Rear Coilover or not?

[Spot1984]

70 chevy short box. It has a 383 just north of 500 hp and 500 ft lbs. I want to lower the truck 4/6 but I know from past experience that lowering springs are too stiff. I want to street/strip this truck and need good weight transfer. 12 bolt(c clip eliminators, 4.10 gears, welded tubes, and will be installing a anti roll bar. Will this thing hook with the original coil/shock setup or do I need to install rear coil overs. Also I will be running stock trailing arms with adjustable bracket on the crossmember.

[LONGHAIR]

If you intend to race it more than "just once in a while", coil-overs may be the ticket. They are far more adjustable/tunable. You can soften it to your liking and change the ride height easily too.
Just be aware that the original mounts were never designed to hold the entire weight of the truck. They will definitely need to be modified/strengthened.

[craig@ridetech.com]

Originally Posted by LONGHAIR

If you intend to race it more than "just once in a while", coil-overs may be the ticket. They are far more adjustable/tunable. You can soften it to your liking and change the ride height easily too.
Just be aware that the original mounts were never designed to hold the entire weight of the truck. They will definitely need to be modified/strengthened.

I agree, but you could also put a set of lowered spring along with a really good adjustable shock that will make a huge difference as well, but the coil over will be easier to dial in, especially if you get a good set with adjustable shocks.

[fastwillie 696969]

i had my fab man do this to mine 12 bolt

[robnolimit]

Coil-over is probably a better bet. Now that I said that, be carefull, you can't talk to regular race car guys, camaro stuff won't hook up on your truck. You'll need to move the trailing arm mounts (chassis) up appx the same amount that you lower the back. (6"?) Next thing, you need a long shock to make it work. If the back of your truck wieghs 1400 lbs (put it on a diet, lol) thats 700 lbs per side. You want 5" of static spring compression at ride hieght, thats 140 lbs/in spring rate. Use 150's, on a 5" stroke shock body. what you need to do is use 14" long spring, and compress it appx 2 1/2" to a 11 1/2" free hieght when the shock is full open. Then, at ride hieght, the spring will compress another 2 1/2" (1/2 of the 5" of shock stroke), and you will have 5" of spring compression at ride hieght. I would spend the $$ on a set of coil-overs that have both rebound and dampening adjustment. Properly set up, this rear will run 10.20's on a 10" slick. We have a couple of trucks around here on that set up.