so i fell into a bunch of parts and it has me seriously thinkin a slight direction change on my 34 chevy.... which was goin in a lakester inspired direction. i aquired a winters ultimate pro q/c, weld magnum spline drive centers, matching weld front direct mount hubs...2 lefts actually(built in rotor carrier), steering box, and a whole bunch of misc birdcages, torsion bars/ends.....everything from a 2 y/o 410 car. i got the stuff with the idea of selling on racejunk, but after unloading evrything.... the wheels started turning. im at an early enough point in my build that the change doesnt really move me backwards at all...in fact it knocks the shopping list for parts down a few pages. my real dilema is that i wanted a traditional style lake car...minor updating for safety/reliability sake. i think all these parts bump the "wow" factor up to a 10 incorperated into a hot rod... and at the heart of it, it doesnt get much more tradional hot roding than takling race car parts and using em when ya can.... i dont know...and that why im asking for opinions... maybe somebody can push me off the fence one way or the other.
FWIW, the QC is/was a lakes staple. I don't see that it changes your concept at all. Does your Winters have straight cut or beveled gears? If it is straight cut, it will howl like a banshee on the highway. jack vines
i guess the biggest change would be the wheels...gold annodized spline drive centers... and the direct mount centers on the front... i already checked and can get wheel halves to make 6" wide and up to 15-16 wide for the rears. im thinkin black powdercoating the actual rims with gold centers would be cool.... but it kills any/all aspects of a tradional vintage style car... throw in disk brakes and power steering.... all thats missing is a/c and billet widgets and i got a full on street rod.... my ultimate non goal oh and im sure they are straight cut with minor helix...i would need to look into it a lil further..... and i dont really care about noise.. it ads to the overall enjoyment of having a hot rod.
The rear you have is probably a open tube rear or also known as a live axle, the rear axle and is 3' in dia . you really cant run these on the street , Its like driving with a locked rear end, Good luck on your project Deek
I personally say go for it but powdercoat the wheels silver instead of black. You don't have to use power steering. My 2cents is it's hot rod not street rod.
thats exactly what it is. what i have in mind is to build a bird cage that attaches to a ladder bar of sorts... and mounts a coil over or possibly the torsion bars... similar to the sprint car birdcage, but with an extra triangulation point on the locating link. since it wont have the torque tube, it would need a t/a of some sort to keep the center section oriented correctly for the driveshaft. so there are some major engineering points to address to even install it... but the least of my worries is the fact that it is a locked... i plan on running around a 8" wheel on the rear, so i dont think there is any differnce than running a spool on the street. at this point in the what-if bench building session, im at a loss for a engine choice. from day 1 with this car i absolutley refuse to run a SBC.... i always figured on running a W motor of some sort. but the late model race car parts kinda leave me at a loss for a proper engine choice, unless i fork out some serious cash on an all alum 410, and tame it down enough for street play. thoughts of a carbed LSx did come to mind.... as they are fairly common and budget friendly. looks like i really need to figure out what "I" want, i lurk on this board because i really like tradional cars, and i feel tradional is timeless, i guess i really need to figure out if i can combine the vintage style with the modern technology and come up with something that is #1 "fun" and #2 interesting to me.... after all, if i dont like it, why would i build it.
I personally don't think a w motor would look bad in there, man. Also, it's not the end of the world to run a locked rear on the street, except maybe in the snow, but you would probably not be out in that anyhow. I really appreciate the easy power of an LS motor, but I think it's kind of hard to make them look good in an engine bay.
No reason you can't go ahead and run the sprint birdcages and torsion bar suspension. You'll probably need longer bars at the rear. You can use tubular sway bars and arms, you'll just need some custom bar stops. I'd think long about running those direct mount front hubs...they wren't designed for anything near the axle weight you'll have, even on a very light street car. As far as the torque tube, if you have one go ahead and use it. All you need is a "Buckley" yoke instead of the enclosed ball at the front. Fab up a mount off the trans crossmember. If you want an open driveline, there are plenty of torque arms available that will fit your QC housing. Hmmm...you'd think I had been down this road before....
Make sure you carry some extra drive plates with you, especially if you're running the aluminum ones. my friend has a winters quick change and the stress from tight turns strips out the driveplates. He replaces 2-3 per year.
