Pro Touring advice please.

[Robert Haas]

I have built a war chest so to speak, I have enough funds to bite off this project and would like some advice.

Me and my truck have been together for over half my life. (I am 57 years old)

I have done most of the standard upgrades over the years.

Now I want to tear it down and start over.

My desires are,.

Back half type build with 4 bars suspension, with a watts link

Coil Overs

Curry or other brand narrowed rear end.

Willwood big brake kit.

Rear mounted fuel tank/cell.



So Porterbuilt has been nice and quoted me some numbers but they have a 14 to 16 week lead time. I am just too impatient for that, so any suggestions on another vendor?

Also looking for advice on the idea of just building a bed from new sheet metal and keeping my existing finished bed and making a trailer out of it to haul behind the the truck to race tracks and car shows since I don't think I will have much bed space available after this build,... Thoughts?



starting with this;

[theastronaut]

Check out No Limit Engineering's Wide Ride IFS, and their three link rear suspension. A three link will articulate better than a four link around corners and still hook very well in a straight line.

http://nolimitengineering.com/produc...32&id=26810473

http://nolimit.net/products#!/3-Link...tegory=6157547


If you're not dead-set on a watts link, a full width panhard rod can be tuned more easily and can be set to have more grip on left or right hand corners, or to be neutral. Helps on tracks that have more left, or more right hand corners.

No Limit also posted about a C-channel kit that raises the stock bed floor. I didn't see it on their website but it would be worth looking into.


Also check out Ron Sutton's "stickied" topics on pro-touring.com. Tons of great information from an extremely knowledgeable guy.

http://www.pro-touring.com/forums/21-Suspension

[Robert Haas]

Originally Posted by theastronaut

Check out No Limit Engineering's Wide Ride IFS, and their three link rear suspension. A three link will articulate better than a four link around corners and still hook very well in a straight line.

http://nolimitengineering.com/produc...32&id=26810473

http://nolimit.net/products#!/3-Link...tegory=6157547


If you're not dead-set on a watts link, a full width panhard rod can be tuned more easily and can be set to have more grip on left or right hand corners, or to be neutral. Helps on tracks that have more left, or more right hand corners.

No Limit also posted about a C-channel kit that raises the stock bed floor. I didn't see it on their website but it would be worth looking into.


Also check out Ron Sutton's "stickied" topics on pro-touring.com. Tons of great information from an extremely knowledgeable guy.

http://www.pro-touring.com/forums/21-Suspension

I have a call into Rob, Thank you very much.

[urmyboyblue]

If it were me, I would leave the 4 bar out of the conversation. Some one makes a torque arm suspension for our trucks that is a bolt on- it is the second free-est suspension you can get. I have had the original truck bars, ladder bars, and now a torque arm setup on mine. But I don't do any truck slolams. If I hadn't cut out the original truck bars, I would still have them and add coil overs and and an adjustable pan hard bar- works for NASCAR.

As for a narrowed rear- talk to Quick Performance. Great product at a better price than Curry.

[chevy2tom]

Try these guys https://www.gsimfab.com/

[Robert Haas]

Originally Posted by urmyboyblue

If it were me, I would leave the 4 bar out of the conversation. Some one makes a torque arm suspension for our trucks that is a bolt on- it is the second free-est suspension you can get. I have had the original truck bars, ladder bars, and now a torque arm setup on mine. But I don't do any truck slolams. If I hadn't cut out the original truck bars, I would still have them and add coil overs and and an adjustable pan hard bar- works for NASCAR.

As for a narrowed rear- talk to Quick Performance. Great product at a better price than Curry.

My Truck is a GMC, it is a factory leaf spring set up, no control arms or coil springs.

Also I plan to put it on the track (Auto cross and track days) so going for a fully adjustable robust set up is important to the direction I want to go.

I will be probably be using Moser for the rear end. http://www.moserengineering.com/comp...ssemblies.html

Rob over at No Limit prefers them as well.

[Robert Haas]

Spoke with Rob on the phone for quite a while, I like him. He speaks hot rod. We have come up with a plan using his full back half set up consisting of the fat bar program, a narrowed Moser 9" ford with shock wave coil overs Wilwwod brakes and a panhard over the Watts link I had requested. (More room for exhaust routing and fuel tank placement)

Up front he has me completely rethinking my original plan. I was going to go with CCP tubular A arms, modular spindles, a splined sway bar and a No Limit power rack and pinion set up. Rob has explained to me that his wide wide front clip gets me everything I was going for in a current engineered product that does not need to make concessions for 60 year old technology. The man know what he is talking about so looks like I will be selling the existing front clip off my truck and starting from scratch.


