TRACTION NEEDED

[nawlins-tim]

I NEED TRACTION in My 1980 El Camino. I have a rebuilt 350 with most of the Performance add-ons. Now with all this power and the general weight ratio of a truck(front to rear). I would love to continue my quest for speed but I feel I can't go much further until I do something about wheel spin.
My main reason for posting this is I am wondering if a set of Lift Bars really do work. If not lift bars what about a simple boxed rear control arm and or relocation brackets to hepl with traction. I would love to hear what you guys have experienced with this type of add-on on your G-body, mainly the El Camino. I know there are other improvements that can be made to the rear suspension of a G-body but I want to keep it simple right now. What do you think? thanks

 

[383Camino]

Whats up Tim!

I've got an '84 Camino, 383, 200 4R, 3,000 converter and 4.10s. I've got AC, PW, PL, iron headed small block and no fiberglass on the car. I've got an IROC sway bar up front with poly bushings and a stock rear sway bar and ho-hum shocks.

I moved the battery to the rear of the bed, passenger side.
Stock control arms with Lakewood No-Hop bars and get no wheel hop. The whole car lifts when you punch it; the rear moves about as much as the front. The rear lifiting tells me that the tires are being pushed down. The car will spin my old 275/60 M/T drag radials (cold) about 20-25 feet if I preload it and launch it on the street.

It could be better; I've also thought about different control arms, but also am curious if they would help (enough).

 

[undr8ed]

On my 87 T, I used boxed lowers, pinion snubber, airbags, wider tires, and a fatman in the backseat...

What I learned was: boxed lowers and pinion snubber helped, fatman lowered gas mileage, wider tires were more expensive to replace (but helped,) and the airbags helped (ever so slightly) with the launch. Realistically, if there's no weight over the rears and you have lots of torque off idle, all you can really do is ease into the throttle...

My $.02

 

[bjohn07]

a guy i saw at the track was hooking good with an elcamino. i asked and he told me he was running some jegster lift bars instead of the stock lower control arm and he had a batt. relocated to the rear along with a home made steal box in back with 2 25 pound sand bags. he said his time was better with the added weitht.

 

[storm350]

Hello tim, I have 84 Camino with a 350, Street and strip, the lower boxs arms are a must.. I run Adjustable lowers.
Heres a site that might help ya..
http://www.umiperformance.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=8_60

 

[dedub]

Hey Tim,
One thing missing is what type of rear end do you have. If it's the 7.5" open diff. then there is your problem. With a tough 350 that things days are numbered. Until you get the tires (plural) to stick, boxing control arms isn't going to help, neither are anti hop bars. Save your cash and look for a G.N. 8.5" rear end, an Olds 442 or Hurst Olds. Their all the same one and are a direct bolt in.
Once you get both tires to stick then box. I used 3/16 steel but learned a lesson, I mig welded the steel too close to the bushings. All was well until I tried to install the anti hop bars. I didn't leave enough clearance on the uppers to fit them in so I had to grind about 1/2" of the steel I just welded.
Last is a sway bar, my junk yard provided a grand prix, mid 80's. 4 bolts and I walked out with it for $20. Because it bolts directly to the lowers it helps keep the car straight.

Now I know those rear ends aren't cheap. What I recommend if you don't have the cash for one yet is to get sticky tires. You can still do the other things meanwhile.

 

[nawlins-tim]

Yes Dedub I have been running a 8.5 rear with 3.42 gears and a tight GM posi. I could only imagine the wheel spin with only one tire pushing for me. I still have not heard anyone say they had improvements with boxed control arms. I guess in theory they help but I wish I knew for sure. But as for right now I am leaning toward the Jegs or Lakewood lift bars.

 

[khan0165]

sorry, not a camino owner, but...

I guess what these guys are saying is... there is no *one* single change that will make a big difference. I think all of this modifications together to your rear suspension will improve your traction.

 

[dedub]

Hey Tim,
Sounds like your half way there. You haven't mentioned what kind of tires your running. I suspect street radials? They will will spin on you. Drag radials will not spin on you, I guarantee it! There are 9 sec. cars out there on nothing but 9" drag radials.
Next is the boxing of the control arm... They WILL help. There is a reason that technique, and the parts have been out there for years and years. Those control arms are stamped steel and flex under torque, no doubt about it. That is a horse power/torque robber. The energy it takes to twist and flex the control arms should be used to plant the tires.
Now planting tires is a whole other topic, I'll try and keep it short but It will probably be long so grab a beer....
EVERY car and truck have something called an Instance Center I.C. On leaf spring cars it's where the front of the leaf bolts to the frame. Easy huh? G bodies have 4 link and it gets a little trickier. I want you to look close at this 3D graph I created. Its the actual IC of my 80 Elky just like yours. If you draw an imaginary line following both upper and lower control arms, you will see they meet in the rear of the vehicle. A HUGE flaw on GM! But... Ford F-Body mustangs have the same issue so don't feel bad

Now look at the corrected IC once you install Anti hop bars from Edlebrock

These measurements were done by myself and input in CAD so there right. So now you know what the hop bars are *really* for and what an IC is.
Think of it like this.. you have a huge refrigerator to push. If you push it from the top it will tip over, if you push it too low your wasting energy. There is a sweet-spot to get it moving somewhere below the half way point.
Adjustable uppers only fix your pinion angle, not your IC. There are different techniques to getting the IC from behind the car to the center where it belongs. One is mentioned and that's the Anti hop bars, they move the back of the upper arm *UP* thus moving that intersection. Another method is moving the front of the upper arm *down*, that accomplishes the same thing and I have seen kit out there that do that.
Finding the proper IC is still a lot more than that. First you have to find the Center Gravity CG point of your car. You accomplish that by weighing the front and rear and doing some math. (Maybe a sticky how to in the future!)
So to sum this up, and because we have identical cars I would..
first get some track tires
second box both uppers and lowers, steel is pennies if you have a scrap yard around and if you have a buddy with a welder your cost is almost nothing.
third is a sway bar
forth is fixing your IC.
What I covered is about 2% of the IC topic so don't think what I wrote is gospel. Do some research on yourself and ask questions. I lived what your living not too long ago and finally got my car to do what I wanted. Good luck!

 

[patmckinneyracing]

IMO the 7.625 rear end out of an 84-88 monte ss works just as good as an 8.5. Yes the 8.5 is bigger and probably stronger, but there is bigger bang for the buck out of a monte ss rear end. I'm running one out of an 86' in my 80' malibu (same as an el camino just a coupe version) that came stock with auburn posi and 3.73's.

As for traction, it takes an overall combo, just like the drivetrain, to prevent wheel spin. The biggest issue here is the *ss end of the caminos are incredibly light compared to the malibus since they aren't coupes. I noticed a substantial difference in both handling and traction by simply adding a rear sway bar out of a monte carlo aerocoupe ss (uses the same sway bar as other BOP's). I have yet to box the lower control arms but plan on it in the near future to see how much of a difference it would make. My thought would be that if you look at how the stock sway bar mounts, it actually stiffens the lower control arms much the same way as if you had boxed them in the first place. I'm going to box them in just for the hell of it and see what all the hype is about.

I'm running a stout 350 making approximately 400hp/430lb. Moving the battery to the rear will give you some of the added weight your looking for to give you traction.