..... Here you go gentlemen ... to all who requested a pic of the suspension loaded ... this is the latest setting for Instant Center ... my calculations have it @ 41" forward of the rear axle 11" above the floor and within 2" of the anti-squat line (under) .....

 

Something neat about red wheels up C4s huh Robert?

 

..... You know it Willie ! ... Wheelstands are the coolest ... especially when its an old anemic C4 ... it surprises most people because they just don't expect to see a wheelie launch from old tech ... I loved doing 'em until they got too high for comfort ... scary ...

 

It definitely surprises a lot of spectators. Mine never got as high as yours. I was using the cheepo Lakewood 90/10 shocks like I believe you are running now. As soon as I changed to the revalved Afco, I'm only up a few inches and the car spends it's energy moving forward rather than upwards. Doesn't look as good though. I think Will (recklessdriver) holds the bumperstand record. With the extension of your shocks limited, you don't have much cushion when your car bottoms out and your parts start breaking.

 

..... Willie , Do you know what your instant center is ? I know that at least one of the solid axle "kits" has fixed forward mounting points for the bars with no adjustability like mine has ... current shocks are Competition Engineering - collapse and count the clicks , 3 way adjustables ... on the 60/40 setting ... I have a pair of Afco's on the way , I found some new ones on Speedway's garage sale tab and saved a few bucks ... I read where you had yours re-valved ? ...
..... These frame brackets are from a Rod & Racecraft kit ... there are extensions welded to the factory brackets with fixed mounts for the link bars .....



..... Found some Wheelie damage to the oil pan yesterday ... I had a diaper on the engine and while there was some minor rub through damage to the engine's assbag , l wasn't expecting this ... Champ pan handled it like a Champ with no leaks even after l pounded/pressed out some of the deformation .....

 

Hi Robert. Gotta watch those oil pans. I have a 3 link rear end. I have a transmission mount and a torque arm similar to an F body along with lower arm. I have an antiroll bar to keep the car level. The arms have quite a few adjustments and once I dialed it in, I haven't had to touch it. I'm not sure what my IC is. My front shocks are Afco double adjustable revalved my MP motorsports. Here are some pics. I just had my heads freshened up and am buttoning up the front of the motor at this time.

 

..... That 3rd Gen torque arm is basically a long ladder bar ... the lower links are trailing arms ... your I/C is the forward mount for the torque arm ... That's a ton of rear brakes there ! ... Rossler designed a trans brake for the 4L60E but it took a second or so to activate after you pushed the button which meant that you couldn't slow stage ... had to get in there quickly and hope your opponent wasn't aware ... I have a 4L60E on the floor that has one of his brakes in it along with most every known internal trick part available when it was built ... I'm running a TH400 now and couldn't be happier ... Your car performs well ! So does the driver ! ... Good Luck in 2022 and beyond .....
..... This is a pic of my frame brackets for the 4 link and the axle brackets ... The rear housing , axles , and brakes were from Moser , I paid them to weld it all together to my dimensions and specs ... total cost shipped was $2400 ... beyond that you need a diff , driveshaft , shocks , frame brackets , and link and panhard bars and lots of misc bracketry and hardware ... approx $3000 worth .....

 

Do you have the frame brackets bolted in the stock locations? What is your top bar length? I viewed the video you linked earlier, really interesting the difference running a shorter top bar makes.

 

..... Yes , plus an additional bolt at the bottom ... when I drilled the holes in the brackets , I off-set the brackets toward the center of the car as far as l could leaving just enough room to get a socket on the head of the bolt ... it wasn't much but every little bit helps for tire clearance ... the top bar is 13 1/4" bolt center to bolt center in the current location ... the bottom bar is 17 3/8" long ... this keeps the rear axle fairly centered in the wheelwell just slightly offset to the rear ... again , for as much tire clearance as possible ... if you have ever watched the tire growth and distortion on NHRA Top fuel cars , you'll understand why a lot of clearance is needed for slicks ... not so much for radials ... pinion angle is set at 2.5 degrees ... this is also accomplished by adjusting the link bars .....

 

Thanks for that information. It looks like everyone that runs a solid rear has a different setup but they also look to be working well.
Soon I will be installing one in my 86 and im trying to gain all the information I can. The rear is from an 04 S-10 Blazer 2wd, its an 8.5/8.6 gear, 54.5" axle to axle with factory discs.

 

..... That's pretty narrow , you will likely need wheels with negative backspace ... the stock S10 rear is about on par with Dana 36 strength-wise ... go get an 8.8 out of a Ford Exploder ... most come from the factory with 3.73 gears and a lot of them have limited slip diffs ... all info is on a tag on the rear cover ... stronger than D44 and will bolt in to an S10 ... the tough part is finding axle brackets for the 3 1/4" tubes .....

