{"id":18357,"date":"2015-09-17T08:57:42","date_gmt":"2015-09-17T15:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=18357"},"modified":"2015-10-02T17:19:18","modified_gmt":"2015-10-03T00:19:18","slug":"subframes-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/subframes-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Subframes – Part One"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Subframe\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Getting down the drag strip isn’t just a matter of building power, bolting it in and pointing the car in the right direction. \u00a0Certainly, the rear suspension setup is critical (and we’ll get to that down the road), and so is the balance of the power train, but the part of the car that seldom gets respect is the front end. \u00a0Sure there are some standard setup procedures, but there are also plenty of things you can do to make the car quicker, faster, and handle and stop better at the strip. \u00a0There’s more, too: Today, the marketplace is filled with racing and high performance hardware. \u00a0Better still, there’s sufficient technology out there so that you can actually bolt together a pretty trick front end (no fabrication necessary). \u00a0Much of it is good quality. \u00a0Some isn’t. \u00a0And some is actually outstanding in terms of quality. \u00a0Now, we’ve personally owned (and flogged) five different first generation Camaros and four ’69-’71 Novas over the decades, so we have a pretty good idea of what’s hot and what’s not! \u00a0And we’ll share that knowledge and experience with you. \u00a0Follow along and we’ll show you how we set up our own car’s front end for drag duty:<\/p>\n

Bare Bones…<\/strong><\/p>\n

You have to start somewhere. \u00a0We had the front sheet metal off the car and obviously, the powertrain out of it. \u00a0At that point, it was a matter of removing four bolts and the subframe could be rolled away from the body. \u00a0Our car was your typical crusty mess. \u00a0So what we did was to strip everything out of the subframe – a-arms, motor mounts, steering linkage, sway bar, springs, shocks, steering box, etc. \u00a0The truth be known, there was little we’d be using from the stock front end, aside from a few bolts and brackets. \u00a0But we’ll get to that later.<\/p>\n

With the subframe naked, we dragged it outside and coated the sub frame in degreaser (actually, we used the Super Clean stuff that comes in a purple spray bottle). \u00a0We let it sit for a bit and then pressure washed it. \u00a0Next up, we scraped off the old dealer-applied undercoating. \u00a0Here, a propane torch, a putty scraper, and a brace of wire brushes (in varying sizes) work wonders. \u00a0Once the grease, grime, and undercoating were gone, we took the time to grind all of the factory welds and weld splatter. \u00a0FYI, this is a dirty job, but the only way to get it done is to grind it with an angle grinder and a die grinder, and then finish it off with a wire wheel. \u00a0It works, but it takes time. \u00a0In our case, a week’s worth of evenings. \u00a0It’s a personal thing, but we also grind down sharp edges on these subframes (there are a lot of them). \u00a0Why? \u00a0Simple. \u00a0There’s way less of a chance of tearing up your skin while working on them when those dozens of sharp corners are gone. \u00a0Once that was complete, we hauled it to a sand blaster. \u00a0From there, it went to our favorite powder coater.<\/p>\n

The reality is, powder coating has a reputation as a pretty remarkable coating. \u00a0While accurate for the most part, it’s not enchanted and it’s certainly not without faults. \u00a0We’ve all heard the sales pitch where you can smack a coated part with a hammer and it won’t chip. \u00a0Fascinating, but not exactly true. \u00a0It will chip. \u00a0The bottom line here is it’s durable, but not invincible! \u00a0Keep that in mind when working with powder coated parts.<\/p>\n

Back to the subframe: \u00a0We had our example coated in low gloss black. \u00a0It’s close to the factory finish (if that matters), but it’s also a pretty low maintenance combination. \u00a0The subframe looked absolutely fantastic when we received it. \u00a0Honestly, the factory never made them this nice (see the lead photo), but we digress.<\/p>\n

