I installed a transverse conversion on my 80 TA last fall and thought I would share my findings here. I registered on this board to learn as much as I could about the conversion on the C3 as it is real similar to the f-body conversion. I also have found that this was a good place to learn about transverse springs in general. I felt others may be able to learn from my experiences.

Prior to the swap I had read many reviews that stated awesome handling but poor ride quality. Most people also reported "bounciness", "pogo ing", and other similar terms.

I was drawn to the system due to the weight savings and the awesome handling. I figured that if it works so well on the later vettes there was no reason I couldn't get it to work the same on mine. I also figured that with such a weight saving on unsprung weight alongwith some other unsprung weight savings I had done, there was no reason I could not get a ride better than expected for a 2nd gen f body.

I started off with Edelbrock IAS shocks and found that they were too long. When I ran the suspension through its range of motion, the shock would bottom long before the jounce bumper got near the frame. I placed some spacers between the shock and the arm to get some more travel and ran this way for a while. Ride was pretty well aweful. You could feel the shock bottom out. The Edelbrock shocks could not control the spring either and the car was extremely bouncy.

I pass this one as I would encourage anyone who feels their car is rough riding to check suspension travel. Had I not, I would never have found that the shock was too long. There is nothing wrong with the VBP system, it is just a by product of the new arm and different mounting point. While I was checking things, I found that the shock was perfectly level with the car at its ride height which I was very happy to find.

At this point I was starting to fear the worst and felt that the other reviewers may have been right.

I found that 69 Camaro shocks were the right length and most people recommended the Hotchkis Bilsteins. I used these and when I checked suspension travel, the arm would bottom before the shock. Great news there.

Driving the car was much better now and handling was very good. It still was very bouncy under certain circumstances. I could have lived with it and been mostly happy.

I started looking at other options and gave the Alston Varishocks a try. The shocks I got are double adjustable and would not fit through the bottom of the arm. The varishocks come with a three piece lower T-bar. According to their instructions you can mount the T-bar on top or below the arm. I wanted to mount it below as it put the shock closest to the middle of its travel with the car at ride height.

To do this, I had to put the stem through the frame and then pull the shock down through the arm. With the bottom of the shock below the arm, I then assembled the T-bar and bolted it to the arm. The adjustment ***** sit up plenty far and are easy to reach from behind the wheel. It does help to turn the wheel fully to one side to give you more room to reach behind.

I started off with a baseline of 3 C and 6 R. The ride was much better than the Bilsteins. I thought I would try softening the Compression to let the car soak up bumps better. This did not work and bumps hit the car harder. I started slowly adjusting compression and rebound and have settled on 5 C and 8 R for the time being. With these settings the car soaks up bumps as good or better than my 06 Taurus and 05 Crown Vic.

I actually find myself driving over bumps now to see how well the car soaks them up. The car still has a bit of bounce during large dips. I think 6 C and 9 R may take care of this. As it is now it rides far better than any stock 2nd gen I have ever driven.

The shocks have had a major affect on the handling as well. With the other shocks, the car was very tail happy. This suprised me as I figured it would understeer as I had added so much roll resistance to the front. It was so tail happy that I could not drive the car hard as it scared me.

Now that I have the shocks closer to optimum, the car is very balanced with a hint of understeer. It has a very nice, confidene inspiring "factory" feel to it.

Overall I am very pleased with the VBP system. It was well made and I love the ease of ride height and spring rate adjustments. The reduced weight was a nice plus as I found it much lighter than a coil over set up.

Hopefully some of my findings will help someone with a C3 conversion.

 

Great writeup. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us. Were did you get the Alston Varishocks?

Thanks Neal

 

I got mine from SC&C. Markus, posts on Pro-touring.com and Nastyz-28.com, was who I dealy with. He is great to talk with and I think we talked suspensions for almost an hour after my order was processed. They were running a sale last week when I bought them and the shocks were $239 each.

I think SC&C also has some parts for C3 vettes as well.

 

Thanks for the info

 

I just installed the same system and am waiting on the hubs to come back from Van Steel. I have the IAS shocks and was afraid they were too long. Looks like they have around 2" of travel as it currently sits on stands.

As for weight savings i weighed the old vs new and came up with just about 11lbs lighter, doesn't sound like much to me.

I also added vbp offset upper A-arms and they add 2lbs over stock.

 

Sounds about right. I had around 2 1/2 inches of shock travel and 5 1/4 inches of wheel travel.

What I did and worked well was to compress the arm as much as I could with a bottle jack and then run a tape from the bottom of the arm to the upper shock mount. Find a shock with a compressed length less than this and you are good to go.