Tech Question - '64 Straight Axle Vette

Howdy,

I have a 64 vette, with a Strange Ford 9''. Yes, it's a 64 straight axle car.
Former drag car. It's set up like a 62 for the leaf springs.
I have 4 leaf springs on there now, which are for a 62, which I purchased from a local vette resto shop. They have been on the car for about 5 years, which equates to about 10,000 miles. None of the leafs are cracked. I have been trying to reduce the bouncy bouncy, bottom out syndrome.

I only have about 1 3/4 suspension travel before bottoming out. I am using QA1's on the rear, 12 way's. I can set the shocks to greatly reduce compression travel to help avoid bottoming out the suspension, but then it seems the bouncy bouncy is worse, along with ride quality.
I realize a 64 vette wasn't designed for this setup, but I would think there would be a solution here. I did need to add a 2 deg shim for my pinion angle. Would that effect the spring rate?
Any help here at all would be excellent.

Thanks much, John.

John

I love how us guys are always messing with cars to make them different. But give me more info on her. What engine? Tranny? HP? I bet she is bitchin.

OK, enough drooling, let solve you problem.

The 1st thing is the amount of suspension travel is about as minimum as you can get with a Vette. So we do not have much to work with, but I think there is room for improvement.

The QA1's are an excellent shock, but shocks are designed to control a spring's rebound, not it's compression. I know, with QA1's you can do both but lets allow the spring to do it's job and the shock do it's. Right now the shock and spring are fighting each other.

The 4 leaf spring has a rate of 110 Lbs. The very rough definition of rate is it is the amount of weight it takes to move a spring one Inch. I would change to a 5 leaf spring which has a rate of 145 Lbs. and back the adjustment of the shock way, way down.

I think you will see/feel and improvement to the ride.

Mike