57 chevy suspension?

[nothingfancy]

Working on rebuilding my 57 chevy drag car. I have been away from the sport for quite awhile so I'm a little behind the times. I'm going to install a set of drop spindles on the front to lower the ride height and also poly bushings in the front end. I had thought that I might use the old springs on the front since they should react faster off the line but replace the old rear springs with new ones to help plant the tires? Good idea or bad??? Any thoughts on what shocks to use? The car will be switching from slapper bars to an adjustable ladder bar setup. The engine/trans combo will be a 434sbc with a glide w/transbrake. Looking for 10.90s from this old girl sometime in "09"? Any thoughts or suggestions on the syspension will greatly be appreciated.

[sc racing]

IMO I would put drag springs and shocks in the front and wouldnt put poly bushings( they are too stiff) maybe just stock rubber ones and grind the serrated end off. You said new leaf springs but then you said ladder bars? If using leafs get CalTracs and some kind of drag shock. If your going with ladder bars you will have to get coilovers.

[big block nova]

I agree with sc racing although u can run ladder bars with leaf springs but u have to run housing floatrs,I think a good set of coil overs would work better if u decide to go the ladder bar route.

[Bob West]

Polygraphite bushings work great on the front of my car

[sc racing]

Polygraphite bushings work great on the front of my car

But Bob your car doesnt hook very well

[chpcamaro]

if you need some front moroso drag springs let me know i have a set of brand new one's i will sell cheap let me know
rob

[nothingfancy]

Rob, what are the part numbers for your springs? Price? Why haven't you used them? Thanks for your time.
Michael

[chpcamaro]

well the reason i haven't used them is i have a camaro lol. now the reason why i have them lol see i own a speed and fab shop and i got these for another customer and then he decided he wanted coil overs so they are sitting on the shelf not in a box tho but have never been installed on anything.now we got the lightest one's which we almost always use they work great and cars tend to lose weight faster then we do lol.
if you want them hows 30.00 plus shipping
thanks
rob

e-mail addy chp474@aol.com

oh where you located i'm in socali

[Dave Morgan]

Fancy,
In regards to your front springs, you have to ask yourself if you have lightened the front of the car. If you have, which is likely, you'll need a lighter spring. Even though there are other benefits to running a lighter spring, this is a basic truth. It is sooooo common to see guys with stiff front springs. Their car does not pitch rotate evenly front-to-rear and it looks like the car is hinged on the front suspension as the car separates at the rear but not at the front.
Dropped spindles are a great idea.
Poly bushings can do well, just make sure they are not bound up as they only rotate within one plane of motion. Also, keep them away from your headers, they hate heat.
I hope this helps.
Dave Morgan

[chpcamaro]

this is so true dave we get lots of people in the shop saying my car doesn't hook at the track and it always turns out they just used all the wrong parts or setup wrong. the best thing is when someone comes in with ladder bars and say they don't work lol and they want to switch to 4link well most people know that if you can't set up your ladder bars right you more then likely will never get a 4link setup right. but it seems that everyone wants there car looking like a pro stock slamed on the ground and there ladder bars are so out of wack the car can't hook even if they had 21inch wide slicks on it.
rob

[supernova]

It's all in the set up. That's why me street car ran faster than most of the race cars in the class I run. I can't wait until the race car is done. Boy will they be surprised. it will be a real kick in the nuts for em.

[chpcamaro]

yup same here i could get my car to hook and carry the wheels nothing like alot of these guys but i could do it with out even doing a burnout

and i can't wait to get mine done either dam so close but feels like it is taking forever
rob

[nothingfancy]

Ok, we're going with the moroso springs.
Questions:
If we put the springs on and the car sits in build stage for a long time, what happens when we finish it? I read here in the forum something about these springs had to settle and find thier equililbrium position. Do they have a memory? Should we wait until the car is completed to install the springs?
Back in the day, the super stock guys claimed that if your car wheelstands, you had to find a shock rate/spring rate combo that wouldn't allow the shock to fully extend or the jerk caused at the front would travel through the chassis and unload the rear tires? I unfortunatly never experienced this . With the springs being made with smaller wire, I'm guessing that there will be more extension in the spring than the shock? Is this still the mode of thought???
Oh, by the way, yes, I do realize that I need axle floaters for the rear to use leafs with the ladder bars. I kind of hate the idea of trashing the idea since I've looked at these parts hanging on the wall since, well, let's say this...the ladder bars have Alston decals on them

[chpcamaro]

what will happen is after a few days the springs will settle and it will stay at that height doesn't matter when you put them in it's all about the weight, if you put them in and the car weighs 1000lbs they will settle to that and then you add 500 they will settle to that weight and so on you just don't want to cut them if need be till the car is done. once it is all done and it has settled for a few day or longer then you can cut them to desired right height you want with in reason tho if you want it super low use spindles but a inch or 2 i would say no more then a coil or 2 but it starts to drop fast after the first coil so becareful i would do a 1/4 at a time.
thanks
rob
let me know if that makes sense lol i tend to leave out periods lol and think faster then i type