That QC doesn't use drive plates. The wheels are splined directly to the axle. The splines are about 2 1/2" in diameter.
well i had a road trip to santa rosa today, so i had a lot of time to ponder this... and the direct mount fronts have been the major hang up. option 1: build my own spindles to fit a standard drop axle, maybe on a race car, not really for me on a street car. option 2: i can get a matching wheel in a regular bolt on configuration.... so that is probably the route to take. the idea with the custom birdcage is more for running a coilover, if it was a triangulated link, i wouldnt need to worry about the coil pressure rotating the cage. if i run torsion bars, then i would run in standard spring car fashion.... as it works fantasic as is. im just not sure about packaging yet, hopefully i will have some free time this weekend and do some mock-up. i will do some searching for that "buckley" yoke.... as i have no idea what it is. i do have a couple torque tubes, and the spacing the the trans output would be workable.... i just figured the open driveshaft, as thats what im familiar with. and building a t/a isnt a big deal at all. aside from the rear diff and the front axle, the chassis is 100% scratch built. i will start a build thread when i get some parts mocked up... kinda show where im at now. btw, i work in a CNC shop, so custom birdcages and other parts arent really a problem..... any parts i whittle out of "a block" will have the tool marks in it...... cuz i think it looks bad ass. im kinda shocked....not a single negative comment about it being non tradional/vintage. i think i may have fallen off the fence, now i just need to come up with a fitting motor choice. many thanks for all the help from everybody.
'im kinda shocked....not a single negative comment about it being non tradional/vintage. i think i may have fallen off the fence, now i just need to come up with a fitting motor choice'. Well I guess Im that one voice........... Sell those parts and build a traditional car, that stuff would be Ok in a street rod. Lets face it, with all this stuff you are building a STREET ROD, not a HOT ROD. Think hard, what do you want? Doc.
Nice pile of used race car parts. Although this appears to be a good deal there are some limitations. The first is the rear end, since this is out of a sprint car it has a spool drive which has no differential action. This means every time you turn the corner one of the tires scrubs to turn and this is more difficult a low speed. Operation using this rear on wet pavement is a eye opening experience, whichever tire has traction that is the way the car goes, and that in the ditch or telephone pole.. The front hubs can be used but will require the correct spindles to match the bearings. You can pickup a set of used spindles most have 10* KP angle like a Ford axle but the race car king pin size is .859 not .812 like the car, just bore out the axle. You will have to check the boss height to see what kind of support bearing will fit. The steering box is a quick ratio box and will require you to reengineer the steering arms and pitman arm to slow the steering down to a driveable ratio not gokart speed. Will the stuff work , well sure, but there are a bunch of limitations or modifications required to do so, my take is to put the stuff in a pile and sell it and take the money and purchase the correct parts for your build so you are not speeding hours modifing stuff to only make it operational.
That rear is an open tube as already mentioned...no differential and it will never have one. Do you really want to drive that on the street everyday? Yeah i know guys have done it with spools but it really isn't a street friendly set-up. You might as well look for top fuel engine for your daily driver IMHO. And that rear will completely change your build from a traditional ride to a street rod... sell the parts and use the $$$ for your hot rod.
that is the best point made in this entire thread. while i dont think the car will ever be in the "street rod" catagory... im worried that it may end up way to far into the race car catagory. if i cant jump in it and make a worry free 10hr road trip to b-ville.... then i really have no use for it. i have had the rear diff for a while, tryed selling it couple times with no luck.... "if" i decide to keep moving forward in the original direction.... i will save this stuff for a future project.... possibly a belly tank again.....thanks for the help from EVERYBODY
I seen a coupe in Salina with new wide 5 front hubs and they were not overwhelming they just kinda blended in with the car
most sprint and dirt modifieds have off set center sections meaning one axle is longer than the other and you will need a torque tube or arms of sorts to stop the center from rotating I like the idea of running torsion bars and you don't need longer ones just offset the tubes to get the width you want and the higher you mount them you have less body roll with lower rated bars for better ride as for the spindle mounts no problem as Dick said I have two open tube winter Qc one new and the other has one race and been trying to find a way to use them safely