Suspension - what to use?

Some work on this already, more details to follow, but it does involve lots of aluminium billets and making swarf!

Beyond the ordinary

The old subframe that came with the car was rotten, so I bought a second hand one. But I thought about fabricating a rear beam set-up from box section instead, so sold the subframe!

Now many people say that using a rear beam is not the best approach as it can make the back end of the car very light, but I like the idea, so I will be making one.

Machining the parts

Unfortunately, the mill in work is not big enough to make the beam in one piece, so it it to be made in two pieces. This will weaken the structure, but we can overcome that. The two parts will be joined together in the centre with a tight fitting strap that bolts the two parts together. Additionally, the beam will be bolted to the body by the two original subframe bolts on each side, and with four additional bolts through the closure panel on each side.

Finishing the beam

With getting a little more confident with he machine, I decided to machine a hex pattern into the beam for decoration.

The brackets to mount the trailing arms to will be bolted to the beam using 4 cap head bolts.

Mounting the trailing arms.

The rear brackets have been designed to make the rear suspension adjustable for camber and toe in situ. Hopefully it wont need any adjustment to move the wheels forward or rearward, but that can be done with shims between the body and beam.

The outer bracket will provide up to 3 degrees of negative camber, whilst the inner bracket will give up to 1 degree of toe in or out. This should be enough to set the car up to look good and maybe handle. Brackets are currently in production.

Trailing arms

There is no point going to this extent and then using the original trailing arms, so they are on the list to be made. These have been 3D printed already to check clearance for the wheels. The brakes are the original front brake disks on custom hubs with handbrake callipers. Some maths and a bias pedal box to balance the brakes out.