[JLMounce]

TL : DR - The Global West L2 Cat 5 springs are pretty awesome, but the install is a bit more involved. Likely not recommended to casual drivers due to firmness and cost. The QA1 Pro Coils are likewise pretty great, but again given their expense, likely a waste of money for anyone that is never going to have a need to corner-balance their car. Stick with conventional springs and shocks.

Over the past couple weeks, I took the front and rear springs out of my '69 Bird for some new equipment.

Previously the car sat on Hotchkis 3" drop leaf springs, Hotchkis 2" drop springs and I used Verishock SS shocks.

After my engine upgrade last year, I started noticing some deficiencies in the handling department. Funny how an extra 150hp will do that. Specifically, the rear end was far too lively. It was unloading very abruptly during slight power corners and during heavy braking. The ride was never terrible with this setup, but the rear was always a bit jarring and you could also feel the front end hit travel limiters at times.

I spent a solid month and a half researching just about every avenue for suspension changes. I spoke to anyone who offered a link style suspension upgrade, as well as with Global West regarding their Cat 5 leaf system.

I've never learned to weld, so much of the link style suspension upgrades would have required me to send the car off for work. I haven't been particularly impressed with any work I've had done on the car recently and given the quotes I was receiving, really pushed the idea of a 4 link or torque arm system out to left field.

Add to that the fact that most of the link setups require hacking off the back section of the exhaust, or in the case of a torque arm, removing the cross-over, that was also additional expense on a car that is largely "done."

costs involves, it became pretty easy to go with Global West's solution. A set of custom made L2 leaf springs that come in around 180# and their Cat 5 high misalignment bearing setup. To match the rear and gain some adjustability, QA1 Pro Coils with 600# springs were spec'd. Shocks are QA1 double adjustable all around.

Some of you may rightly point out that I typically don't recommend these hybrid style coil-overs. That is true. I still believe that the side loading imparted on shock body by the conical, uncaptured spring represents a failure point. That said, these shocks have a lifetime warranty, that I made sure to promptly register and they are readily available and can be rebuilt if necessary. That gives me a bit more piece of mind.

There are a couple coil-over shocks on the market that can be adapted to my SPC lower control arms and the factory shock mount. These specifically are the RideTech coil-over and the Verishock coil-over conversion. Both use a stud mount that captures the top of the shock into the factory shock mount. This allows the spring to be captured to prevent side-loading. However the factory shock mount isn't really intended to see those types of loads and the RideTech shock with a T-bar conversion on the bottom would be rigidly mounted and could damage itself, or the shock mount. The Verishock has a swivel ball top that overcomes this, but due to the size of the ball mount, it's highly likely modifications need to be made to the upper mount to accommodate it.

Long story long, the QA1 Pro Coils became the only real way to add adjustability and spring rate with my need to keep from fabricating a whole bunch of stuff, or ditching my current SPC arms. So...I decided I'd give them a try.

As for the installation, the Pro-Coils are easy to install. Arguably easier than installing a factory length conventional coil spring. Since I purchased from GW, they included the thrust bearing kit and multiple spanners which makes ride height adjustment a bit easier.

The leaf springs were more involved. Partially because you have to press in bearing shells to the frame and partially because I use the RideTech subframe connectors which have an integrated front eye pocket. The integrated pocket is deep enough to allow full articulation of the leaf spring's tilt, but the pocket is not designed for a reverse eye leaf. There is an ear on the outboard side of each pocket that interferes with both the vertical and twisting motion of the spring. Fortunately removing these ears doesn't get into any of the structural pieces of the connectors, so a couple cuts with the cut-off wheel gave me the clearance I needed.

Wrestling the rear end into position on the leaf springs is made more difficult by the fact that they do twist. You're in a bit of a fight to get things seated properly as when you move one side, the other side isn't necessarily locked in place until the lower shock plates have captured the leaf pack to the mounts. Global West wants these rigidly mounted, metal to metal, but in my case the Moser leaf brackets were slightly deeper than the total height of the leaf pack, so I did need to use spring isolators to take up the gap. In hindsight I'd probably use the necessary thickness lowering block, but for a car that is mostly street, having some isolation there isn't hurting anything.

