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Old 06-24-2010, 09:58 PM
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Aussie Mike Aussie Mike is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Sunbury, VIC
Cobra Make, Engine: Rat Rod Racer, LS1 & T56
Posts: 5,391
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Hi John,

The Corvette stuff is nice. They have die cast aluminum front control arms which are strong, lightweight and look real nice too. I believe DRB use Corvette components in their GT40 chassis here in Australia.

Oz, The main problem with bespoke suspension for us is getting it through engineering. It's so much easier to just give the engineer a list of the components used and the cars they were sourced from and he doesn't have to worry about component failures etc.

It's a catch 22. The ideal is a suspension system designed for the vehicle but it's all too hard to get approved for the road.

I've taken the approach of replacing the components on an already engineered car. For my own piece of mind though I've over engineered everything. I've also got a friend in the mechanical engineering department of one of the local universities that I've had long discussions with. The rear arms are made from 0.120" wall 1.5" 4130 steel tube. While not as light weight as some race car stuff they are plenty strong (and significantly lighter than the cast steel Ford arms they replaced).

I'm working on front lower Jag replacement arms and these will be made from 1" 4130 Tube. The Upper arms I sourced from FFR and are billet adjustable jobbies. The FFR arms are great value for money BTW.

I've often thought if designing my own chassis that a strut front end would be a good option. So many cars these days are equipped with strut front ends and that's where the technology development is. There's a ton of different donors available and with the large amounts of grey import Japanese car parts coming in it's cheap. There's also a heaps of aftermarket shocks and springs, pillow blocks, bushes etc. Why clean up and restore a crappy old Jag or Torana front end when you could bolt in a couple of near new low mileage struts.

Food for thought.

Cheers
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Mike Murphy
Melbourne Australia


Last edited by Aussie Mike; 06-24-2010 at 10:07 PM..
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