[69ChevelleAddict]

Car is a 71 chevelle weight arround 37-800 lbs.
Sway bar in the front is just a little pidly 15/16ths and none in the rear.
I want to go with Afco springs but I dont know what rate to choose.
This car will see 95% street duty and probably only one or two trips down a track a year so road handling is more important right now.
I was thinking about getting 950's for the front and 250's for the rear.


For shocks I was thinking about going with Bilsteins.
I hear that they are very good and last forever.

WIll this combo work well together, do the spring rates seem matched?
Harshness is really not an issue, I am young, I can take a couple bruises in the name of fun.

[69ChevelleAddict]

nobody?
I would like to purchace springs/shocks as soon as I can because the car needs to be driveable by august and I have a ton of work left to do.

[Kim57]

Hey chevelleaddict
Not to chase you out of this forum because its great but if you go here and do a search in brakes suspension section you should be able to get the answers you need.
http://www.chevelles.com/forums/
Good luck.
Kim

[69ChevelleAddict]

I am a member there as well
I just like to get as many responses from as many people in different facets of the rodding world as I can, ya know?

[69ChevelleAddict]

Oh well I gues some things have to be learned the hard way.
Thanks for lookin guys

[BillyShope]

It's not that nobody wants to help you, 69, it's just that your question is too vague. I imagine most viewers simply shrug their shoulders and say, "If you're driving it on the street, what's wrong with the stock setup?" But, you obviously want something else. But what? You might get into a Miata and complain that it's too stiff and your spine can't stand it. Yet, if you were going to autocross that Miata, you'd be going to even stiffer springs. You mention that you might be going "down a track." I assume you mean a dragstrip. If so, the suspension changes are entirely different. For one thing, you'd be losing that front swaybar entirely and going to a heavy rear one. But, nobody's going to recommend that in this thread because we don't know how serious you are about that 5%.

Perhaps a long phone chat with someone at AFCO is your best bet.

[69ChevelleAddict]

Ive allready spoken with Afco, but they dont seem to understand that ride comfort is the last thing on my mind.
They recomended 500's for the front and 150's for the rear.
That would work out well for a daily driver with a little more stiffness over stock (430lbs).
But I want something drasticaly different, someone had told me that whatever the spring rate in the front that the rears should be 1/4 of the front rate so a 225-250 is about right there.
I am pretty serious about that 5% because I am allready planning a 600hp 496 big block for the car, and everything else under there to boot.
But when it comes down to it, it dosnt make sense for me to have a drag car, so Im building a street legal full body racecar.
Im just going to try it and see what happens.
There are plenty of people willing to buy used springs with less than 100 miles on them if I dont like the setup.

[BillyShope]

It's the WHEEL rate that's important, NOT the spring rate. If, at the front, the spring is located half way between the lower arm pivot and the tire patch, a 400 pound per inch spring will yield a 100 pound per inch wheel rate. In other words, the ratio is proportional to the square of the linkage ratio.

Perhaps, if you told AFCO that you were going to run the car in the "bomber" class at a quarter mile flat paved oval, you'd come closer to getting what you want.

[69ChevelleAddict]

I don't know a lot about suspension, I dont claim to know.
I came here to learn but I guess from now on I will keep my mouth shut on things I dont know about.
Sorry for wasting time.

[BillyShope]

No, you didn't waste anyone's time. And, I'm sorry if I came across as talking down to you. We're all still learning. It's just that some of us got an earlier start.