Man I am nearly 3/4's of the way to spending what a complete frame would costs from them.

[urmyboyblue]

Failed to notice that you had a GMC.

Good luck with your build. Always good to have someone with lots of experience guiding you- I am sure that No Limit will do you right.

[northern 85]

Sounds like a solid plan ,very interested!!!

[Robert Haas]

Ok some more questions;

Rear end width, I want to run pretty wide rear rubber to help hook the 600 + HP this thing will be putting down, but was told I need to stay wide for the stability and resistance to roll/lean while hard cornering. Suggestions for width of the housing.

Where do I order the kit to build my own exhaust. 3" stainless mandrel bent kit with all the bends I will TIG Myself.

Splined sway bar thoughts on running these.

Emergency brakes, (parking brake) I was thinking about a yoke mounted system but have not seen much discussion about running any type of parking brakes.

I want to run a 6 speed manual but just can't make myself pull the trigger on a Tremec, anyone ever use the BW super 6?

[Smittee]

Originally Posted by Robert Haas

Ok some more questions;

Rear end width, I want to run pretty wide rear rubber to help hook the 600 + HP this thing will be putting down, but was told I need to stay wide for the stability and resistance to roll/lean while hard cornering. Suggestions for width of the housing.

Where do I order the kit to build my own exhaust. 3" stainless mandrel bent kit with all the bends I will TIG Myself.

Splined sway bar thoughts on running these.

Emergency brakes, (parking brake) I was thinking about a yoke mounted system but have not seen much discussion about running any type of parking brakes.

I want to run a 6 speed manual but just can't make myself pull the trigger on a Tremec, anyone ever use the BW super 6?

My Wilwood brakes have an Ebrake incorporated into them. Looks like a mini drum brake in the hat of the hub. Might check that. Kind of wonder if you are buying from Rob if he can't help with wheel width? But that isn't something I checked on with my setup because it is similar to what was there and had the wheels already. Good luck; you are in the right place to get answers; many people on here with lots of knowledge. Me, I am just average at best!

[Captainfab]

To determine the housing width you first need to choose your tires and wheels. Once the wheels and tires are positioned at the overall outside width, the WMS to WMS can be measured and then the housing width can be calculated.

[theastronaut]

Build your front suspension first, figure out the wheel size, back spacing, and tire size that will fit. Then use the same wheel/tire on the rear and build the rear axle width to match. If you're going to track the truck then you'll want to be able to rotate the tires regularly. A staggered wheel/tire size won't allow you to do that. I imagine an 18x10 with 305's will fit all around fairly easily.

Wider tires don't necessarily help if there's not enough weight on them... like the back end of a truck. I've seen a track test where a 165mm wide 200 treadwear street tire outperformed a 205mm wide race slick on a road coarse on a very light car (1900 pounds). The rear of a truck may be light enough that the widest tire available (315/335/345) might not be the best option on the track. Tires need a certain amount of pressure per square inch on the tread to work their best, and too wide of a tire can lessen that effect. I'll be looking into this further on my truck. I originally planned to use 335/30-18's on all four corners but I'm now planning on working more towards equalizing the front to rear weight balance and running a slightly narrower tire.

You may want to consider a 9" floater axle to help with the loads the bearings will see, especially if you go with a deeper lip wheel. A floater will also eliminate brake pad knock back.

[Robert Haas]

I like the idea of using the same tire on all four corners but it just won't be in the cards.

I have moved the battery and the fuel tank. Other then installing a full roll bars system I don't see much more I can do to move weight back. I can add weight to the tail (Ballast) but that sort of defeats any weight reduction plans I want to do.

With over 600 HP on tap large rear tires are mandatory and matching that up front will not be feasible.

[chevy_mike]

Biggest weight balance benefit you can do is moving the engine and trans back. Huge gains from that.

[urmyboyblue]

Originally Posted by Captainfab

To determine the housing width you first need to choose your tires and wheels. Once the wheels and tires are positioned at the overall outside width, the WMS to WMS can be measured and then the housing width can be calculated.

I agree. Tires and wheels are more important than rear width- so select them first.

As for the exhaust, you can just order some mandrel bends and straight sections from Summit, Jegs, or whoever and make your own. If you are going to TIG weld it yourself, you should have the skills to cut and piece an exhaust system together.

As for brakes, Speedway has a couple of real economical weld on kits for rear brakes- one includes an emergency brake as well, I believe.