How Do I Make My 69 Handle

[Coyote187]

Hey, I getting ready to start building my 69 this month and I'm looking for Ideas on ways make it handle. I've already determined that I need to redo all of the rear, as in suspension and sheet medal. So a new subframe is no big deal. So any input will be helpful.

[99civichic]

Go to www.lateral-g.net or www.pro-touring.com

All your questions will be answered by the very best. Seriously there are LOTS of people on there with first gens and they really know what they're talking about when it comes to those.

Good luck and drop my a line letting me know what you decide!

William (will69camaro)

[camaroguy26]

I'm not too knowledgeable on those cars but I read an article in a Super Chevy or Chevy Hi-Performance or one of the similar, anyways they took out the front part of the chassis, from the firewall forward, and replaced it with a brand new corvette piece designed to directly bolt up. It has all of the New technology built into it including A-arms, struts, coils, etc. and it looked pretty easy to do. if I find the magazine I'll let ya know more specifics.

[CORE402]

You could go the cheaper route and just buy new springs, shocks, polyurethane bushings, put in 5 leaf rear leaf springs, a thick sway bar, even a rear if you want one, and even get a pair of drop spindles. When converting from rubber to polyurethane you will notice a world of difference in handling. I have all polyurethane installed on my '73 and just the bushings made a HUGE difference over the stock rubber ones. You could go a couple steps further and buy polyurethane body mounts, and install subframe connectors.

[tardster]

Give it to me...............

[will69camaro]

If you really want it to handle you cant just throw on sway bars and put poly bushings in it. If you want to go the cheap route you can do the "gulstrand" mod and you cut the top part of your upper a-arm mount an inch and drill new holes an inch lower and reposition it. You can get DSE springs front and rear and a front sway bar and that would be a pretty nice not terribly expensive setup (with nice shocks etc..). The subframe that has been mentioned that uses the new corvette stuff (C4 corvette stuff actually) is the Wayne Due front clip, do a search on ebay you'll find it. Several people make front clips for first gens but expect to spend no less than 5k to set one up. I'm currently doing the same thing (modifying my old camaro to handle). I will probably get either DSE or Global West suspension (dropped front and rear springs, sway bar, etc..etc..) then i will probably minitub as well. For brakes I plan on using Touring Classics C5 conversion to put C5 front and rear discs on the old camaro with a hydratech brake setup. Like i said go ask a few questions on pro-touring.com or lateral-g.net and i'm sure you'll find more than a few answers.

William