just wondering if anyone has had some experience with the front monospring conversion kits. I'm thinking I may put one in this winter and am curious to get some feedback from some who have already done this.
Thanks

 

I installed the VBP front monospring conversion, with their upper and lower control arms, on my '66 several years ago. Although it is adjustable, it is still quite a bit stiffer than stock. The lower control arm pivot bolts tend to loosen up, so I keep an eye on them. Not an issue if you install just the monospring conversion on the stock control arms.

 

I run the VBP monospring in the fron and the dual mount monospring in the rear.

Im very pleased with the setup and its very nice to have an adjustable rideheight and adjustable stiffness in 4 steps both front and rear.

However, the balljoints in the VBP kit are quite useless, i had to replace mine after just one year..

//Ricky.

 

Thanks
I'm thinking this may be a winter project along with steeroids....that should be an improvement

 

I have VBP front monospring. It came with the Performance Plus kit with Bilstein Sport shocks. The ride is stiff, but the performance is excellent. Easy ride height and firmness setting for the front and rear.

 

I think the VBP kit is the way I'm going to go....that seems to be the most complete kit I can find.

 

Have you considered other options?

I had the Vette Brakes 550# front coils with good shocks for years and I called them up about their transverse mono leaf kit. The person that I talked to said that it was wimpy cruiser orientated max spring rate 420# pound mono leaf. So it would have more body roll turning and more inches of front end dive while braking.

I wanted adjustable ride height and I pieced together the QA-1 dual adjust semi coil overs with Speed Directs 600# springs for the street and 700# for track days.

They come in 50# increments

 

This is the response that I got from VBP a while back about the front transverse spring and the rear dual mount spring.


Hi Mike,

Thanks for your interest in our products. The slightly shorter rear spring is popular for tire clearance. The Springs are rate tested here after they are made. We test them by clamping at the middle, then flexing the tips in 1” increments. Of course, when they are mounted on the car, they mount at two points, so the test numbers don’t exactly apply. The test rates do give us a good idea if the Spring is a normal rating for the car, or a little high or low. The front transverse leaf (TVL) Spring actually tests at anywhere from about 630 to 700 pounds per inch. Most come out of the mold at around 650. Once this is on the car, the “feels like” rating on the four settings is more like 450, 500, 550 or 600 pounds per inch. If you tell us the car will have a big block cast iron engine, or will be raced, we can select a slightly higher rate. We usually have a number to choose from. We write the test rating on every Spring with a paint marker pen. Every Spring gets assigned a serial number. We keep a record of the date is was made and all the details. If the 1980 is a normal weight car, or a little lighter, we will select an appropriate rate Spring. In the rear, the aluminum dual mount bracket actually has six settings that you can adjust in the field. The “feels like” rates are about 300, 325, 350, 375, 400 and 425 pounds per inch. The two mounts in the rear are at a different width spacing than the front. The front and rear Springs are from totally different molds. The rear Spring (RDM) actually only static tests at 260 pounds per inch, or so.

Hope this information helps you out some. This package is on our Internet Forum Member Sale, if you are interested. Give us a call or email anytime if you have any further technical questions.

Sincerely,
Gary G.
VBandP
Tech Team

 

Thats what i got from VBP to.

Im doing trackdays with the second to stiffest setting on the spring (550) and theres no "wimpy roll" noted in the car.

I have Bilstein Sports and a 1-1/8" rollbar in the front end.

//Ricky.

 

What setting do you run for the rear spring?

 

I run the same second to stiffest setting for the rear spring.

With the swaybar i got in the rear the and these settings the car overstears a lot with the BFG street tires mounted, but with the 255-50-16 Toyo R-888 the car is just so controllable.
A bit of understeering going in the corners, meeting up wit the throttle and a controled over steering out of the corners.

Its definetly a totally different car then it was 4 years ago.

 

Hey George

Is there any issue with coilovers as far as mounting them where typically only a shock would be?

The upper spring pocket seems to be a no brainer. However, the lower pocket is a bit odd to me. All the weight is bearing down on the 2 tabs that were only meant to hold up to the shock absorber working it.

Whereas the pocket of the lower control arm was really designed to bear the full circumference of the spring not just the two tabs of the shock mount? So with the coil overs it seems that what was originally meant to support only the shock stresses is now being asked to hold up to full spring pressure on the shock tabs instead of the full lower pocket. I hope what I am asking makes sense?

 

I like this style set up
Do you have any flex or broken bolts on that lower control arm, where the shock bolts in? Whenever I see this style shock and spring combo, its always bolted to an aftermarket tubular control arm.

 

I have not has any issues and I'm sure that my street driving and track driving with 295mm front slicks would have stressed them more than most people could. Our a-arms seem to be thick enough good steel and the base of QA-1 has a larger footprint to spread out the weight. I considered welding in a ring to strengthen the A-arm and I said screw it if they screw up and i see a crack, I will then fix it better. I think that I have had them on for 4-5 years now with big slicks and a 434 hot rod motor

New rotors for race day

 

Considering how you use your car, its a testament to the strength of the control arm material.

I was thinking that the designers would have added some type of adapter to place in the pocket when using the coilovers to distribute the load. But again, it seems to work fine especially under extreme use conditions like yours.

 

Ya, 700# springs and hitting then hoping off of the turns rumble cement strips going around a race track at way over 130 mph is more TQ than 1000's of miles on the street

 

As said above, that's a good enough test for me! After 4 or 5 years of hard driving a stress crack would of shown by now unless you only drive it once a month