I've done some searching and am not coming up with any solid answers. I’m looking for a good street budget suspension for my ’67 that I am resto-modding. This car will be daily driven but will see some spirited driving. Don’t have any plans at this point to track it with any seriousness. I’d like to drop the car and improve handling and run 17s or 18s. Obviously I’ll need subframe connectors and the car already has discs brakes, plan on poly bushings all the way around. What I don’t know is if I should go for drop spindles or springs? What are good budget sway bars and rear leafs? Are control arms worth the money? Is there anything I’m missing?

Thanks guys!

 

depends on how low you want to drop, but i'd say go with lowering springs or coilovers in the front and multi leaf spring conversion. the front can drop pretty low with coilovers and the rear can be drop to about 2" with the multi leaf conversion. if you wanted one more inch, you could just ad a 1" block from autozone or kragen for about 30 bucks....i have drop spindles on mine, but it interferes with some wheels without the correct offset. the drop spindles are ok, but uses the factory springs which is pretty soft....

 

Thanks a lot, that's the info I was looking for. This will be daily driven on some rough roads so I think I want a 2" front and 1.5" rear (pretty typical).

Are the more expensive leaf springs worth it? Cheaper ones can be had for under $200 and the Hotchkis ones are over $400.

 

dont really know about the leaf springs....i still have the mono leaf spring on mine, but im very close to buying the multi leaf conversion lowering it to 3".....imo, it will be worth it...i dont think the cheaper ones are complete with all the hardware....i know hotchkis are complete with all hardware, but not sure when going from mono leaf to mulit leaf portion....

 

Hotchkis states that their multi leaf performance rear springs are compatible with either mono or multi setups so they come with everything you need. I was just curious if they were any better quality than the cheaper ones or if you are just paying for the name.

 

oh....im not sure about the performance, but i just ordered a set of the hotchkis.....we'll see how that goes...lol

 

The old school budget mod for the front suspension was to convert the first get sub frame over to a later second gen sub frame. In terms of geometry the second gen suspension is light years ahead of the first gen. Some guys even convert the rear suspension. The the late 70's early 80s WS6 Trans AM handled pretty fricken good. It also paves the way for a 88 SS monte steering box upgrade a 12" caprice brake upgrade. Most of these parts can be found for next to nothing at swap meets these days. If I remember right there is some fab work in the convertion, you have to relocate the mount holes a little.

At one point there was a a guy on this sight building a budget 1st gen and doing videos of the progress. He did this upgrade. Chuck probably has the link

 

That would be a pretty cool modification to do. Thanks for the good information.

 

Are control arms worth the money for a DD on a budget?