 

About 8" narrower if im figuring right, i am planning on some deeper offsets. The rear I have isn't the regular 7.5" S-10 rear. Its actually the same as a second gen f-body 8.5 except it has 30 spline axles instead of the 28s. They are kinda rare and hard to find now, I watched for one for over a year. It has a Yukon posi and 3.73s. The pinion on these rears are the same size as the 12 bolts. Planning on using an automatic and foot brake so it should live, those Camaro guys beat the crap outta them.

 

Thanks Robert. Our 1/4 mile racing at Sonoma starts in April. 1/8 mile starts tomorrow but I'll sit those out until next month. Last 1/8th mile race I ran, I launched, looked in my mirror the see where my opponent was and saw him at my door as I crossed the finish with a breakout. Ugh. I was contemplating having Rossler include their transbrake in my 4l60e but decided to stay with the footbrake, hence the double Strange binders. I just had my tranny looked at after 8 years and well over a thousand runs. The band and clutches were cherry. Just the override clutches needed to be replaced. I spoke with Carl Rossler and he said they don't service these trannies any longer and no longer supply their custom machined larger 3/4 clutches. Good thing mine were fine. The only issue I had is during my second year I broke a hardened input shaft and replaced it with one of Rosslers billet units. Other than that, like yours, it has all the performance upgrades available. Your 400 should be bulletproof. Are you foot braking or transbraking? I have noticed your timeslips over the past couple of years and you are are a beast out there. It would be great to run our cars next to each other. What a photo op! Good luck to you. Willie

 

..... I was footbraking it while the IRS was under the car ... it took a couple of months to sort out the 4 link and solid axle ... the car wanted to go right because of the axle's "torque twist" lifting the right rear tire ... shock settings and a little pre-load cured that ... then I started using the trans brake ... quite a difference launching the car ... it took a while to home in on the 2-step settings , I'm currently launching around 23-2600 RPM ... then l tried different T.B. buttons and different mounting points on the dash ... wound up with a B&M mushroom button on the steering wheel and I'm getting more consistent with that ... one of the best torque and power moves was when I sealed the throttle body to the hood keeping the heat out and opened up the cowl area for intake air ... right now I'm experimenting with an air dam/deflector on the windshield to help pressurize the intake ... C4 windshields are "raked" a lot for aero and don't push quite as much air ... I'd love to match race you Willie ... too bad we're on opposite ends of the continent !
..... This is hard to see but its clear plastic angle material (corner guards for doorways sold at Home Depot) gorilla taped to the windshield with some 1/16" SS wire rope as a tether ... MPH picked up about 7 tenths and ET was up about 7 hundredths ... The cooler cowl air and radial slicks is what helped get the front end way up off the line and improved the 60' by about 5 hundredths

 

..... The first step towards reducing wheelies .....

 

..... This is less about reducing wheelies and more about being prepared for the landing ... skid plate made from 5/8" thick aluminum bolted to the cossmember .....

 

..... This is the 2nd step toward reducing excessive wheel stands ... 65# of tool steel bolted between the frame rails .....

 

I like this idea, did you put any rubber between it and the crossmember. Hopefully with all the changes you're making you wont need it now. Made me think of a guy back in the 70s that had a Mustang. He welded a steel caster wheel on his crossmember.

 

Just so you know.... the bottom center area of the front crossmember will fold upward like tin foil. Its massive size wise but not very heavily built. I think you bolting to the front which is stronger will help some.....

Mine crossmember is folded up on the bottom something terrible. Since I don't have the leafspring anymore, I have a piece of 2x3 filled with lead (25lbs) bolted inside of mine. I have an identical piece of ballast bolted to the bottom acting as a skid..... it actually pushed the inner ballast piece into the bottom of the top plate of the crossmember and caused it to bow up enough to make contact with the harmonic damper and the steeding rack to hit the drive mandrel. You can kinda see how bad my crossmember is after last week's race.



Worst part.... I just put a brand new ATI damper on the engine this winter too..... its its all chewed up now...lol.
Will

 

..... Will , that doesn't even resemble the factory cross member anymore ... you really smashed that thing ! ... I hope to find out this week just how much (or how little) the mods to the front end of the car will help ... SFG bracket race at Bradenton for their 2022 season kick-off ... unfortunately , the weather forecast isn't too promising ! ... Thursday is registration and a track hosted TnT ... Racing for 25K each day starting Friday , then Saturday and another on Sunday ... limited to 375 cars ... door cars and dragsters run separate until they can't ... Too bad about that dampener ! There definitely isn't much metal in the crossmember ... mine was deformed from jacking the car up so I bolted a piece of angle iron to the back side where the support struts that angled back to the frame rails were attached and it gave me something solid to use for jacking the front end up since I was now using the vertical part of the member .....