Installation completed, what are my thoughts? The 600# spring in the front is much more acceptable for a car that is 2000 lbs on the nose. The car feels much more nimble and turn in is crisper. Because I have more bump travel now, even with the stiffer spring, the front glides over bumps and imperfections much better. Although you do notice it is firmer in nature, the ride quality in general is much better.

On the rear-end, it is noticeably stiffer. The Hotchkis springs are a progressive rate from around 150-175 lbs. The GW springs are as close to a linear rate as you can make a multi-leaf spring and they should come in between 180-190#. This is where much of the added ride firmness is now coming from. Again though, because this is a 2" lowering leaf instead of a 3" drop and it uses primarily reverse eye construction to achieve this, you no longer get the crashing effect of the leaf hyper-extending over bumps. To reiterate, the ride is firmer, by a noticeable amount, but the ride quality has also improved noticeably.

The extra stiffness in the rear, is currently the most challenging thing I'm dealing with from a shock tuning standpoint. I'm sneaking up on it, but I'm finding I'm needing much more rebound damping on the rear to control post bump bouncing. That is working to my favor however, because the amount of extra traction at the rear that is apparent is now creating a push at the front. The tendency for abrupt oversteer, especially on power, is completely gone. I haven't tested heavy braking yet, so I can't comment on that.

As rebound is stiffened in the rear, it should create more rotation, which will decrease the amount of understeer. Once I have the compression/rebound thresholds dialed in for neutral handling, I should be able to increase and decrease the compression and rebound in batches to increase overall grip. I'm currently at 6 clicks of compression and 8 clicks of rebound on the front and 4 clicks of compression and 8 clicks of rebound on the rear. Still in the bottom 3rd of total adjustment on these shocks.

Overall I'm extremely happy with this purchase. I'm continuing to fine tune both the ride heights and the shock valving to tailor everything to my usage and driving style. At a total cost of around $3000.00 (including shipping) I sincerely believe I achieved 85% to 90% of the handling benefit that a link style rear would have provided, but at about 35-40% of the cost. Considering I don't competitively track this car and spend 90% of the time cruising around my town, I think that's a fairly decent trade-off.

Some parting thoughts for those of you that are still reading at this point. Would I recommend this level of setup for most of the people on this board that ask about suspension advise? Probably not. While the ride quality is quite good, the leaf springs are expensive when compared to off-the shelf leaf springs and the whole combination is probably a little firmer than the average driver wants.

The Cat 5 bearing system shines specifically off corner, on throttle. If you don't do much in the way of pushing the car in the corners, it's added expense that isn't going to be of much benefit to you. I haven't noticed an increase in noise or harshness, but there's a possibility there since it's a bearing rather than a bushing.

I lean the same direction on the Pro Coils, or any of the competing products from companies like Viking or Alden American. Unless you need to corner balance the car, these don't inherently make the car ride or corner better. A quality conventional coil spring from a company like Global West, DSE, Hotchkis etc. mixed with a quality shock is going to do and you let the ride height land where it lands.

I will say, that adjusting ride height isn't hard, but it's also not that easy. Even with the thrust bearing kit, it's not really feasible to adjust the height without getting the car off the ground and to do it correctly, you really need to have the sway bar detached. So this idea that it's something you're always doing isn't built on reality.

So far, the ride quality from the QA1 shocks has been good and you can feel even minor adjustments in valving, so that doesn't seem to be any type of marketing gimmick. A traditional style single adjustable QA1 shock would definitely make my recommendation list at this point if there's a desire to tweak valving to create neutral handling or to more precisely dial in how you want the car to ride.

No pictures on this one, it's all fairly self explanatory. Thanks for reading, hopefully it's decent information for those looking.

[HWYSTR455]

I have been going thru a similar endeavor with my A body, was being pressured to switch to a hybrid coilover like the QA1 stuff. I am already pretty vested in a traditional coil spring setup, and didn't want to switch.

I have all GW stuff, except they are getting out of traditional coil springs, with a limited stock remaining. They didn't have a rate I was looking for, and told me they no longer can get springs made. So went to a different vendor.

It's a little frustrating because all I can really do is take shot at guessing a spring rate, and go from that point. Currently, I have a 850 lbs spring on the front, and a 200 lbs on the rear, using QA1 double adjustable shocks.

