Conversation I had a couple years back on Moparts:
I actually have a 77 Volare Road Runner and was looking at replacing the torsion bar front end with a
Dakota setup. I've looked at the Industrial Chassis product but, if I can section a stock
Dakota frame, that would be a lot simpler. Can you post some more pics of how you did this?
Greg
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Am I understanding you want to replace the trosion bar suspension on a 77 Road Runner (Volare) with a clip from a
Dakota? Are we talking about still under the Runner, or do you have the Road Runner suspension under an old car and want to replace it?
If its still under the Road Runner, you are looking at a major swap. The Road Runner (Volare) is a unibody car, removing that suspension to install a
Dakota clip will require removing everything from the firewall forward, then figure out how to attach the
Dakota frame to the unibody car undercarage. The
Dakota frame rails should sit inside the Volare "rails" but the Volare front subframe connection to the trans cross member is a weak link at best to begin with. You will probably end up fabricating brackets to connect the
Dakota frame to the Volare rocker boxes. Can be done, just not easy.
If you have a Volare clip under an old car, you still have to cut off the frame from the firewall forward to remove the Volare clip, then attach the
Dakota clip to the existing original frame. At least Mopars built before 57 still have a real box style full length frame under them, and the
Dakota frame rails (also a box style frame) match up about the firewall very well.
The
Dakota frame of choice would be the 87-90 because they still had the 5 on 4 1/2" bolt pattern wheels. The next generation
Dakota, 91-96 have the 6 bolt wheel pattern, but the parts can be swapped to the older stuff by simply bolting on the older stuff. The 96 & up
Dakota also have the 6 bolt wheels, but the older stuff does not simply bolt on, its easier to just keep the 6 bolt wheels.
You will have to let us know what your working on. Gene
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Hello Gene,
Thank you for the response. I don't want to derail this thread, so I'll be as brief as possible. The car is a 77 Volare with the torsion bar subframe still under it. My intent is to remove the complete F body subrame and work from there. The
Dakota setup has the advantage of coil springs and rack and pinion. That, I like. The Volare frame rails are just a hair over 34" outside to outside, similar to many street rods. I like the Industrial Chassis setup. I realize there is a lot of work involved, but it doesn't scare me. There is a bolt in option from Alterktion, but at $5K, it's a bit expensive. I've looked at other home brew options like the 03-07 Ford Crown Victoria front crossmember (lower A arms too long and won't fit in the F body properly) and the Lexus SC300\400 front suspension (Same lower A arm problem and coilover issue needs resolution). The
Dakota appears to be the most swap friendly in my application. I'm not talking about cutting out my frame and grafting in a
Dakota package like you guys are doing, I'm talking about possibly sectioning the
Dakota crossmember and welding that between the Volare frame rails.
Any pics or ideas on how to accomplish that would be helpful. I'd like to see how the springs and shocks are mounted in that situation.
Greg
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As long as you understand that your "frame rails" are nothing but formed 16 guage sheet metal with an extra piece of 16 g slid inside and spot welded at reinforcing points, I suppose you can section a
Dakota frame, made from 11 guage steel in a near square form, if you want. At least your Volare looks cleaner then the ones around here.
The tread on "updating your 49-51 frame" has demensions of a 92
Dakota frame listed from a factory service manual. That would be a good place to start from, at least it tells you where everything is suppose to be. You may end up cutting holes in your inner fenders for upper shock mounts, or shock clearance. Be very carefull here, those Volare body structures are very light duty, that was why the suspension was mounted on the heavy guage K member, to add in support. I ran a few of those on the local dirt track, did not hold up well at all. Gene
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Greg, Gotta ask, are you just updating the suspension, or are you building a race car of some sort? Are you installing a roll bar/cage? What you intend on doing with the car as a final outcome will have a huge effect on how you want to modify the front suspension.
Years ago, I grafted a C body front frame onto a Duster, but that car was a dirt track car with over 150' of tubing in it. The "new" front end had more then a floor pan and inner fenders for support.
The mid 70s B body had a real beefy subframe that a straight torsion bar suspension bolted to, that one you could have pretty well done anything you wanted to with. Even the last A bodys had decent subframes under them. The Volare was the only Mopar I ever raced that had the subframe seperate from the trans crossmember in an accident, and that happened with 2 different cars. Understand my concerns with a Volare?
Were I doing your car, I would probably graft the
Dakota frame, back to the transmission crossmember area, onto and in place of your existing subframe. The
Dakota frame is straight to back to the rear axle kickup, I might even cut the
Dakota frame into your floor pan back to your cars rear subframe, think weld in frame connectors, and weld the
dakota frame into your floor pans and tie them to the rockers. Along with reinstalling (welding back on) your modified inner fenders (to clear the shocks) and reinstalling your rad support should give you enough strength to run without a cage. If you are adding a cage, adding a front hoop will eliminate the need to reinstall the inner fenders and rad support, unless you wanted to. It would be a lot of work. Gene
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Hello Gene,
I'll be running a strictly street car with a 440 dropped in. No roll cage, no racing. Just better handling. My thoughts were to surgically remove the front crossmember from the
Dakota and weld that onto the existing Volare front frame rails. I'm also going to tie the front and rear frame together. I will also be removing the upper support brace above the transmission mount to make space for a Tremec TKO. So, no dirt track, no quarter mile.
After listening to you, it appears the Alterktion front suspension might be the better deal.
Greg
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Greg,
Got a link to this "Alterktion" front suspension? I do not know what it is.
The issue I see with just using the
Dakota front crossmember on the Volare rails is the difference in physical size of the
Dakota crossmember compaired to the physical size of the Volare rails. The guage thickness difference between the 2 is not considered at this point. The
Dakota crossmember is a 4-5" box where the Volare rails are about 3 1/2" high. Then once you take into count the guage thickness between the
Dakota at about 11 guage and the Volare at about 16 guage, the difference in physical size could become a real problem, esspecially when you consider that is the same location as both the upper and lower control arms and the 440 engine mounts. That seems like a lot of load for 16 guage frame rails to me.
I still think a better plan would be to remove your front subframe, and install the
Dakota frame, complete, back far enough to connect to your rear subframe. Then weld the
Dakota frame into the car floor pans, rear sub frames, and reattach the cars front inner fenders and rad support to the
Dakota frame. Basically your replacing your light duty frame with one from a
Dakota and also using that same
Dakota frame as your frame connectors. Then all you would have to do would be follow the link above to the 440 engine mounts in a
Dakota frame and your set. All the factory engineering is still in place on the
Dakota frame and you can use stock suspension parts and allignment specs. Gene
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.... and that's what I know.....
Not my pic.... I found it on the net. Dak frame with a big block.... I get ideas.....
Greg
