[BenH]

I am finally about to start work on my 62 Nova, after over a year of waiting for time and space. I am building the car from the ground up, frame and all. I would really like to put a C4 front suspension under it if possible and use the factory corvette crossmember, NOT an aftermarket kit. I am looking for information on the C4 suspension. Does anybody know if the entire crossmember unbolts from the car with the suspension? If so I imagine it would be relatively easy to build framerails that just match up with the mounting locations for the crossmember, and the C4 crossmember could just be bolted in. What about track width? Anybody know track width and overall width for these cars? One concern I have is that the Chevy II is a pretty narrow car, and the corvette setup may need to be narrowed. If anyone has any information, or can point me in the direction of some good reading, I am all ears. It is hard to find information that does not concern some sort of aftermarket swap. Thanks.

Ben

 

[Deuce]

The C4 suspension does unbolt but I believe you have already answered you own question about the width. It is too wide IMHO.

Go look at a complete, up and running C4 and check out the front suspension and how close the suspension pivot points are to the engine. I do not believe there is enough room left to narrow one enough to get it under the Nova and leave room for the SBC.

 

[BenH]

You wouldn't happen to know how much wider a C4 is overall than a Chevy II would you? I know one of the companies that make the C4 subframes for the Novas leave the frontend wide, but they work if you use the corvette style wheels that have a ton of backspacing. Just curious if the stock C4 frontend is the same width as the kit (I think it was the Jimease subframe), and if the stock frontend would work with lots of backspacing on the wheels.

 

[Kermitt47]

You might try the guys at Art Morrison as I know they use C4/C5 parts for some of their front ends.

 

[astroracer]

Look here... http://www.cachassisworks.com/chevyii.htm
This is complete and engineered for the Duece. A C4 suspension is much to wide and, unless all of the geometry is redesigned, it will not be a good handling suspension after you narrow it up to fit.
The C4 width, from hub to hub, is about 62.00". Measure your duece across the hubs to compare.
Mark

 

[Bluejackets67]

Actually, 84-87 Vettes are 62.5" and 88-96 are 63.5'

A modified hub width suspension is only going to be as good as it's layed out. Not all suspensions are the same.

The big problem with the C4's in Novas is you can't make them sit any lower with stock Nova engine placement. Rack & pinion is tight to the motor.

 

[BenH]

I would think there would be ROOM to narrow, I'm just curious about geometry changes now. They make front clips for the Novas that use stock C4 parts and narrowed steering racks. I know one of the companies that makes the kits will narrow their clip (aftermarket clip) from their "stock" 61" to the 58" track width of the Nova. Is narrowing just a matter of narrowing the crossmember and steering rack to match? What other geometry is involved if the only thing that is changed is the width of the crossmember?

Also, I have heard of a C4 suspension Nova that John Buttera did in the 80s. Does anyone have any info on this or know anything about it? Sounds a lot like what I want to do.

Thanks for all the replies.

 

[Bluejackets67]

Roy Pigford also has a Nova (Up for the Riddler this year) that has C4 front & rear. It had some panels that covered most of it and I couldn't tell much about it.

 

[astroracer]

Ben,
Narrowing a suspension and not revising geometry points opens a BIG can of worms when it comes to "fixing" it.
Roll Center Height, Roll Center Migration, Ackerman and Bumpsteer are all going to suffer. If you can get a new rack that will work with the narrowed geometry that is a step in the right direction but, without optimizing the new points, it will only be a crutch. There is a lot of engineering that goes into making a suspension work as designed so, when you start cutting it up and moving things around, all of that engineering goes out the window...
Just cutting and narrowing isn't going to work well. The upper control arms pivot points need to be altered height wise to bring roll center back to specs and while doing this you need to redevelop the inner pivot points for the steering rack to bring bump and ackerman back. Everything is dependant on everything else and altering one aspect disrupts the whole system.
I would suggest talking to Katz at Art Morrison. Very smart man. He helped me immensly with my Astro Van suspension design and can get you pointed in the right direction also. Tell him astroracer sent you.
Mark

 

[BenH]

Thank you for the input astroracer. I will definately look more into this. If anyone knows someone who has a C4 frontend under their chevy II, I would love to hear about it. Thank you for all the replies, suggestions, and warnings.