Alternatives to leaf springs

[C0V3R]

I'm at the point where I am really trying to improve the handling of the car to get it somewhere towards the handling of a modern car. At the moment I'm wondering what alternatives there are to leaf spring setups. What I know of so far includes

- Jag IRS (does anyone have details on such a swap?)
- Supra IRS (more hacking than the jag setup)
- TCP rear setup (messy cages)
- Fibreglass leaf spring setups (much lighter, dont know if there are any other beenfits)

The objective is to make a hard street work with occaisional circuit track car (ie straight line isnt my objective).

 

[Opentracker]

Since you said a glass leaf spring might be OK, I thought I would throw in my idea for leaf springs. My thought is to have them adjustable. If you notice in the photo there are only four leafs in this pack and one is on top of the pack in a negative arch. I have been rebuilding leaf springs like this for 20 years with not one problem. I use two sets of used springs ( I get 'em for free ) and make my own set. I can change the spring rate and ride height to anything I like. It takes a lot of time but it's free and it works. I did the springs on this car 4 times before I got it right. I'll be glad to share what I have learned over the years about rebuilding leaf springs. I have never, nor will ever buy a new set of leaf springs, or use any other set up on these old cars.


John

 

[fastcoupe68]

Martz chassis, suspension makes a 4 bar set up that is real nice

 

[usedtobe 67p51d]

opentracker, you might want to wend in a reinforcement over those holes in your arches. the metal there is really thin! I wouldn't feel safe with them there!

 

[Opentracker]

opentracker, you might want to wend in a reinforcement over those holes in your arches. the metal there is really thin! I wouldn't feel safe with them there!

Good point!

I plan on doing some 'extra' welding on the rear of this car when I weld up the watts link and that will for sure will be part of it, thanks. The car is in mock up right now on the back burner in the garage. I do have good luck with rebuilt leaf springs. It saves a ton of money if you have more than one car.

John