Odd build for my son, love some thoughts

[cyclic]

So, my son has a 79 El Camino. He wants to do it in a prerunner style.

I've been looking and brain storming the build in my head mostly.

My thoughts so far.....

1) found a mid/long travel kit for the front end, and use a 3 inch lift spindle. The front suspension is the same as a first gen s10.

2) the rear a slight redesign of the factory 4 link. Basically lengthen the arms and move the mounts forward and down. The lower arms mounted to the bottom for the frame and the uppers at the top of the frame.

3) a two inch body lift that is actually a stiffening subframe between the body and the frame. Lots of x bracing and cross bracing.

4) light weight front and rear tube bumpers.

Any thoughts or ideas I need to look at?

The maker of the front suspension (c4fabworks) also does a fabricated spindle that I might also use, but the price :-(. The advantage would be it runs a dana 44 hub set up. Allowing me to do a six lug knuckle with H3 brakes. Then I could swap the rear to a cut down new silverado axle. But I'm thinking for now just run the arms and a regular $250 lift spindle.

 

[AJMBLAZER]

Cool.

Past that, I got nothing.

 

[Desert_K5]

Cool! Have you seen the Trophy LTD Ford?

 

[Babaganoosh]

I really like the idea and want to see the build.

 

[cyclic]

Not sure on the time line, mostly planning right now. I'm up by Ft Hood and he is stationed in El Paso. He's still a young GI and is doing ok with the adulting thing, but his money is pretty tight. I'll probably just start with the lift spindles and work on long arming the rear for now.

 

[cyclic]

My inspiration was several different cars. The Trophy LTD is cool, but the ones that got me and him down the path was the Rally Miata by Gingium and Rally/lifted mustang by Sky Bethel. A peek at the Fast and Furious off road Charger also left some impressions.

We'd love it to perform as well as the LTD but that is a truck load of money. That car is basically a full on trophy hiding in a granny car.

 

[obijuank5]

Beams and trailing arms.

 

[ktmoutfront]

So many ideas going through my head right now.

But they are all money. Start small and work into it.

 

[kgblazerfive]

Beams and trailing arms.

That route would work well.

 

[Truckman4life]

This will be a cool vehicle for sure!

 

[cyclic]

Trailing arms are definitely in the future. I should be able to go longer arms and lower the frame mounts to provide longer travel. I can go coil overs in the stock location in any length I need.

The front is where I keep second guessing myself. The long travel kits for s10's I've found are pretty pricy. A 3 inch spindle is cheap and easy but only gives me height, not travel.

The twin beam style fronts are cool and whisper to me, but the steering gives me pause.

I have even looked at a XJ style long arm front. Some advantages, but straight axle is not where we want to go with this.

 

[Truckman4life]

I know this is sacrilege but what about a *gasp* ranger ttb front end or something.

 

[K85 Octane]

cage, even a minimal one to help flex

 

[Truckman4life]

cage, even a minimal one to help flex

A guy I used to work with did demolition derby cars and was doing one at the shop once. He would pull the body off the frame and go though and weld up all the seams on the factory frame(boxed car frame) where they would only do stitch welds. It was amazing how much stiffer it would make it. He showed me how much it would twist by jacking up one corner and then after he welded it he did the same and it got rid of a ton of frame flex.

 

[K85 Octane]

before picture needed

 

[cyclic]

Sorry about that................................... here a few details of the car.
1979 GMC Cabellero, factory 305 automatic with air. Usual g body rust spots. Putting in a floor pan and a new harness right now.

 

[cyclic]

Not the paint job, but this is one of the cars that inspired my son and myself.....................................

 

[ktmoutfront]

While you are putting floors in, you should move the engine back about 2 feet, so you can move the A arm mounts closer together to get more travel.

 

[ktmoutfront]

Not the paint job, but this is one of the cars that inspired my son and myself.....................................

Where did you find that picture? That was at white water in San Bernardino at the base of the mountains. I was there. Unless that is the restored version. Haven't seen it done.

 

[cyclic]

When I first saw a hint of a baja/prerunner style el camino, I scoured the internet for any and everything I could find on off road el caminos and baja style muscle cars.

I've seen everything from lifted rallying miata's, to monster truck el caminos. An actual off road racing el camino is a rare thing.

Here's a couple more I've saved for reference................................. the brown one is a full one trophy style with a twin beam front, not planning to go that far with this build. But you never know.

The yellow and blue car is still using a stock (I'm sure modified) frame as I can see many of the stock style braces on it. The brown one is basically a body skin on a race chassis. We're planning for it to use the stock frame, and definitely not too big a lift. More like a daily driver prerunner, something to play with but not too serious.