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Moving Rear Wheels Back?


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What would be required to move the rear wheels back in the wheel well and center them? I'm looking at running a 28" tall drag radial with the factory IRS. I need more clearance around the dog leg. Instead of cutting the factory sheet metal, I would like to move the rear wheels to the center of their wheel well.

 

Would I just need a set of custom lower control arms and sufficiently long half shafts. I'm looking at maybe moving them back by 1".

 

Regards,

Justin

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I don't think you can do it with stock suspension, because you'll be tweaking the strut shaft or the control arm big time when the suspension compresses. Basically the strut needs to line up vertically with the camber plate or rubber insulator.

 

You might be able to get away with moving the wheel back by using a different control arm that didn't require the strut to be vertical at all times. The arm talked about in this thread might work: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=129154 You would have to have a strut top that allowed for the articulation. I'm thinking that a monoball in a camber plate might not have the necessary angularity to keep from bottoming out, and I think you'd tear up the rubber isolators from a stock strut hat in no time. If the camber plate didn't work in the stock position it might be possible to move it back within the narrow confines of the strut top to a position where it did function correctly. It'd be a lot of mocking it up to make sure everything worked without binding...

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So a plan might be Techno Toy or AZC camber plate 1" back in the strut tower. Along with new lower control arms? I'll have to think about this one some more.

 

I might just do a Z32TT rear suspension centered in the rear wheel wells. This will get me my R230 diff and axles, along with centering in the wheel well. Due to the greater track width I'd be needing some higher offset wheels and some fender flares...

 

Options Options :)

 

Justin

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So a plan might be Techno Toy or AZC camber plate 1" back in the strut tower. Along with new lower control arms? I'll have to think about this one some more.

If there is room to move the camber plate up top, it would be fairly simple to modify the control arm on bottom. You could do something similar to what bjhines and I did, which is to cut the end of the arm off and weld on a rectangular tube, and then use a threaded tube end to attach rod ends and use a long 5/8" bolt through the spindle pin hole in the strut assy. You'd just weld the threaded tube ends into the tube 1" to the rear. http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=106457&page=11

 

I might just do a Z32TT rear suspension centered in the rear wheel wells. This will get me my R230 diff and axles, along with centering in the wheel well. Due to the greater track width I'd be needing some higher offset wheels and some fender flares...

That would be a lot more difficult, but certainly stronger in the end. If memory serves you're a drag racer though, and I thought I had read that the Z32 had a lot of anti squat making it not the best drag suspension. Maybe that can be adjusted out, not sure. I don't do drag and I am only repeating things that I have vague recollections of reading when the Z32 came out. Anyway it's something to look into before you start cutting up the unibody.

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With the Techno Toy strut assemblies, could one elongate the hub mounting holes and simply move the entire hub (not the strut assembly, only the hub) rearward? The CVs would be angled back at the wheels, but not enough to cause any issues. This way the strut maintains its correct geometry and the wheel gets moved rearward.

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With the Techno Toy strut assemblies, could one elongate the hub mounting holes and simply move the entire hub (not the strut assembly, only the hub) rearward? The CVs would be angled back at the wheels, but not enough to cause any issues. This way the strut maintains its correct geometry and the wheel gets moved rearward.

 

Thats is a pretty sweet idea. I'm going to have to talk to them about this.

 

Regards,

Justin

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Justin,

 

Think about it for a minute. Negative camber wheel spacers? Setback wheel spacers?

 

"The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round..."

:-)

 

FYI... Huck & Chuck Enterprises are a somewhat ficticious almost famous motorsports company that sells things like:

 

Titanium Ballast

Negative Gravity Ballast

Negative Camber Wheel Spacers

 

...and a few other itmes. The "Chuck" in the company is Charlie Davis from the SFR SCCA region. I forgot who Huck is. I guess you have to be an old racer to remember these guys. They used to have a web site but its long gone.

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With the Techno Toy strut assemblies, could one elongate the hub mounting holes and simply move the entire hub (not the strut assembly, only the hub) rearward? The CVs would be angled back at the wheels, but not enough to cause any issues. This way the strut maintains its correct geometry and the wheel gets moved rearward.

 

Great idea, but not sure it would work with the stock brakes. I'd have to take a closer look, at how the wheel cylinders and the shoes attach. If they attach to a removable backing plate, that could also have the holes notched, this would be a pretty easy way to center the rear wheels.

 

Rear disc would lend itself to this easily, as you could make the brackets how they need to be to place the caliper over the rotor in proper alignment.

 

Do the LCAs attach to a mount that is welded to the chassis? I haven't looked closely at this, but if not, or rather if the LCA mounts were a bolt in item, then make new mounts or modifying them to move rearward would help with this.

 

The only other hurdle would be to move the lower strut attachment point. Again this isn't something I looked at, especially with the intent to modify it for something like this.

 

You would also be wise to move the diff back the same amount as wheel centers are moved back, to keep the axles in line.

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Six Shooter, do a search on Techno Toy Tuning struts...

 

I didn't even notice that part of the reply from BOZ, I just read about moving the hub on the knuckle and thought that it could be possible, could be. I've seen simarl things done on other cars, not on driven wheels that I can remember, but some people have changed the ride hight or geometry of thier rear suspension (or front suspensions for that matter) by moving the spindle point, in a few ways. Think drop spindle, but apply it to a drive wheel and in this case instead of for the purpose of lowered ride hight, for the purpose of moving the wheel in the wheel well.

 

Might take engineering a new knuckle (spindle mount?), but just might work.

 

Some ideas start out as "crazy" ones. ;)

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