Any suspension gurus that may be able to guide me?

[socorob]

My leafs are worn out on the rear of my car. They are unavailable new, at least here in the states,and if im pulling them apart, I would hate to get them rearched and go back with that setup. Im trying to figure out a 4 liink setup that will fit and work with good results. My car is a 1963 Sunbeam Alpine with a Ford V6, tremec T5, with a narrowed Ford 8 inch rear with a currie aluminum carrier with a 4.11 eaton true trac in it. I've autocrossed it a couple of times, and I'd like to do more autocrossing and maybe get to some track days, but my leaf springs are shot. I've looked at a lot of different link tpe setups and want to have something similar on my car. I lifted my car 2 or 3 times and took plenty of measurements and then started playing with one of the online suspension calculators. I think I have a setup that will work under my car, and was hoping some of you more knowledgable folks on here will tell me if my numbers look good and if I'm going in the right direction. The car is 95% a street car with a little autocross and such. Thanks for any suggestions, ideas, criticism, etc.

Edited by socorob on Thursday 14th April 05:09

[Chris Wilson]

Using top links for lateral location as well as fore and aft location, like the Ford MKIII Cortina did, and as in your schematic has the serious drawback of being a compromise between bush compliance and good lateral and longitudinal location. Can you not run a Panhard rod? That would also allow you to alter the rear roll centre fairly easily. What about a Watts type linkage? It looks like your schematic would work, but for even mild competition use you may find wheel tram is as bad or worse than with the leaf springs.

[socorob]

Thanks I tried putting a parallel setup into the equation but I keep getting 3-5* roll oversteer. Triangulated 4 links move very freely as long as you don't have any funny angles. Rock crawlers use mainly use tri 4 links and they get a few feet of free non binding movement. How do you figure out roll center with a Panhard bar? The parallel 4 link with panhard would be a lot easier for me to package under the car.