It's very close, am on the wall if I should even try a different rate or wait until I have more drive time on the ones I have.

The shock I have is based on the pro shock body, without the threaded body. Compression and rebound settings are 1-14, and am currently at C10-R12 on the front, and C11-R14 on the rear. Considering I am set that high with the shocks, I may actually need a 900 lbs for the front 220 lbs rear, but again, before I change I want to get some drive time on it first.

My 2nd gen F, all GW, I have 700 lbs on the front, and the L5 CAT leafs on the back that are 200 lbs. I have Viking double adjustables for that, but car is still under construction. The leafs are not the full reverse eye, the main leaf meets the center of the spring eyes. It has the bearing in the front, Del-alum in the rear (need to double check, it might have the bearing in the rear).

Next week I go to have the A body corner scaled, and that should give me a better idea of how close I am.

You appear to be very close too, would be curious if you corner scaled your car and the weights you have. Both my cars have endura bumpers, and serpentine setups, so considerable weight in front of the front tires. A rough guess-timate for the A body is around 14-1600 lbs on each front.

Odd thing about the leaf cars, especially the 2nd gen Fs. May say they shouldn't use a rear sway bar, but have a hard time buying that. I've have a number of conversations with people competing with the F cars, and many don't use a rear bar, but just can't bring myself to not using one. Guess when the time comes, I will just have to try it.



.

[JLMounce]

I have had my car scaled previously, but that was before I swapped out any of this suspension and changed to the 4l80e, which added some weight.

With about half a tank of fuel, the car weighed 3402 without a passenger.

FL - 993
FR - 1007
RL - 705
RR - 697

I definitely agree that if you're nearing the max on compression and rebound on your current dampers and it's not just an incredibly jarring ride, you probably need more wheel rate. Either a much heavier sway bar, or heavier spring rates. I know on the A-bodies, they are heavy enough that I commonly see spline drive solid bars or even in competitive auto-x cars, as far as rigidly mounted bars welded to the frame rails. The weight over the nose requires so much wheel rate on those cars.

In regards to the F cars without sway bars, my experience and pretty much what everyone I've talked with says that until the rear tire starts gaining a lot of traction, meaning very wide and very sticky rubber, the rear end is too loose for even a minor sway bar. This doesn't actually seam to be just an issue with the leaf springs, but presents itself even with link style setups. Both RideTech and Speedtech told me basically until you start getting to a 315 tire, the rear end is too fast and adding a rear bar just makes it worse. As tire size and grip goes up, the rear end will slow compared to the front and specifically to a tight auto-x like you see at GoodGuys events, you need the bar back there to help the car rotate. You commonly find almost all of the link systems are sold with the sway bar as an option.

I don't completely know or understand the mechanics, but based on where the lower links attach at the factory spring eye location, there's some weight jacking that is occurring on these cars. With a leaf spring that has a standard bushing, or even a solid del-a-lum front and rear, as load is applied unevenly in a corner, the spring wants to twist, but is being restricted from doing so, which causes the wheel rate rise, making the problem worse.

That was precisely what I was trying to achieve here. In a steady state corner, I didn't have much of an issue, but anything that was on-throttle, the rear end really wanted to be the front end. So far, I can absolutely tell that having the bearings in the eyes has slowed down the rear end on throttle. I need to have an alignment done before I spend a lot of time on the road, but with some more testing I may decide to install my Hellwig rear bar if I find that the rear is too slow now. But I also have a lot of compression and rebound that I can add yet before going to the rear bar.

[Skip Fix]

I tried no rear bar when I was autocrossing my 78 TA with road race slicks -did not like it. Even the WS6 rear bar would be stiff enough to pick up inner rear tire in a hard sharp turn-or a big slanted driveway. I use the small 5/8 rear bar. I do like stiffer front springs like Guldstrand did to combat brake dive and unloading the rear. I tend to go in a little hot
Standard springs are a pain to get the height just right, several cuts on my TA. I put GW hybrid QA double adjustable coil overs on the front of my 64 Vette project so it is easier. With narrow fenderwells getting tire clearance is a big deal on C2s with height.

[JLMounce]

That makes sense considering the increased traction provided by the slick.

