Wanting to put a straight axle under the 55 Plymouth I bought. Leaning towards a 4 bar with coilovers instead of the standard me to parallel leaf setup. Need photo ideas and the does and don't of a proper setup. Not knocking the parallel setup I've installed a few under altered wheelbase cars. With the Mopar frame I'll have to build a front clip. Just want to try something on this one. Yes I know I spelled axle wrong ...
The Ron Bizio Truck was changed from parallel front springs to 4-bar coilovers in 67. The axle had some drop.
On my 31 Plymouth Coupe I used coil overs, along with a Superbell forged aluminum Ford style axle, with custom made chrome moly hairpins. It is VERY light compared to parallel leafs or a transverse leaf. Where the holes in the axle for the Ford spring perches are, just make up some brackets that mount the hair pins (or the 4 link bars) and the bottom end of the shock, bolted thru the holes. Then fab up some type of upper shock mount. I can post some close up pics later if requested.
My '33 Willys coupe has a 4-bar with coil overs. Seven degrees of caster is about the max limit for good street manners. I also used a (Fiero) steering damper to eliminate death wobble. Keeping the coil overs as close to vertical will reduce the spring rate needed.
A coil over setup of course requires a panhard bar to keep it located, but they work well. If you're planning to go with a higher front stance, then I'd skip the coilover setup. They don't work as well as the nose gets higher, and often get a little twitchy at higher speeds. But if kept lower like most of the cars pictured above are, they will perform great.
I'm sure there's people smarter than me who can come up with a better way, but this is how mine ended up:
The Jalopy Journal
