Not enought stuff for a bodies

[Blown353]

Originally Posted by Autokraft

If its a chassis your looking for, (A-body) look at www.pathfinderchassis.com
www.autokraft.org

That is SWEET... visually anyways! Tough to make a call without hard numbers.

I wonder how the torsional / longitudanal stiffness numbers compare with a stock chassis, along with weight. It looks like it would be stiffer than the factory piece, and I like the front shock hoops and crossbar to fight frame "sag" under hard loads up front.

Also, I wonder how the suspension geometry is... the front looks like it will have a very aggressive negative camber gain on compression judging by the UCA angle, however scrub radius doesn't look too hot judging by where the balljoints sit in relation to the wheel. I was hoping for a 3-link out back but the 4-bar if done right would work very well. It might be time for a phone call and ask for the numbers-- roll centers, camber/bumpsteer, FVSA, etc, and last but not least, price...

[T Bell]

WOW!!!! That thing looked awesome. Yeah price vs real world use would be the thing. You have to remember that these guys are in the racing business. For a daily driver, I think a complete chasis like this would be overkill. In my book anyway. Still sweet to know that they are out there for the people with big wallets.

[Musclerodz]

There was a thread over at PT.com about this chassis and I wasn't to impressed with it considering they build race car chassis. Here is just a short list IMO:

1. FVSA way to short. camber gain in bump has to be crazy
2. Shock hoops have no lateral support and with the coil over not mounted
and will flex in a turn. The tower bar does very little except to transfer
some load to the welds on the other hoop. A Monte Carlo bar would be
better.
3. Billet aluminum solid motor mounts. I hope they are 6061 T6 or forget it.
4. Rod ends in the upper rear link picture look to be radial only so they will
bind almost imediatley
5. Picture may be decieiving but it appears there is very little clearance
between the sway bar arm and the R&P arm. Could be ugly in the right
situation.
6. I also wonder about torsional rigidity. The outer rails look ok, but don't
know about the rest.

Mike

[Blown353]

Mike, you summed up a lot of my thoughts. It looks great in pictures until you start to look more closely, which I did just a little while ago. From the very first glance at it I didn't like the UCA angle and my visual guesstimate of the scrub radius didn't look too hot-- heck, my immediate thoughts were "worse than stock." I also didn't like the idea of a 4-link out back-- when I saw rod ends everywhere I immediately thought "factory A-body bind-o-matic" C4L.

I was hoping, just hoping, that being a racing chassis fab shop they would have put *real* geometry into the frame/suspension, but I was worried when they had the frame listed under "street rod" on their webpage-- because when I hear street rod I immediately think beautiful but not very functional/performance oriented. Looks like this may be another classic case of that.

Again, it looks great, but it appears to have "missed the mark" when it comes to performance.

Guess I'll stick with modding the spare factory frame I have, because I can do it right... and probably cheaper.

Troy