I tend to drive off the rear wheel, I don't trail break much. Probably just how I learned and the fact that I couldn't heal-toe shift when I first started lapping event. By necessity I had to get all my braking done before corner entry. My driving style probably induces some of the oversteer situation.

I changed too much at one time to really tell, but a nice icing on the cake for this is that my 30mph part throttle shudder that I've dealt with ever since installing the 4l80e is completely gone. It's likely the ride height change being more favorable U-joint working angles. I do miss how slammed the car was prior to this change, but even I know that with the stock subframe and suspension pickup points, these cars stop working correctly if you get them too low.

[Skip Fix]

Going from DOT sticky autocross radials to radial road race slicks was night and day difference!

[HWYSTR455]

I will corner scale the bird when I get it driving, but do recall at one time I weighed it and it was like 3550.

The A body has to be pushing 4400-4600 with all the add-ons I have, it's crazy heavy. But that thing sticks around corners that surprises just about everyone.

Instant center plays a big part on how the rear sticks, especially coming out of corners.

On the F car, raising the front spring eye effects anti-squat enough to help keep the rear planted but in some cases it can be too much so.

4-links once you have bearings in the key points, there too it becomes more sensitive to adjustments.

True on conventional coils it takes time to get the proper ride height/corner weights, whew! But am a pro now w R&R! It's nice when you go higher rates in the front, you can make the spring shorter, and a spring compressor is no longer required. I can do both side in like 90 min now.

.

[JLMounce]

Oh yeah, fronts are crazy easy. Made even easier in my case that I run a Wilwood radial mount setup. 2 bolts and 3 small screws and the complete caliper and rotor comes off. Much better than the factory stuff where you've got a 25 lb hat and rotor still on the knuckle that you have to contend with.

The hardest part of the whole thing was pressing in the bushing sleeves into the frame. My car still has it's factory frame rails. There's close to 60 years of service on that upper mount and I'm fairly certain the rubber bushings I removed when I did the Hotchkis springs 10 years ago were the factory bushings. Needless to say, removal of the poly bushings and installation of the pressed in aluminum bushing sleeves was a big time suck. On a car with new frame rails, or one in really great condition, this wouldn't be too bad.

[HWYSTR455]

I just loosen the upper ball joint nut, give it a few taps with a hammer, and it pops free. Put a floor jack under the lower control arm and put a little tension on it, remove the upper ball joint nut, and lift the upper arm up.

Let the floor jack down slowly until all the tension is released, and lower it enough to slip the spring out. Reverse the process to install new spring.

I leave the knuckle and brake stuff on there, but obviously you have to remove the shock, and depending, you might have to take the sway bar end link off.

For the bushing in the frame, I used a ball hone to clean up the frame hole, used chassis lube to lube everything up, and tapped it in.



.

[JLMounce]

Originally Posted by JLMounce

The extra stiffness in the rear, is currently the most challenging thing I'm dealing with from a shock tuning standpoint. I'm sneaking up on it, but I'm finding I'm needing much more rebound damping on the rear to control post bump bouncing. That is working to my favor however, because the amount of extra traction at the rear that is apparent is now creating a push at the front. The tendency for abrupt oversteer, especially on power, is completely gone. I haven't tested heavy braking yet, so I can't comment on that.

Coming back to this part of my original post. The reason I was having issues with some bouncing was not an issue with the amount of rebound damping I was putting into the shocks.

Plain and simple, the QA1 shock was too long for my application. Double checked my shock ride heights and I was just bottoming out the passenger side shock. Not enough that it was causing crashing harshness, but just enough to compress the bushings in the stem and lower mount and likely using the tire a bit as well. All this became an un-damped spring of its own and was causing the bouncing.

To verify, I threw my set of non-adjustable Verishock's back on the rear and instantly the ride cleaned up. No bouncing, just a controlled spring without a lot of bouncing. I will say that the non-adjustable Verishock, is a little underdamped for this spring. It could use a bit more compression and a slight bit more rebound.

I'm attaching a couple photos to give you an idea of what's going on here. The QA1 shock I still think is a good high quality twin tube, but it's built to be modular to keep SKU's down and pad QA1's bottom line over having 1000's of different SKU's. Because of how they attach a stem mount for bushings, you actually lose about 1.5" of the effective shock travel. But QA1 still has you measure from the underside of the bottom bushing.