At this point, you can reunite the subframe with the body. \u00a0There are a lot of ways to accomplish this, but for a drag car, you should use solid mounts. \u00a0Solid body mounts provide a simple approach to eliminating the flex that occurs between the body and subframe connection. \u00a0This will improve your car’s ET by increasing chassis stiffness. \u00a0These mounts should be used when installing subframe connectors for maximum torsional rigidity. \u00a0Fair enough, but this is where Classic Industries enters the equation. \u00a0Most will think of Classic as a one-stop shop for restoration hardware, but that’s not entirely accurate. \u00a0You see, the folks from Classic Industries also sell a wide (and we mean wide) range of high performance parts. \u00a0They have another advantage, too (this is a good tip by the way): Let’s just say their pricing is more than competitive and if you get on their mailing list, you can often obtain even better price breaks on parts.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Honestly, we picked up a bunch of aftermarket parts from Classic for our project. \u00a0And several pieces include a set of billet aluminum Detroit Speed subframe mounts as well as a set of stainless steel ARP body mount fasteners. \u00a0The body mounts are CNC machined from billet aluminum. \u00a0The mounts are then hard-coated (not bright anodized). \u00a0The hard-coating process resists corrosion that can occur between steel and aluminum surfaces. \u00a0CNC machined stainless steel bevel washers are included. \u00a0Classic Industries also supplied a set of very trick ARP 17-4 stainless steel flanged body bolt kits. \u00a0FYI, Classic can set you up with standard height or\u00a0\u00bd height mounts.\u00a0 The \u00bd height mounts will lower the car (obviously), but they also bring their own issues (dimensions for things like the rag joint stack up). Nova applications have two bolts that are \u00bd-inch longer than a Camaro and they also include a special spacer (which all 1968-72 Novas have) that fits above the first body mount at the cowl. \u00a0Finally, the kits are complete with a similar set of solid radiator core support mounts and the bolt kits include stainless steel ARP fasteners for the rad support. \u00a0The solid mounts install the same as cushion jobs, but you should use anti-seize on the stainless bolt threads.<\/p>\n

Once the mounts are assembled and the subframe is installed, do not torque to specs yet! \u00a0You need to square the subframe in the car. \u00a0Here’s a quick way to do it at home: At the rear of the body (ahead of the front spring eye) is a body cross member. \u00a0You’ll find two trammel alignment holes. \u00a0They’re easy to spot – they measure approximately 5\/16-inch in diameter and they’re near the rocker panel. \u00a0With the car level to the floor, drop a plumb line down from the center of each of these trammel holes. \u00a0Mark that point with a piece of tape on the floor. \u00a0Beside the forward body mount point on the subframe is an extra hole (see the photos). \u00a0Drop a plumb line down from the center of this hole. \u00a0Mark that location on the floor with another piece of tape. \u00a0Measure front to back on both sides. \u00a0Then measure diagonally from the passenger side rear trammel hole to the driver side plumb line mark. \u00a0Do the same from the driver’s side rear trammel hole to the passenger side subframe plumb line mark. \u00a0What you need to do is to get the two front to back and diagonal measurements as close to the same as possible. \u00a0That means the subframe is square in the car. \u00a0Keep in mind these are old production line cars and you’ll probably be out a 1\/8-inch or so over 6+feet. \u00a0When done, you can torque to specs.<\/p>\n

With the subframe squared, you can finish the build. \u00a0Next issue, we’ll move on to the a-arms and steering box install. \u00a0Watch for it.<\/p>\n

Other parts of this series:<\/p>\n

Subframes Part II<\/a><\/p>\n

Subframes Part III<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Subframe\"<\/a>
This is the mess we started with. If you compare it to the lead photo, you’ll see there’s quite a difference. To get there, you’ll have to strip the subframe, detail it, sandblast it, and powder coat it. See the text for more info.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"Billet<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Billet<\/a>
Here’s the billet aluminum body mount from Classic Industries. The first photo shows the top half on the subframe pad. The second shows the bolt, the upper and lower mount pads and a Nova body spacer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"ARP<\/a>
The ARP fasteners should have their threads painted with anti-seize before installation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"solid<\/a>
This is the installed solid body mount. Note the beveled stainless steel washer. It’s a cool setup.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"plumb<\/a>
You’ll need to square the subframe in the car. We dropped a plumb line down from the body trammel points first.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"plumb<\/a>
Next, we dropped a plumb line down from the center of this hole in the subframe. From here you can square the subframe to the body. See the text for more info.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

See how we set up a Camaro (or Nova) subframe for drag duty.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":18358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,11,9],"tags":[2,4800,3405,461,321],"class_list":["post-18357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-how-tos","category-tech-tips","tag-drag-racing","tag-how-tos","tag-subframes","tag-tech-tips-2","tag-wayne-scraba"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Subframe-lead.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-4M5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18357"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19063,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18357\/revisions\/19063"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}