Coilovers on a SWB car

[MarKoBrow]

I want to put coil overs on my 67 swb car, Does anyone make spring plate kits for the SWB cars? I have this kit from Patrick Motorsports but it is made for the LWB cars. I would be nice not to have to fabricate something on this car. if anyone has anysuggestions I would apprieciate them.

[Kevins911]

Just take your torsion bars out and use the original spring plates, thats what I did on my '71S

[MarKoBrow]

I don't understand, Did you eliminate the need for the heim joint and mounting plates?

[Kevins911]

You still need the mounting plates to hold the spring plates in place, I believe the hem joint is used on the Patrick Motorsports spring plates because they eliminate the bushing that enters the torsion bar tube and use a solid piece of metal instead.

[304065]

Do you mind if I ask the threshold question: why?

Most SWB cars are so rusty they look like they spent summers at the bottom of the English Channel. The shock receivers both front and rear are tiny, smaller even than the LWB, and up until late '65 the fronts aren't even adjustable.

I would say, if you are vintage racing, OK, but no vintage organization on earth will allow you to use coil-overs and stay legal. The factory didn't start doing that until about 1972-- the point I'm making is you would lengthen the chassis to LWB for the handling improvement at the same time you went to the higher spring rates and adjustability of coil-overs.

A properly-designed coil-over system requires an integrated roll cage tying the suspension points in-- otherwise, asking the shock receivers to take that kind of load would result in the mounts tearing clean off the chassis with catastrophic results. Look at the RSR coil-over modifications that have been done here-- Chris Streit's comes to mind, and you can see that you need significant bracing on the shock towers to take the load. This is probably a 40 hour fabrication and welding project best done with the car on a rotisserie with the engine out.

Not trying to rain on the parade, hell if water were money I'd pour it in, but unless there's some serious prize money at stake you would be far better off using torsion bars and completing the modifications to the chassis for THAT e.g. tying in the torsion bar tube to the unibody and strengthening the antiroll bar mounts, etc.

Good luck!