In my case, with the TD802, on the passenger side specifically that stem mount is enough to run out of compression distance on the shock. Even going to the TD703 which is nominally 1" shorter, I would only gain enough shock travel in bump to leave maybe 1/4" of room. Too close for comfort on some of the roads around here.

So for now the Verishocks are staying in the back. Most people are not a proponent of mixing and matching shock brands, but in this case, QA1 doesn't appear to even make a shock the length I need it for my application.

For Global West's part, they have been good to work with, but are baffled at the situation. This really isn't some crazy exotic setup. They sell hundreds of these springs and shock combos and neither I, nor they have an explanation on why shock ride heights on my car are coming in so short.

The Verishock line is about an inch shorter in the shock body itself and doesn't have that screw on stem mount that is taking up more shock travel. For leaf spring cars that get low in the rear, it's sized more appropriately. Likely a benefit of it being a mono tube vs twin tube shock.

[VCho455]

Thank you for posting this complication you have likely have saved me some real head scratching down the road. I have QA1's and Cat 5's waiting to be installed. I will be using the PTFB front spring mounts and their leaf spring plates with my older Cat 5's and that don't have the reverse eyes so I may see different results. I'll know more in a couple months after other work has been completed.
Thanks again, I will take a close look at the shock lengths.

[HWYSTR455]

Just to comment, I have had poor experience dealing with GW lately, to a point where the one guy was condescending, even after I proved the spring rates he was recommending were insufficient. I have always been a proponent of GW, their' parts, and advice I would get from Doug, but my recent experiences have led me to no long recommend them, and I will avoid doing biz with them from here on out.

I have QA1s in the A body, and will have to go back and check travel limits. Currently, in the rear, I only have a drop of about .5-1", so believe I'm well within the shock's travel range. But am still going to check, both rear and front.

I mis-spoke regarding the adjustment range of the QA1 shocks in my previous post, the range of clicks on adjustment go to 18, not 14. And will have to go back and check the adjustments. Still, at 14 in the rear, I think I am too close to the upper end of range for adjustment, will will step up to a 220 lbs spring and try again. Half tempted to go to a 230 or 240 lbs spring, still on the wall there.

On the front adjustment, I need to try backing off on the shock setting some and see if my range of adjustment is sufficient.

Thankfully, I bought Viking shocks for my 2nd gen F, but there too I will keep an eye out for that and measure. So very much appreciate your input/experiences.

Hoping more folks will take time to view this thread, and provide additional info as well.



.

[JLMounce]

Yeah the 72's are going to be slightly different of course. When installing, check how much exposed shaft length you have at ride height. You'll likely want a minimum of 2.5" of exposed shaft (not including the stem mount).

I think they spec the same TD802 that I have for the 2nd gens as well. I did speak with QA1 and they said no issue with mixing and matching their part numbers. So you could do a shorter TD703 on one side if you need to.

If the car is on the ground now, you should also measure your shock ride height before install. Measure from the center of the bottom eye to the bottom of the lower bushing mount while the car is at ride height. For the TD802 you need to be in the 15.5-16.5" range. If you're outside of that you may want to look at a longer or shorter shock as necessary. Obviously it's easier to sell stuff that's new in box vs stuff that's been mounted already.

[JLMounce]

Originally Posted by HWYSTR455

Just to comment, I have had poor experience dealing with GW lately, to a point where the one guy was condescending, even after I proved the spring rates he was recommending were insufficient. I have always been a proponent of GW, their' parts, and advice I would get from Doug, but my recent experiences have led me to no long recommend them, and I will avoid doing biz with them from here on out.

I have QA1s in the A body, and will have to go back and check travel limits. Currently, in the rear, I only have a drop of about .5-1", so believe I'm well within the shock's travel range. But am still going to check, both rear and front.

I mis-spoke regarding the adjustment range of the QA1 shocks in my previous post, the range of clicks on adjustment go to 18, not 14. And will have to go back and check the adjustments. Still, at 14 in the rear, I think I am too close to the upper end of range for adjustment, will will step up to a 220 lbs spring and try again. Half tempted to go to a 230 or 240 lbs spring, still on the wall there.

