Hey everyone, I haven't posted about my 74 in a while as school has gotten in the way. However, I had a quick question to run by those who are far more experienced than I. The limit to the front suspension that I've seen for my truck seems to be to use the Mighty Max springs for a drop and that's about it. However, if I wanted the truck to handle well just lowering it isn't the only thing I'd want done. With there being no after market for my truck whatsoever as far as suspension is concerned, I wanted to ask you guys if swapping the suspension setup from another vehicle is unheard of or impossibly difficult. Something like a TA22 Celica has tons and tons of aftermarket support from people who use them for drifting or autocross, and they are relatively similar to my truck as far as I can tell.



Tl;dr: Can my truck be swapped to the suspension from a different car in a way that wouldn't make me want to off myself because of difficulty?

 

Well anything can be done if youre willing to put in the work. I would honestly start with trying to find some short stiff springs and a thicker sway bar for the front. Then maybe fab up a sway bar for the rear.

Its going to takes lots of searching for parts that fit. OR start cutting and welding

 

No. TA22 Celicas have McPherson strut front suspensions which, if you weld in suspension support structures, you can adapt if for some reason you just had to have McPherson strut suspension; like Jetas said, with enough time and money, you can adapt anything into anything. But why? If I am not mistaken, your truck has double wishbone front suspension which is superior to McPherson struts if you know what you are doing. Being double wishbone, you can tune it for just about any kind of setup, road racing, drag racing, off roading, camber, caster, trail, etc.

In the rear, you might want to go 4/5 link like a Celica, or an IRS from another car. A few members here have done all kinds of conversions on the rear. Search and you can read all about them until your brain explodes!

But remember, these are just "lowly" workhorse trucks so they were never intended to be used and discarded for anything more than hauling duty. So, as you said, there isn't much "support" out there and you will be fabricating a lot of stuff yourself. Custom arms, shock mounts, springs, etc.

That is what makes these trucks so fun!

But, if you still think you want to swap in a different, more common front suspension, I would start by looking at the custom Pinto/Mustang 2 front ends available from places like Summit Racing.

 

Maybe some tube control arms and and coilvers up front. 4 link with coilovers out back.

 

My actual plan was to use a 4 link with coilovers in the back as soon as I swap the axle to get some disc brakes back there. And honestly the double wishbone never even crossed my mind as being good (it's used on all 4 corners on my Miata!) because I was just thinking whatever was there must be the "farm truck special" most basic suspension they could use. Thanks guys, time to start researching on how to tune double wishbone!

 

What did u do with your suspension so far? I'm about to lower my '73 soon also, but I've been waiting on my blocks

 

I've read of peps using later model whole front clips ,that way you get better handling & front disk & can find dropped spindles & the such!

 

So far I've just done the mighty max springs with 83 front knuckles for discs, and I'm putting 3 inch blocks in the back. I think I'll keep those for a while as the weak point for handling is probably more the steering than the suspension in the front.

 

So Sk1dmark, did you just swap the knuckles left for right when you put them on(you have a '74?) Do you have any alignment issues since they are newer spindles and are on the opposite side they were intended?

 

I do have a 1974. I'm actually still in the process of the knuckle process as school and life got in the way pretty badly. Should be able to finish it today however. Putting the new knuckles on they are visually almost identical, however I had some pretty serious toe issues which I'll be trying to sort out through the tie rods. If I can't I may have to put on the old steering arms, but they also look identical so I don't believe that's the issue. Rest of the alignment looks pretty good though, just made sure to put the camber shims back carefully in the same way they were in.

 

surefire way to anger pretty much every JDM fan out there, but this thing has substance.pickup theme, here’s a front-end conversion that makes a little more sense.It’s a Toyota Soarer underneath, with both a front and rear swap: it’s wearing the face of an R34 Skyline GT-R, and the derrière of a Holden Monaro. Call it what you want, it’s most certainly unique