Do 70-81 Firebird and Camaro disc brake spindles fit the 72 and older A-bodies ? I thought I read somewhere, a while back, that they do. thanks Dennis
Yes they do buy you need different A-arms. Cost is about 300-350. Visit www.jegs.com or www.summitracing.com They carry the kits.
You can not use the 78-87 G-body parts. Different balljoints. You can get a stock set-up for $300-400. Someone has a set-up listed in the classifieds here.
Actually, if you want the ultimate in handling, it's not a waste of time. What it does is give you negative camber gain in the turns. If you've ever seen a stock A body in a hard corner, the outside tire in the turn tilts out. Thats positive camber. The stock A body suspension increases positive camber as the suspension compresses. That causes the outside tire to roll over onto it's sidewall, dramatically increasing understeer. When you put the F body spindles in, you get negative camber on compression, the tire stands up straight, and the front end sticks down like glue. The effect is so dramatic, that if you are running too big a sway bar in the back, the back end will come around (oversteer) when you push it to hard into a turn. I had to remove my rear bar when I did this swap back in 1980 (HO Enterprises kit) The handling was incredible. Back then, you needed special upper and lower ball joints, tierod ends, and offset control arms to line everything up (and it still needed over one inch of shims) Today they make special tubular control arms that make the swap a breeze, but expensive. But if you want your GS to handle like a slot car, this is the way to go.
Im going to be going in this direction, somewhat. using big body spindles has the same effect. It will definitely increase your handling potential.
He is 100% right. If you want a car that turns like it rides on rails. Do the F body mod. Worth the pennies. Unless you only want to go fast striaght.
Ditto. People can't believe how my Lark handles. If you want to take corners in an insane manner - this is a big first step!
I have 1971 Camaro spindels in my 66 Skylark with the stock control arms and they worked fine, I had to use Camaro ball joints (the lower ball joint had to be turned down like 3-4 thous, wasn't much) also had to use a different tie rod end setup because the stock tapper was wrong for the Camaro spindel, it lowered the ride height about 1 1/2 inchs in the front. I'm running the Camaro spindels, calipers, rotors, 1985 Monte SS steering box and sway bar, car handles very well. I would have liked to had the tub style a-arms but wasn't ready to lay out the funds for them, maybe later, but the way it is now it works great, just took so foot work and help from my parts guy. :TU:
This swap and the quick steering info was hashed over in May of '03 on the forum in great detail. I don't know if that stuff can be regurgitated or not but if you can dig back that far, all of it is availeable. You might want to try Hotchkiss and Global West too. They build the control arms and will tell you what is needed for the swap. I've got all the parts, just waiting for winter to do mine. Unfortunately, Up here in the north country winter comes too fast. Good luck.
