COILOVER CONVERSION QUESTION

[prodart340]

 cisco thanks for the pic,,,,,,,gears are turning,,,,

[montanamopar]

addco now makes an adapter for the top coilover stud to a crossbolt, I saw it in a mag

[Ciscodog]

Addco or AFCO?

[montanamopar]

AFCO P/N 20146 for a gm f body trying to get specs to see if it will work Ill let you know

[tpits1]

since were in the topic of coil overs any one uses QA1 coil over shocks on the rear of there car and if so do you have to chance the shock plate to a different size basically are they worth the money?? Cheers

[Dartari]

Call Cap they sell tubular lower control arms setup for coilover conversion.

[MyCreation68]

Call Cap they sell tubular lower control arms setup for coilover conversion.

I wouldn't buy those lower control arms their pretty scary looking ar as I'm concerned.

[Ciscodog]

Call Cap they sell tubular lower control arms setup for coilover conversion.

I wouldn't buy anything from him either.  He stole the design for the steering arms for his front end from another member here.  Not a cool move at all.  Who brought up LCA's anyway?  Why would you want to switch? 

[MyCreation68]

Call Cap they sell tubular lower control arms setup for coilover conversion.

I wouldn't buy anything from him either.  He stole the design for the steering arms for his front end from another member here.  Not a cool move at all.  Who brought up LCA's anyway?  Why would you want to switch? 

I'm guessing it was mentioned because their already prepped for coil overs. Personally I'd rather weld on my control arms then go with something that looks:
A) as ugly
B) As Flimsy

as this design:

Personally it looks like somebody lopped off the end of a factory arm and just welded a tube to it

[thecarfarmer]

For anyone who hasn't seen a torsion bar break, try switching 'em side-to-side.

Worked for my friend Philip...   

-bill

[MyCreation68]

The air ride shocks don't fit. You can do a little grinding and fit a set of the rear shockwaves in there - which is basically the "kit" air ride sells for E-bodies, but they wont hold the car up alone, you have to keep the t-bars and use them as a helper. Not the best arrangement...

Hey bill sorry to bring this up again but why do you figure the bags can't hold the car up? I've seen air bags hold up heavier impala's and chryslers so I'm not quite understanding why I couldn't use some bags to hold up the dart?

[Bill_Reilly]

It's the size. Pounds per square inch X the surface area of the end dictates how much weight it will hold up. The shockwaves that physically fit in the front aren't big enough to support the weight. We  use the 1000's on the front of the alterk and they hold the car up fine, but even with our system, the 8" diameter bags limit wheel travel to 4.5", because of fitment - although this is the common wheel travel for most air ride systems, I'd rather see more for a better ride quality. Keep in mind, if it's a shockwave, you need a bigger size bag to work because with the shock in the middle you're losing surface area and hence, capacity. If it's just a bag with an outside shock elsewhere, a smaller bag would work. Either way, you'll have to do some frame reconstruction in the front to fit the parts.
  Another thing to think about when looking at the bags, we've found that once you go over about 70psi-80psi, the ride gets rough and bouncy, so choose a bag that will do the job with less than 70psi. Since the bag is inboard on the control arm(motion ratio), a good rule of thumb is that you have to support 35% more weight than is at the wheel. With the average A-body having 800-900lbs per front wheel, you'll need to get a bag that will support around 1200lbs....again, at that magic 70psi.
Once you find a bag with that capacity, you can check the dimensions of it against the amount of actual space you have in the car.

I will say, most often, all the calculating isn't needed and we all just get a kit with a certain bag in it, but thats because the applications have lots of room so the physical size doesn't matter. Like trucks - all the room in the world. But in the mopar car front suspensions, you want the smallest possible that will work, just to minimize the amount of cutting you'll have to do in sensitive areas.

[MyCreation68]

It's the size. Pounds per square inch X the surface area of the end dictates how much weight it will hold up. The shockwaves that physically fit in the front aren't big enough to support the weight. We  use the 1000's on the front of the alterk and they hold the car up fine, but even with our system, the 8" diameter bags limit wheel travel to 4.5", because of fitment - although this is the common wheel travel for most air ride systems, I'd rather see more for a better ride quality. Keep in mind, if it's a shockwave, you need a bigger size bag to work because with the shock in the middle you're losing surface area and hence, capacity. If it's just a bag with an outside shock elsewhere, a smaller bag would work. Either way, you'll have to do some frame reconstruction in the front to fit the parts.
  Another thing to think about when looking at the bags, we've found that once you go over about 70psi-80psi, the ride gets rough and bouncy, so choose a bag that will do the job with less than 70psi. Since the bag is inboard on the control arm(motion ratio), a good rule of thumb is that you have to support 35% more weight than is at the wheel. With the average A-body having 800-900lbs per front wheel, you'll need to get a bag that will support around 1200lbs....again, at that magic 70psi.
Once you find a bag with that capacity, you can check the dimensions of it against the amount of actual space you have in the car.

I will say, most often, all the calculating isn't needed and we all just get a kit with a certain bag in it, but thats because the applications have lots of room so the physical size doesn't matter. Like trucks - all the room in the world. But in the mopar car front suspensions, you want the smallest possible that will work, just to minimize the amount of cutting you'll have to do in sensitive areas.

Thanks for the reply bill I'll have to look into this more I'd really like to be able to set the car down on the frame for security reasons and I think air bags would be the best way, plus It'd be nice for handling because I could always dial in the settings I need.

[MyCreation68]

ok I found a company that says they can build airbags to your specs(airbagit.com) so I may look into it a bit more with them and toss some questions their way. I assume I need a bag that is capable of lifting the car 5" from the frame being completely bottomed out so I figure maybe my best option for that is to take my fenders off when the car gets home and remove the shocks and torsion bars and drop the car right down to the frame and take some initial measurements until I can get the right wheel and tire combo which I'm going to assume I'll likely have to run a tire in the front smaller then 25" in diameter. I'm thinking and figuring and I think I can do it and do it right it's just going to take getting the car here and basically dropping the car on the frame and measureing were and how much clearence, how high everything will have to tuck etc. etc. etc. But like I said before you can't steal the damn car if you can't get your tow truck under it or get it on a flat deck if you can't get the car off the ground so it's worth the figuring and work to me.

EDIT: I've been thinking about this whole suspension issue and I was thinking what If I took the same double convoluted(sp?) bag that I'd be using on the rear to achieve the ride height at say 50 psi that I want and welded a mount to the upper control arm and make some bracing for the bottom of the inner fender. I was thinking of adding a shock mount to the upper control arm to just to have everything up out of the way. My inner fenders are rusted anyways so I could always slightly modify them to fit the bags well and adjust the position of the shocks. I would think that should give me the required movement to drop the car to the ground and lift it up to a decent ride height.

[MyCreation68]

I got an email from airbagit.com in response to mine and they figure I need a 2600 lb bag on all 4 corners which measures 7.25" in dia. I'm looking into how hard it would be to install on the upper control arm instead and relocating my shock up there.