What about fabricating plates that would be welded onto the rear spindles and hold the stock J struts?? It's simple 1-bolt, altho that would make caster/camber adjustments more difficult b/c they would need to be adjusted via the control arms, not the strut mount...
Roughed: I'm not sure you really understand what you're proposing; cause I don't.
Edge: Hmm. Sounds like an idea. The front plates would be wider apart than the n-body rear ones, about 6mm difference. Could fab up little filler plates. Also the fronts use 14mm strut-to-knucle bolts, n-body rears use 12mm bolts. I'm pretty well guessing here too, cause I've never physically seen Gravana's. The hole spacing is the same as a J front.
I haven't physically seen the suspension on N-bodies, I"ll have to take a look at the old pics in this thread (if they're still there/available) to see if what I was talking about would even work. More than likely it would be more hassle than it's worth.
OK, upon further review, based on this pic
I'll have to say that my idea would be too much work just to keep the J struts. You would have to add another trailing arm where the N strut is mounted, to adjust camber, and then modify that bottom arm to hold the J strut. More work than it's worth IMO.
That's what I was thinking.
There's no way i'd toss my coilovers for stocker, or even koni inserts(to fit the irs)...but I was thinking somethin on the lines of this figure(picture) to get the j-body rears to fit a n-body rear knuckle ..it's a little fabricating..but plain jane, nothing fansey(keep in mind this is like a 1minute "paint" creation..but you get he point..)
I don't see why this wouldn't work:
^ Ahhaha
You drew it for me
That's the idea I was talking about earlier, but I said weld it on, rather than bolt it on.
The problem with that - as it sits in the pic - is the wheel would have nothing holding it in the proper position. The N strut adjusts the camber of the wheel, and holds it there. That 'adapter' of sorts would not be able to hold the wheel in position (in relation to the ground), so you would need an upper 'trailing arm' to hold the camber. The arm would have to be adjustable as well, so it could be properly aligned.
Basically, as it sits right there, just bolting that bracket/adapter on, the wheel would literally fall on it's face
Think "Back To The Future - 2" (I think?? The one where he flies at the end...) when the wheels flip down on their faces, and he zooms off into the sky
Anyone know the difference between the N-car FE2 and FE3?
The front side bar on my driver's side is bent... the car the parts came off was pretty smashed up. I called GM today to ask about the bar, and they asked me if it was FE2 or FE3. And I don't know
Once I replace my bar, I'll be getting it aligned and the exhaust done.
...j
If it came off a GT, tell them FE3....... but in either case, it could be the same part....... GM lists the Getrag trans under 3 different engines, but the internals are all the same (for say a '02 J body)..... but it still askes which RPO code you have (in the end, all the part numbers are the same between them).... could be the same thing here, since I think only the sway bars and struts change with the suspension codes (maybe bushings?)
SPD RCR Z -
'02 Z24 420whp
SLO GOAT -
'04 GTO 305whp
W41 BOI -
'78 Buick Opel Isuzu W41 Swap
^ Same way with the stock rear axle beam on J's. I was searching car-parts.com, and it asked for FE0 or FE1 (I think?) and somebody on the Org said they're actually the same thing.
N-Body Rear: FE2 is a 18mm sway bar. FE3 is 20mm sway bar IIRC (numbers might be off, but that's the only difference).
J-Body Rear: FE0 and FE1 rear is the same, FE2 has a chunk of steel welded in the axle.
Edge: Roughed is right. There would be nothing to hold the wheel vertical. You might be able to design something that would grab the gravana coilover and work that way. But I'd bet the Gravana part that holds the J-front could be adapted to hold the n-rear knuckle. That would work a hell of a lot easier/better than what you're proposing.
^ Woo hoo
Cheers for me, lol. Now somebody gimme a beer!
Hey. Just noticed that Pontiac's Domestic Tuner's car from 02 had the N-Body rear suspension:
Is this where the idea came from??
one or two of the GM Concept Cav's at the 03 bash had it too (in St. Louis)
SPD RCR Z -
'02 Z24 420whp
SLO GOAT -
'04 GTO 305whp
W41 BOI -
'78 Buick Opel Isuzu W41 Swap
I had thought about IRS back in 01, but I hadn't gotten around to measuring other cars yet.
But once I saw those pics, I knew it was easy to do but no one had looked at how it mounted to the frame so it took us a while to actually get around to doing it
C.T.S wrote:Hey. Just noticed that Pontiac's Domestic Tuner's car from 02 had the N-Body rear suspension:
Is this where the idea came from??
your slow man , LOL
me and dave took those pics from sema
WAY back then , lol
it also has the grand am front breaks also
GM is the 1's that told us it had to be narrowed 1" , and they had a 1" spacer between the frame rail and the cross member , they used the N-body rear strut , and J-body spring
[quote=97cavie24ls(JDM&00s/c sedans™)]GM is the 1's that told us it had to be narrowed 1" , and they had a 1" spacer between the frame rail and the cross member , they used the N-body rear strut , and J-body spring
If GM went with Spacers and Narrowing it abit, is that better(or just more work) then just bolting it up like Lenko did?
The spacers aren't really necessary. The fuel lines bets crunched a bit, but it works.
As for making it 1" narrower, I hit a big fricking bump the other day going quite fast and I heard the tire rub on one side. So I might need to roll the fender.
I've only been around the JBO for a few months, so no, I didn't see those other pictures before.
I've got the first finshed draft of my HOW-TO up on my
Car-Domain Site. I need to read through it all again, fix all the mistakes; it doesn't have any pictures yet, I'll add them; the parts required are not listed either. Please let me know if you find any mistakes! Thank you.
Are the 2002 J-Body Frame rails shaped like this? If so, did moving the sub frame back an inch make mounting the subframe to the frame rails any better?
C.T.S or Lenko, do you have any pics of this side, bolted up to the frame rail? All of Lenko's earlier pics are no longer available.
Thanks,
Rob
Need to find me a Quote...
I'll take a bunch of pictures later this week when I'm working on it again.
Thanks,
Rob
Need to find me a Quote...
I need pics of how the exhaust needs to be run......... I'm ording up a new exhaust soon, and just need to know how much work its going to be to get around the IRS...... (havnt seen a good pic of the whole assembly yet...... maybe from in front of the pass. rear tire, looking up towards the drivers rear tire.....or even from 4-5 different angles)
SPD RCR Z -
'02 Z24 420whp
SLO GOAT -
'04 GTO 305whp
W41 BOI -
'78 Buick Opel Isuzu W41 Swap
Thanks Lenko,
Those pictures clear up a lot for me.
Rob
Need to find me a Quote...