Cobra and C5 Corvette Suspension, Driveline Project

[Aussie Mike]

Good project Russell,

I'd like to see the rear suspension pickup points brought in a bit and some shorter axles used. I'm not keen on the tyres hanging out of the guards look.

I looked at using the vette transaxle and torque tube but it was too much work to change my chassis to accept it. It would have made maintenence a pain too. Your car will have a more rearward weight bias than most Cobras. Most seem to be near 50:50 or 52 rear 48 front. Th LS1 only weighs about 400 pounds so that will make for even more rearward bias. It should hook up well.

Bill,

The clutch on one of these engines is in the conventional position with the flywheel on the back of the motor.

In my opinion the torque tube setup is safer than a conventional gearbox setup. There's no universal joints just a straight shaft with greek couplings or similar between the engine and gearbox. This is all contained in a sturdy aluminium tube in case something does brake. That's unlikely though because there's no uni joints which are the weak link in a drive shaft. It's also a lot smoother because there's no vibration induced by uni joints changing angle. Therefore it's more efficient.

In a conventional car setup you are far more likely to have a driveshaft failure catastrophic results than a clutch explosion these days. There's no danger of this with a torque tube.

A scatter shield could be very easily incorporated into the tunnel around the bell housing negating the need for a big heavy steel bell housing. This could be done with a balistic blanket or just steel sheet welded into the tunnel area in the right spots. Clutch explosions are a rare thing these days anyway.

Clutch and flywheels have come a long way sinc the days of grey iron flywheels breaking apart at high RPM. Billet steel flywheels are essentially explosion proof and rated to huge RPM. I put an SFI approved billet steel flywheel in mine and it only weighs 15.5 pounds which is about the same as an aluminium flywheel.

Cheers

[bkozlow]

Coilovers can be used on C-4 suspensions that were setup originally for the transverse leaf spring. Please see the picture. These are a bolt in with only one change needed in the rear. The diameter of the half shaft must be reduced to 3 1/2 inches or less to avoid coilover spring interference. The numbers are Bilstein Shock numbers B36-0228 and B46--0238.
Coilover kits #193117 and #193102 are needed. Call Bilstein,tell them what you want, ask them to GROOVE the shocks for the coilover kits, I think, they charge about $40 for that. They may ask you to get them through one of their dealers, I used someone in Mass., last time I ordered some. Cost is about $600 without the springs. This change over will give you the freedom to change ride height and spring rates easily.


Bill K