ransom wrote: The fact that the S-10 provides a rolling, steering, stopping chassis clearly replaces a lot of hours of planning, designing, and building over the simplest DIY chassis.
+1 on this aspect of the build. I used the front end from a Dodge Dakota in my datsun replica for similar reasons:
Double wishbone, rack and pinion, already fabricated, and no way for me to screw up the ackerman angle on it.
And this is where we come back full circle to Ransoms initial point.
JoeyM wrote: already fabricated, and no way for me to screw up the ackerman angle on it.
I am sure your datsun wheelbase is different than the dakotas. So your ackerman angle is now indeed incorrect. One of the things you reused components to avoid has already happened.
By modifying the S10 to be more sports car like who knows what will happen to roll centers and camber curves.
By all means don't think I am against this at all however. Look at my build in readers rides. I am a big time turd polisher. But the "Less than Ideal" will always be a major issue.
you can improve the camber curve on the s10 front suspension for a pretty affordable price... and cut down on weight (tubular upper control arms and long ball joints or something like that)
steve (auzzie s10 guy at the challenge) said boxing the back 1/2 of the s10 made it MUCH better for suspension...
for rear suspension... lots of options... a guy on the v8s10.org put the thunderbird IRS on his s10... also always the 3 or 4 bar link setup option
ditchdigger wrote: And this is where we come back full circle to Ransoms initial point.JoeyM wrote: already fabricated, and no way for me to screw up the ackerman angle on it.I am sure your datsun wheelbase is different than the dakotas. So your ackerman angle is now indeed incorrect. One of the things you reused components to avoid has already happened. By modifying the S10 to be more sports car like who knows what will happen to roll centers and camber curves. By all means don't think I am against this at all however. Look at my build in readers rides. I am a big time turd polisher. But the "Less than Ideal" will always be a major issue.
the ackerman angle would already be different going from a short box regular cab to a long box or extended cab truck, and GM used the exact same suspension under all those different S series trucks from 82-04. how is that any different than changing the wheelbase to fit whatever it is you need it to fit?
regarding camber curves and what not- the 2wd S truck uses a narrower version of the G body front suspension, and there are a ton of things you can buy to cure most of the ills of that suspension design.
I am not trying to argue the necessity of a certain degree of ackerman. I only brought it up because JoeyM had tried to use dakota geometry on a custom chassis hoping to preserve it and had not.
Colin Chapman didn't believe in the use of ackerman because in his mind a proper racing car lifted the inside front off the ground in a corner so it was therefore unneccesary. I dialed in 100 percent on my new front suspension with a "It couldn't hurt" attitude......even though my car also lifts the inside front in spirited driving.
I was just trying to support the "Everything is a compromise" theory about reusing an existing chassis instead of build it right the first time.
If you started with a S10 chassis. Boxed the frame and bought a bunch of off the shelf pieces for it and installed all of them what have you really saved? Labor? I have boxed a chassis before and it took a few days. Money? Materials from the steel yard are cheaper than any pre-engineered suspension components I have ever seen.
To settle something really quick. The Astro has no frame. It IS a unibody with a stub clip up front. Using the drivetrain components is an awesome idea, but you need to construct a real frame and at that point the S10 is a better starting point.
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