were racing alot.

there is a bracket that is placed at the top where the strut meets the "shock tower" which helps to distribute weight. there are no upper control arms......the setup looks almost identical to stock except that you now have a thin tubular k-member and thin tubular a-arms. the a-arms keep the stock dimensions in a form of a triangle but you have all that open center space.

let me know if this covers it.........you might want to email me to get a quicker response.

jeff