My friend asked me about this the other day. Can an A-body with relocated superstock springs (MPkit, leaves moved 3" in per side), and slightly narrowed diff be set up for handling?

I don't know if moving the spings inboard has any significant negative effect, considering he can now install truly wide tires in the rear. Though matching those wide rear tires with compatible front tires would be a little hard.

I've been debating if I should use offset shackles on my own car to gain some tire clearance, but always thought the MP relocation kit was a little excessive, unless one can take advantage of all the new found wheel well space.

Anybody care to add to this?

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1965 Valiant Custom 100 Convertible

Moving the spring mounting inboard 3 inches should not hurt the handling a lot as long as everything stays in alignment and the shocks don't bottom-out. (shock's lower mounting is now closer to the top mounts)

I really want to move the springs inboard on my 68 Cuda but I am....(lazy, chicken, broke, too busy with other stuff, whatever, I just have not done it yet) Until I actually do the conversion, I'm just guessing.
DD

By moving the spring mounting points in, you will make the car handle worse due to the torques acting on the springs under lateral forces. The further out the mounting points, the better. Of course, it may not be a big effect. Check out the book "How to Make Your Car Handle" by Fred Puhn. My bet would be that 3" inboard would be a pretty large difference, but 0.75"/side might not be too bad.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

Many years ago, I did the spring relocation thing on a '71 Demon. This allowed me to use 15x10 rims and 295x50 tires. Theoretically, Lou may be right, but the overall handling wasn't much different then my current '65 Dart, which has the stock spring mounts. This car had a stout small block, with 4.56 gears and 4 speed. The body flexed badly around 90* turns (can you say turn right, stomp on the loud pedal). A set of subframe connectors fixed that problem. http://www.bigblockdart.com has more on how this setup works, even with there big blocks, they seem to do alright.