Lowering truck, parts check

[Mrturner1]

Hey all, I did a search and learned a lot but I have a few questions. I'm lowering my C10 a little bit pretty soon and I need a parts list and recomendations. It's a 1970 LWB, 355/th400 and it's a cruise night ride, occasional drag race track time hopefully soon, nothing serious shooting for 12's with this big heavy boat lol. It's all stock suspension now, with manual drum brakes which I'm keeping. Has 15" wheels and small tired now but looking at 17's maybe 18's in the near future with performance type tires.

I want it to sit level, no take at all. I'd like about 2" in the front and 4" in the back of that combo gets me a level stance. Can I just get new springs for the front and rear and be done with it? Do I need a new pan hard bar? Also going to get a HD front sway bar maybe from a 3/4 ton or aftermarket. Also need to know about shocks, with I need shorter ones and if so exactly which ones? Do I HAVE to relocate them.

[68Stepbed]

As for lowering, I only recommend ECE. There's a thread here about getting different shocks than the KYB's that ECE sells with their kits, though.

As for the comment about drum brakes, I do NOT recommend that you keep drum brakes if you plan to make the truck run in the 12's!!! Why spend so much on engine, transmission, suspension, etc., then cheap out on going disc brakes? The drum brakes may be ok for puttering around, but if you need to stop in a hurry, things can get out of hand quick, especially if you're going fast. Trust me, I know from experience.

[DjS71]

from my one truck experience:

You wont need a new panhard at that level, but it'll be about maxed out. You can do it with springs but you'd be better served (and admittedly lighter walleted) by doing 2.5" spindles to keep the shock travel, and putting a .5" block on the rear with your 4" springs to level it out (or just deal with the .5" rake).

You wont be low enough to need the aftermarket sway bar brackets so you can pull everything off of a c20 (got mine off a suburban)

Relocating the shocks will make for a much better ride, you can make your own relocators, there's a thread around here somewhere if you're feeling adventurous. You can use the stock length shocks as its still within the travel specs, get new shocks if you don't like the ride.

After dealing with CPP, I would recommend giving Early Classic Enterprises a call and they can likely set you up with everything you need.

Afterthought: if you really don't want any sort of rake you'll also have to run the same diameter tires, you can go wider but not taller or shorter which will somewhat limit your options.

[Mike C]

ECE all the way IMHO.

As above, ditch the drums, even for just street driving a SLOW truck. It's difficult to lower a truck well without spindles also and they are not available for drum trucks.

ECE 2 1/2" disc conversion drop spindles and 2" spring in front and 4" spring and 2" block in rear if you are on coils.

Exactly what I did on my truck but I have leafs. DJM flip netted 7 1/2" drop and I pulled the overloads in order to run CalTracs. I have a 427 in the machine shop right now that is destined for the truck and hopefully it will touch the 12's as well.

[Mrturner1]

So this can be done simply by calling ECE and getting 2 springs for the front, and 2 springs for the rear, drop it and find a C20 front seat bar and be done with it then?