On the front adjustment, I need to try backing off on the shock setting some and see if my range of adjustment is sufficient.

Thankfully, I bought Viking shocks for my 2nd gen F, but there too I will keep an eye out for that and measure. So very much appreciate your input/experiences.

Hoping more folks will take time to view this thread, and provide additional info as well.



.

I've been primarily dealing with Scott, but have spoken with Doug a few times. It certainly sucks to see once prominent companies start to lose it.

I will say my experience doesn't mirror yours. That doesn't make that okay though.

[VCho455]

Originally Posted by JLMounce

If the car is on the ground now, you should also measure your shock ride height before install. Measure from the center of the bottom eye to the bottom of the lower bushing mount while the car is at ride height. For the TD802 you need to be in the 15.5-16.5" range. If you're outside of that you may want to look at a longer or shorter shock as necessary. Obviously it's easier to sell stuff that's new in box vs stuff that's been mounted already.

Currently the car is a little light to get an accurate ride height measurement 🙂

[HWYSTR455]

Currently, in the A body, I have TD505s in the front, and TD801s in the rear.

Front / Rear : Front
Adjustability : Double Adjustable
Compressed Length : 9.25
Extended Length : 13.50
Ride Height : 11.50
Bushing Eyelet ID : 3/4

Front / Rear : Rear
Adjustability : Double Adjustable
Compressed Length : 13.75
Extended Length : 21.25
Ride Height : 17.50
Bushing Eyelet ID : 3/4
Lower Bushing ID : 5/8

I will measure installed height for both front & rear, thank you for the info, very helpful.

...

Yes, that's is who I've been dealing with. Let me mention that I've been a loyal customer of GW since the early 80s, and all the cars I've done have almost been exclusively GW parts. I have spoke to Doug 100s of times, is very knowledgeable, patient, and would provide excellent advice. When speaking to the new guy, telling him that my car is on the ground and has maybe 1" of travel or less, was told that was fine. His advice was to crank up the shock settings. When I told him they were maxed out, all he said was 'something is wrong". So was finally able to get under the car and actually measure the distance from the LCA bump stop to frame, realized it was actually resting on the bump stop. He was able to find a previous order of mine that had a set of 680 lbs springs, and I said yes, that spring was borderline, and due to the weight increase, I was guess-timating I needed 775-900 lbs springs. He thought I was crazy. I explained this wasn't a small block chevelle or LS, and stated it would be like riding a dump truck if I were to attempt those springs.

In the past Doug has always stood behind his parts, and would accept springs returned if they weren't right, but obviously that is no longer the case. Even though I received incorrect recommendations from the new guy. All he wanted to do is sell me a coilover kit, stating I would be able to adjust ride height. I asked what springs rates they were available in, and the highest rate was 650 lbs. Which of course I told him I would be in the same boat. Crickets. And they no longer deal with a conventional coil spring company, so was told to go somewhere else. Unreal.

There are specific items GW still makes exclusive to GW, and those I will still buy.


.

[JLMounce]

Yup, notice the difference in ride height. The TD801 is very close to the 802 I have in total lengths.

Staggered shocks on the first gen, so ride heights aren't exactly the same. 14.750" passenger, 15.5" driver. Much too short for that shock, specifically on the passenger side. Driver's side was fine. The TD703 may work on the passenger side, but it doesn't leave all that much more room. This is why I'm heavily leaning towards another verishock in the rear. My thinking is that the car/spring itself doesn't know what shock is attached to it, and if I'm putting a double adjustable on there, I can still give the spring the damping it needs.

I'd hate to buy another single shock from QA1 only to have it still not be short enough.

[HWYSTR455]

I need to get out there and measure my ride heights on both my A and F bodies, so I don't run into this issue. Some reason this never occurred to me to check, makes perfect sense.

On my F, the rear actually sits too high for my liking, believe it may be due to the housing mounts I have on the 9". I can adjust it with spacers, but would need to check the shocks I have for it.

Viking Performance Warrior front shocks B205 0-1.5" drop
1970-1981 F body - pair

Viking Performance Warrior smooth rear shocks B219 double
adjustable 0-1.5" drop 1970-1981 F body - pair

Will have to go on the Viking site and see what I can find.


.