The next step in the process was the rear suspension and drivetrain. I did not want to alter the suspension. It has worked very well for many years. The car really plants the rear tire on launch. It carries the front wheels though first and second gear. I completely removed the rear end, sanded and painted all the components. I replaced all the hardware with Grade 8 bolts, nuts and chrome moly rod ends. The QA-1 adjustable shocks replaced the outdated but adjustable shocks. Reducing the rotating weight was a primary objective. My dad was running the car with the original drum brakes. Disk brakes would really decrease the rotating weight in the rear. Moser axels were chosen with gun drilling, star flanging and titanium studs. Weld alumastar wheels, lightened ring gear with Supra-fin finishing process, titanium pinion, and Mark Williams’s aluminum drive shaft round out the weight reduction. The pinion support is by Lamb and has a low friction roller bearing. A total of 50 pounds of rotating weight was removed in the rear end. There is a lot of speculation about performance improvement with rotating weight reduction; a mild estimate is 1 pound of rotating weight is 3-4 pounds of static weight. The center section remained; we found that in a junkyard when I was about 13. They are very hard to find but the N center section was produced in some early model Ford trucks. The rear already had a Moser steel 33-spline spool, which remained. My Dad did the rear suspension in the early 70’s. Back then the rules required the leaf springs to remain. They were moved inboard to allow wider tires. The tires are 31.5 X 13 X 15. The wheels are 15 X 10. Hope you guys are enjoying the posts, Ashton
WOW, that is very nice!! Looks like you are doing all the right stuff and I appreciate you sharing it with us!!
Man that looks good in the pics.....but definitely a sight to behold.......I say again, he is doing it right! Thanks Ashton.....very nice step by step, detailed work there ole buddy.
I'm curious as to why you mounted the shocks in front of the rear end. Is it because of the class rules? I've always heard that it's best to mount them behind the rear end, is there any truth to this?
reply The shocks were mounted to the ladder bar to maintain the stock upper mount. I think that was the rule at the time. Now you can use any rear suspension you would like barring a complete back half. The housing is full floater type. If you remove the ladder bars the housing 360 degrees on the leaf springs. To accomplish this he used a section of pipe with ID of pipe equal to OD of housing. He cut the pipe in half and welded bottom section of pipe to Original spring perch. He placed a zerk fitting in the top half for lubrication. The unit is held together with 2 u-bolts that are bolted to the leaf spring via the steel square bracket beneath the leaf spring. Thanks for the comments, Ashton
I am looking forward to SS 105 & 106 when we start talking motor! And 108 & 109 when we start wiring that freakin' airplane. GREAT STUFF!
Thats a relly clean looking installation. Couldn't you have gone to a Strange or Mark Williams carrier instead of the 'N' case for more weight reduction? If I might ask, where did you buy your braided brake lines? drag on man!
Brake lines I wanted to reduce rotating weight as much as possible. The car has to weigh 3100 pounds for the class. The brake lines are from EARL, they have several different lengths with straight and 90 ends, they are -3 lines, use an adapter to go from 5/16 hard line to -3 line.
