Drop spindles -- Any warnings or advice?

[Longroof79]

Steve,
What's the advantage of using Camaro spindles? Acceptance of larger rotors?

 

[drogg1]

Jack,

Steve can correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the advantage of the Camaro spindles is similar to the B-body spindles in that they are taller to improve camber gain and yes, I think they also can accept larger rotors.

 

[1979ratrod]

i have a set of beltech drop spindles on my car and they have been on for the past 2 years. never a problem and they dont mess up your alignment at all. drop spindles are the right way to go. if you want something thats cheap and hacked do drop springs and pay for an alignment. cutting springs or drop springs throw everything off.

 

[pontiacgp]

Steve,
What's the advantage of using Camaro spindles? Acceptance of larger rotors?

the rotors on the camaro are 11". The camaro uses the same calipers and pad that the B body uses with their 12" rotor. It's a toss up whether you gain braking with have more leverage with the 12" rotor or you lose braking with more rotating mass with the 12" rotor. We ran the camaro spindle on the race car then going with a ford 9" with 5x5 bolt pattern we went with the B body since they also came with 5 x5 bolt pattern. The lap times did not change with the different front brake set up and the driver didn't find any difference between the two.

Jack,Steve can correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the advantage of the Camaro spindles is similar to the B-body spindles in that they are taller to improve camber gain and yes, I think they also can accept larger rotors.

yes drogg1 your right....the other thing with the tall spindles your upper control arm is above the horizontalline, I also have lowering springs and a tall lower ball joint which means the upper never crosses the horizontal line. That way the inside tire on a turn will push the top of the tire out giving it positive camber so more of the tire is planted on the road, while the outside the suspension is being compressed to increase the negative camber due to the arc of the upper control arm which plants more of the tire onto the road.

 

[DRIVEN]

This is a pretty common swap in the '64-'67 Abodys. I run '78 T/A spindles and brakes on my '66 El Camino. In that case it lowers the car by about 1-2" and the handling was noticeably improved. Waaay better braking goes without saying. Tangent concluded 😀 .

 

[drogg1]

Steve,

Where did you source your taller ball joints if I may ask? And this using your shortened UCA for UB Machine?

 

[Longroof79]

Steve,
What's the advantage of using Camaro spindles? Acceptance of larger rotors?

the rotors on the camaro are 11". The camaro uses the same calipers and pad that the B body uses with their 12" rotor. It's a toss up whether you gain braking with have more leverage with the 12" rotor or you lose braking with more rotating mass with the 12" rotor. We ran the camaro spindle on the race car then going with a ford 9" with 5x5 bolt pattern we went with the B body since they also came with 5 x5 bolt pattern. The lap times did not change with the different front brake set up and the driver didn't find any difference between the two.

Jack,Steve can correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the advantage of the Camaro spindles is similar to the B-body spindles in that they are taller to improve camber gain and yes, I think they also can accept larger rotors.

yes drogg1 your right....the other thing with the tall spindles your upper control arm is above the horizontalline, I also have lowering springs and a tall lower ball joint which means the upper never crosses the horizontal line. That way the inside tire on a turn will push the top of the tire out giving it positive camber so more of the tire is planted on the road, while the outside the suspension is being compressed to increase the negative camber due to the arc of the upper control arm which plants more of the tire onto the road.

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Thanks for the explanation guys. Much appreciated.

 

[pontiacgp]

They are Allstar performance tall ball joints, actually they are only repackaged moog truck ball joints. You have use a taper reamer to open up the spindle to use them and to install them in the lower control arm they need to be sleeved and welded in. I plan to get different lowers in the future to use screw in ball joints cause they are rebuildable and stronger. We had one of those allstar ball joints on the right side of the race car being compressed to the point the ball was pushing the tension spring down allowing the spindle moved far enough for the rotor to be grinding on the lip of the lower control arm. The car was throwing some good sparks. It was a new ball joint this year and giving it a normal test looked to be ok. It took us a few hours to figure that one out..

For my upper control arm I did cut the UB machine down to 7" which is supposed to work with the tall spindle but I didn't take into account the tall lower ball joint along with the lowering spring so with the 7" UCA it gets tight with alignment shims so I may adjust that to a 7.5 UCA

 

[79T-top]

I've actually been wondering about these drop spindles. They're a good price, but maybe it would be better to spend a little extra for belltech.

Maybe someone with a bit more knowledge could add their two cents?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/82-04-S10-LOWER ... 3603wt_905

 

[gharris79]

Good info as I want to do this to my Cutlass as well.