Madspeed

So I have a front clip I bought to put in my 69 Camaro 15 years ago that sat. I need to know what the differences are between the upper arms lower arms and spindles. Are the wheel mounting faces the same distance? I already have custom made wheels 18X10 that fit what it is now. I have both spindles 84 and 87 up and do see that the lower arm must be longer as. Right now I have 84 uppers lowers and spindles. The reason I want to change is that the willwood brake kit is for the later 87-91?
So I want to use the spindles and lower arms to replace what I have so My brakes will work.
Thanks Ken

WVZR-1

C4 front spindles and control arms are '84 - '87 for fitment with just a couple minor differences and then '88+ with just a couple minor differences. There is a difference in the mounting face for the wheels 'hub face to hub face' for '87 and earlier or '88+. That dimension some times gets debated.

If you have a Wilwood package it's intended for either '88+ or for '87 and earlier.

Did you buy the Wilwood new? Part #'s?

I believe that some of the Wilwood kits can be done on '87 and earlier with adapters. If you believe your spindles are '84 the mount to the spindles is M12 hardware. '85 - '87 is M14 hardware and much preferred. Casting numbers from your spindles can be used to positively ID them.

'84 - '87 front is generally mentioned to be 59 1/2 and the '88+ 60 1/2 - That will generally suffice. I nearly always mention 'measure' to confirm but those numbers are from a quite reliable source.

http://www.flatout-engineering.com/F...l#question_one

What offset are your 18 X 10 wheels?

Madspeed

Im not good at forming proper sentences. Let me try to clarify my mess.

I put that I had Both early and late spindles. As I had custom made mounting brackets that look like **** for the 87 Down

I have late brake kit (88+) bought MANY years ago. Part numbers Umm no. 13" six piston Willwood kit for C4 88 up Its what was available at the time.

I have the complete early C4 suspension setup. Upper, lower arms and spindles.

I bought 88 up spindles thinking only difference was caliper mounting.

I need exacts for wheel fitment as I have 10" wide wheels on the front and there is absolutely NO room to move them.

Thanks a bazillion for the input
Ken
I would have to buy new custom wheels that are 800.00 each.

WVZR-1

Not necessarily - what is the offset of the wheels?

You can't mix '84 - '87 control arms with '88+ spindles.

Did you use the entire front suspension member or have a package that adapted the control arms to your Camaro front suspension member/sub-frame (whatever someone wants to call it these days.).

Madspeed

I do not have the offset handy they were built 15 years ago.
I Bought a Wayne Due front sub (clip) uses c4 stuff and mustang rack with corrected geometry to make the car corner like its on rails.
It is a complete custom made frame for the front of the car. I can no longer reach the man that made them as the city stuck their fng nose into his business and he decided to go back to farming. He was a suspension engineer at one time .

Ok If I lets try it this way. can you put in place all the 88 up from the arms out on a 84 ? and still have the wheels in the same place?

Madspeed

Looks like on tire rack 84 to 87 is somewhere in the 33mm to 38 mm ofset and the 88 up are 44mm to 56 mm Hmm....
Im gonna say My wheels would need spacers?
And now where would that put my wheel tire package in the fender ?

WVZR-1

Just measure and confirm what you have with no regard to 'spacers' etc. Just measure the back-spacing and the total wheel width. TWW for a 10" wheel should be something at or very near 11". I can do the off-sets for you. You know how to measure back-spacing?

I'll drop you a PM with an email address.

Madspeed

Ill do it right now. Yea Im pertty sure I can check the ofset. If it need spacers that would be the **** cause then I could use the 14 Z06 front brake kit I have left over fron another project that stalled

Madspeed

11" lip to lip 6.5" BS

WVZR-1

That's quite scary!!! 25.4 mm off-set!

11/2 = 5.5 6.5 - 5.5 = 1 X 25.4
Is the early front on the car now with spindles and hubs?

Those wheels fit in the wheel-house of your '69? Were they ever trial fit with the early Corvette suspension mounted? Is the car a 'roller'? Where are you located?

Madspeed

Yep they fit right now. and it turns full lock to lock and cycles to full ext comp lock to lock. Guys have squeeked in 11" wide rims up front. Look up Mark Stielow. Hes the Corvette Killer in a 69. He builds them and then builds a better one. hes built a lot of these cars. His latest version kills the ZL1 Camaro on a road course. He was a Gm engineer.
So then what is the difference in ofset of the 87 to 88? like 10 mm ish? That might put my Z06 brakes on if it pulls the hub face inboard and I need a spacer

Madspeed

bill mcdonald

I tried to read this and have no idea WTF is going on. Do you need spacers? Or do you need the newer corvette control arms to match your newer spindles?

