Alright....I am gonna pick up some sheet metal, guy whos helping me says that instead of using 2x2 boxed stell we use like 1/4" thick 2" wide steel bars of metal to "frabricate" subframe connectors directly onto the body, he wants to reroute the exhaust down the passenger side (where you would normally run the sumb frame) , move the cat over, and run the subframe connector down the middle of the car so it's a straighter shot to the rear.....we'd use the steel bars to "build" the box shape, imagine instead of buying box 2x2, im using 4 pieces of this sheetmetal to weld together a box, but he thinks he can design it in a way that would increase the strength even more (he's an engineer, i sorta trust him)

my question is since he doesn't know alot about fbody design(and im not sure either), what are the best connection points on the rear and front subframe to weld the connectors to....if someone has pictures it would be great


any info would be great


thnx,
dave

 

Ok, do you know where the crosmember for the transmission. RIght behind this without making a new crossmember. The best place would be about 3 inches infront of it, but you would have to make a new cross member. At the rear of the car you have rear frame rails, and the LCA mounts. It would be best to tie into both somehow. The alsons connect right behind the trans member, and attach to the rear frame. Spohns attach to the LCA'mounts and to the front frame by a bar, and the factory frame extensions. I would however say, round is always stronger than square, unless the square has a honey comb inside of it. Then attach the round to the floor pan if necissary, using sheet metal. And that much 1/4" will make for a lot of weight. It's over engineered, IMO round will be lighter and as strong.

 

Good point...I didnt' think about the weight...maybe a combination of both would work...we can always weld in xbraces inside the "frabricated" boxed subframe connectors with the 1/4" thick stuff, one of the advantages to custom fabbing.....the options are limitless....would a mandrel tube bender for exhaust work on round sheetmetal?

 

Well I meant round tubing, with thiner walls is lighter and stronger than a boxed tube with thicker walls. Yea a mandrel bender is what you need. If you have one I would do every thing out of round except some flat extensions to mount as spread out the welds. you can box int the tubes to the floor pan, but I don't really see any reason, a few contact points would do wonders.

 

i ithnk you need to look at the actuall attachment points before you get to far into this. they attach about as far outboard as you can get, where you want to reroute the exhaust.

 

My friends dad who can do mandrel bending, but i think it can only do 2.5" tubing...i won't be going that big right? if not i can just cut the tubing and weld to reshape....

ede. the subframes are almost like Y's, your trying to connect the tips of the y's to eachother....


thats a ghetto drawing but is that how it works? the black being the subframes, the greenish being what the subframe connectors do, who keep the subframes from torquing and twisting....so basically i want to connect as far out as i possibly can at the tips.....where do people run the subs then on the passenger side...between the cat and the floorpan? the driver side looks like it's a straight shot back...real easy

 

you must have the other kind of camaro, the 5 thirdgens i had were made the other way.

 

what do you mean? , the tips of the Y's meet, and it's just the bottom of the Y's that support the entire suspension?



that it? help me out here, show me in a cheesy microsoft paint picture how it works?

 

Ok here is what the subframe rails look like on the car. The black is the factory, red is like what spohn's do, blue is like MAC or alston's and the green is where I would reinfoce it. If you build like this you are ready for the race

 

And would add 1/4 inche sheets where the this picture is different.

 

opps forgot pic

 

my camaros look more like aviators drawing. i ran 2 rails front to rear when i made mine, pretty much straight pieces of tube steel.

 

I fabricated my own out of 2" square tubing .125" wall. They are straight like the red lines in the picture and I also braced them up like the green lines with smaller tubing. This system is very strong and not to heavy. The square tubing makes it easy to weld to the floor pan the full length for extra strength.

 

thanks for that guys, i really appreciate it, made it much easier for me to see, where the blue is, the crossmember is what connects the two subframes in the middle, the blue would reinforce and tie the two subs together so the car is stiffer correct? from that picture it looks like without the blue that there is no connection....but im assuming the xmember is in the middle connecting the two...basically you want to connect the sub frames so that the connectors are stressed instead of the xmember


ill try and get some really good digital pictures of the front and rear underside of my car, and hopefully someone can show me the best weld/connection points for the subs, id like to reinforce in as many spots as i can, but i would want to actually have someone point out the exact spots on pictures so im not connecting to the wrong spots....

im thinking that the red with the green supports would be the easiest and strongest way to go

i pretty much want to reinforce as much as possible, i only have about 385 HP going in, but i plan on turbocharging the 350 next summer which should put me around 500, i want to just go crazy...since i have access to all the fabrication equipment and i can just buy endless amounts of raw materials from a place nearby, i might as well reinforce as much as i can realisticly get to w/o hurting my ground clearance and and interfering with the floorpan and exhaust etc.

 

Well with a superchared engine the HP rating is a little different, 383 hp engine supercharged to 500j, you will not see the 500 until about 3k rpm so the increase is more progressive and less likely to hurt the car. But at any rate you need atlest subframes, and at 500hp I would suggest a roll cage (that will reinforce the chaisis like nothing else. I have the Blue area connected, and I do not have a factory x-brace option on my car. The car is real tight for handling purposes, I don't have HP bc its a daily driver. I only lose alittle ground clearence, the only thing I have scraped them on was backing off the lift, but the lift is one for big trucks so the angle is steap. Also at 500 hp you will need a tourque arm that mounts to the body and not the trans. Look at spohn's site to see what I am talking about.