Just ordered XV level II suspension

[MoparCar]

Bump 

[gkring]

I WISH!!
Inventory coming up at the dealership and a 5 month old at home taking up all my time. Still waiting on a couple parts to be able to finish mocking up the rear. The sway bar clearance is very tight back there and I don't want to be hitting it at full compression on the suspension. Measure twenty times and weld once! 12 + hour work days are good training for those all night car sessions. I have about given up on trying to use the corvette rear brakes. Looks like a modified Wilwood setup will get the nod. Still waiting to hear back some final pricing from some vendors. The large bearing Strange hybrid housing ends are causing issues. if I had it to do again I would have the Dana 60 made with ford 9 inch or GM ends instead of the Mopar pattern. Not a big deal unless you want to go bigger than 12 inch rear rotors or use an internal parking brake. if you are going custom there is NO reason to stick with the Mopar pattern on the axle tube ends. It just limits your options. The XV brakes are nice, but since I don't really need 13 inch rotors $5K is alot of money to pay for an extra inch of bling factor. Nothing is bought yet as far as brakes, however. back to work now.....

[MoparCar]

Thanks for the updates. What type of bearings do the ford end or GM ends use? Are they sealed like the green bearings? Chassis Works recommended a late model ford end also (maybe an explorer? I can't remember). Travis72 mentioned he was running into the same problem with the Mopar ends and a parking brake. Very good to know. Thanks!

When you get back to it, keep us updated with pics please
Wes

[MoparCar]

 

[gkring]

I touched it again today!
Helping a friend build a motor for a Buick GN at the shop and I stared at my car some more. I really can't move further until I get the rear shocks to be able to mock up the full suspension travel. I tried to mock it up with the front shocks a little, but everything is so close it has to be done correctly. We are talking the difference of a 1/4 inch in the sway bar location from fitting to hitting. I talked to XV again Friday and I finally have a tracking number on the rear shocks, so I should be good to work on it again next Wednesday-ish. 7 day work weeks have finally stopped for awhile, so I will have the weekends to work on it again. I am thinking of calling prodigy customs www.prodigycustoms.com about the brakes. They are deep into Wilwoods and know all the tricks as far as mixing and matching and they are no stranger to making things work correctly.

[MoparCar]

I agree about Prodigy Customs. I've always heard top notch things about them and you might be able to get in on a group purchase too. I didn't realize you were waiting on the rear shocks. You'd think they'd have them in stock with the whole suspension. Hmmmm....

Wes

[MoparCar]

Bump.... just keeping it alive!

[gkring]

Got the rear shocks, which happen to be exactly like the fronts, just different valving internally. If I had known or been told that it would have sped up the process a little. No pictures yet. got the shocks mounted and messing with ride height now to make sure it will all look right. I have tape on the floor and plumb bobs everywhere! it's looking like I will have about 7-8 inches from the ground to the bottom flat part of the rocker in front of the rear wheels. I am scrounging up some tires of the correct height to better visualize it. Little hard to work on the car during the week. 100 degree days here in Texas and when I get home at night and go to the shop it is like an oven in there. You can't weld or measure with a plumb bob with a fan blowing on you, so it gets uncomfortable up under a car real quick.

I did get a quote from prodigy on the brakes. 6 piston wilwood fronts, 4 piston rears, 13 inch rotors, polished master cylinder, internal parking brake, cables, lines, etc all for right at $4000. Probably won't find a better deal if I want to stick with the larger rotors. he said they installed the same set on Bill Howells charger with the Level II setup, so he knows it will work.

[jvike]

I helped my brother last week when he put the Wilwood 4 piston kit on his 69 Mustang. Quality parts all the way. He put on a TCP rear pushrod suspesion system. From the pics in this thread, it was way easyer than the Lvl II from XV. But that is an bolt in kit exept 4 minor weld-in brackets. I'm putting in my XV lvl II rear system next week I guess, my (missing) dampers are held up in customs right now.

[ntstlgl1970]

TCP is near where I work, when I went to check out their stuff before Alston started making their stuff (I had a 66 mustang at the time), they have a bunch of good products. Looking at the rear suspension that you mentioned, it seemed that it wouldn't be too hard to adapt to a mopar but you lose the option of rear exit exhaust.

http://www.totalcontrolproducts.com/rpss_fd.html

anyway, I wanted to mention thanks to gkring for posting pictures of the XV setup, it's good to see some real world pictures and experience.

[jvike]

Not to hijack the thread, but that Rear suspension was used when Unique Performance made those Foose Challengers. Btw, you can route the exhaust thru that suspension.

[gkring]

well, got alot more done today.
Doesn't look like this system is designed to really slam a car down. It looks like if you set everything up how XV intends you would get about 10-12 inches from the ground to the bottom of the rocker. I was hoping to get it closer to 7 or 8 inches,but there just isn't room in this setup. Here's a pic of the challenger and a tire where it is going to end up at ride height as well as a pic of my barracuda for comparison. it is 7 inches to the rockers on the barracuda, but the tires on it are about 2 inches shorter than what will be on the challenger. That accounts for another inch I need to find.

[gkring]

I started out by making inserts so I could see the compressed, extended, and ride height settings of the shocks. There was only about 3 inches of travel in the shocks, so I cut the bump stop in half to get a little more compression out of the shocks. I took extended measurements, compressed measurements where they just touched the bumpstops, and then split the difference for ride height length.

[gkring]

I really wish the shocks were shorter by a couple inches. By using the Dr Diff 1.5 offset shackles and moving the diff mounts in to match for maximum tire clearance I made the shocks stand straighter, which gave me a taller ride height. Since I moved the diff mounts in 1.5 per side, I took the upper shock mount and moved it in 1.5 as well. it is starting to get tight for exhaust clearance so I didn't try to move the upper mount in more. That would have given me a lower ride height, but the coilover angle is already a little too much as it comes from XV and I didn't want to make it any worse.

[gkring]

I set up the test inserts in the middel ride height setting and jacked up the rear to where I think it will end up at ride height. After doing that I reset the lower shock perches and welded them up again. Good lesson here is to tack weld everything until you are completely done. I had to remove the lower shock perches when I changed the angle as well as cut the upper bar mount back out to move the upper shock mounts inboard. Good thing I had only tack welded this stuff. I will finish welding all this once the car goes to the body shop and can get rotated on the rotisserie again. My 110 V shop welder doesn't have enough power to be welding this anyway. I decided to add reinforcement plates to the framerails where the upper mount bar ties to it for added strength