MatthewMiller

Yep, older cars had a lot more scrub radius than newer ones. So a lot less offset. The early C4 to late C4 progression just continued that trend.

There weren't any 11" factory wheels from 84-87. Comparing 9.5" wheels, the 84-87 wheels had 38mm offset (6.7" backspacing), whereas the later ones all had 56mm offset (7.4" backspacing). The only 11" wheels that came OE on any C4s were the rear wheels on ZR1s and Grand Sports. The rears on a ZR1 had 36mm offset (7.4" backspacing, same as the 9.5" wheels), and the rears on the Grand Sport had 50mm offset (7.9" backspacing). FWIW, the Grand Sport 11" dimensions will fit an 88-96 regular C4 at all four corners.

So, if you want/need to stay close to 6.5" backspacing, you can run Grand Sport wheels with 1.4" spacer or ZR1 wheels with a 0.9" spacer (probably 1.5" and 1.0" inch are more easily available).

Going back to your original question about using the later control arms, the problem is we don't know how much of the offset differences between early and later C4s is due to control arm lengths vs different mounting points in the OE K-member and the differences in early and late spindle and hub dimensions. The wildcard in this is that I'm assuming your K-member is aftermarket, so we don't really know the mounting dimensions for the control arms. If the later arms you have will physically bolt up to your aftermarket K-member, then your best bet is to measure the difference between the early and late arms from pivot to ball joint center; then measure the difference between the early and late spindles of the distance between the hub surface and a line drawn between the centers of the upper and lower ball joint holes; add those differences together; and then use spacers of same thickness as that total measured difference.

Madspeed

Bill. What part are you having trouble understanding? It is VERY clear in the O/P What I have now What I want and why. Thank you for trying to help though =)

Matt. Thank you for the response but as I clearly stated I Have CUSTOM ONE OFF wheels made already to fit the setup that it is right now. Ill reiterate. It IS a 1984-1986 Chevrolet Corvette Front suspension components. 1 1984-1986 Corvette Upper control arms. 2 1984-1986 Corvette lower control arms 3 1984-1986 Corvette spinals. This is NOT a Corvette. It IS however a 1969 Camaro that has a CUSTOM MADE front frame that uses C4 parts.
The answer I need is
1 can you bolt on 1987-1991 a arms out onto a 1984-1986 corvette?
2 when done where will the wheel mounting flanges end up EXACTLY =)
Thank you fellas sorry for all the confusion

MatthewMiller

Understood, but the reason I included the specs for the OE wheels was to illustrate the difference in offset, as a good estimate for the difference in wheel mounting flange locations between early and late C4s.

I'm not sure anyone has tried bolting the later arms and spindles onto an early stock K-member. I believe actual upper arm castings are the same for early and later years, but the shafts that bolt to the frame have different hole spacing. So I believe you can use the uppers you already have.

On the lower arms, the obvious critical dimension is the spacing of the two mounting points on the frame. I don't know if they're the same between the two versions or not, and a quick search didn't turn up any dimensions. I'd be happy to measure on my 96, and you could compare to your early arms and your frame, if that would be helpful.

I doubt anyone is going to have that info for you. But again, you can figure it by measuring the later arms' length and the difference in spindle dimensions. I can try to measure the pivot-to-balljoint distance on my lower arms for you, but I don't know how accurate it will be on the car.

Madspeed

Matt, Thats EXACTLY what i am after. Measure the lower arms at the frame for me. I want o know if they will "bolt on" The lower arms are CHEAP. 17 bux each used. =)

As I seem to have been misread I am guilty I guess as well. I thought you were stating I would need to switch to the newer wheels.
Ive got over 5k In wheels and tires SOOO F that!

bill mcdonald

New dude is kind of a dick
Between arms





Outside of arms.

MatthewMiller

If you can also measure the length from a line through the pivot axis to the center of the ball joint it would be a lot more accurate than what I can get on the car.

bill mcdonald

Not easy at all to do with it off the car. This is not very accurate, missing one bushing on each arm. Gave it a shot






Doing various things, it looks more like 15 1/4 to 15 3/8

With the ball joint side up, it can be whatever since that moves around free.