I just finished adjusting my pinion angle. Before the adjustment the rear end was pointing towards the ground. Now it is at an equal an opposite angle as the tranny yoke. Problem is the adjustment caused my rear ride height to drop a couple of inches. I personally do not like the factory look with the tires inside the wheel wells and I have no desire to use air shocks.

I was wondering what the impact would be if I swap out the rear springs with ones made for a '66 wagon. Will it raise the ride height or will they just be stiffer?

how did changing the pinion angle affect the ride height? it is still sitting on the same springs.
it will raise it some, and make your pinion angle go all wonky again.
how much it raises it depends on what springs you've got in there now.

I don't think the ride height would be any different.

It will raise it. That's an old school trick. I installed wagon springs in my 68 LeMans years ago. It raised it about 2" over stock.

2inches sounds about right. I put 3inch chevelle drop springs in my elko and it dropped it 5inches :eek: I did not know at the time there was such a difference from the normal chevelle springs. I put airbags in the springs and now can adjust the ride height about 4inches to where ever I want. Gives a nice street ride, but has too much give for dragracing.

how did changing the pinion angle affect the ride height? it is still sitting on the same springs.
it will raise it some, and make your pinion angle go all wonky again.
how much it raises it depends on what springs you've got in there now.

I have adjustable upper control arms. I had to make them longer to rotate the rear end upwards. When I did that I had a noticable change in the rear ride height. I wasn't expecting that to happen but it did.

It will raise it. That's an old school trick. I installed wagon springs in my 68 LeMans years ago. It raised it about 2" over stock.

Thanks for the info. My next question will be what to do about shocks. I bought 4 brand new Edelbrock IAS shocks and installed them in the car. The rears just fit and were almost fully extended with the car sitting. With the wagon springs the shocks won't work. I assume I can call Edelbrock and give them a measurement for length and they should be able to give me a shock that will work?

Spring height always is somewhat of a crapshoot. You could go with circle track springs and spring height adjusters in the rear and fine tune the height to what you want. Lots of people, including myself, are doing this. More spring rates to choose from too.

Spring height always is somewhat of a crapshoot. You could go with circle track springs and spring height adjusters in the rear and fine tune the height to what you want. Lots of people, including myself, are doing this. More spring rates to choose from too.

I would be interested in more info on this...sounds pretty interesting. Where can I go to look for them?

Sounds like you've tilted/twisted the rear so far out of position that the springs are now tilted excessively and the shocks woun't fit as they can't bend around the housing.
Put your upper/lower bar's back to the length of the factory bars and your geometry problems will cure themselves.

Sounds like you've tilted/twisted the rear so far out of position that the springs are now tilted excessively and the shocks woun't fit as they can't bend around the housing.
Put your upper/lower bar's back to the length of the factory bars and your geometry problems will cure themselves.

but that would mean that those expensive aftermarket bars were a waste of money for this particular application and that the engineers at GM might have actually known what the hell they were doing 40 years ago.

i'm still trying to wrap my head around how adjusting the upper bars causes the ride height of the car to drop 2"- the springs are still sitting on top of the axle in the same locations- unless it throws some wicked bind into the equation or something like that. anyone else ever have that happen from a pinion angle change on a stock 4 link setup?

that the engineers at GM might have actually known what the hell they were doing 40 years ago.
UM,Yeah ,people are changing driveline angles and thinking their changing pinion angle.
It's called pinion angle for a reason -it's not really pinion to driveshaft to trans angle.
Yeah,some sites include all of the above and it just causes issues as posted here.
And the adjustable bars do serve a purpose ,not sure they were necessary here.

pinion angle change on a stock 4 link setup
How do you change the pinion angle on a "stock 4 link setup" ??

A lot of us run the circle track springs from Speedway Motors.Here is the kind of rear adjuster...
Here is one link talking about them...
http://www.chevelles.com/forums/showthread.php?t=238010&highlight=speedway+springs+adjusters+sizing..
Here is a link to the rear adjusters
http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Adjustable-Spring-Shims,3389.html
And these are some of the ones you can run in the rear. Nice thing is you get to pick your spring rate...
Tons more in the forums about these, hope this gets you started..

UM,Yeah ,people are changing driveline angles and thinking their changing pinion angle.
It's called pinion angle for a reason -it's not really pinion to driveshaft to trans angle.
Yeah,some sites include all of the above and it just causes issues as posted here.
And the adjustable bars do serve a purpose ,not sure they were necessary here.


How do you change the pinion angle on a "stock 4 link setup" ??

thanks for leaving off the first part of what i typed- where i said this:
but that would mean that those expensive aftermarket bars were a waste of money for this particular application
and you know what i meant by "stock 4 link setup"- a suspension that uses the stock 4 link mounting points. people do all sorts of stuff and claim to have a "stock" suspension- tubular control arms front and rear, different springs, air bags, aftermarket sway bars, etc.
i understand the need for some people to change the pinion angle- but how does changing the length of the top links affect the ride height by 2", when the same spring is in the same perches? is there some sort of a binding going on that pulls the rear axle towards the frame at a certain point, thus totally killing off any potential benefits from a few hundred dollars of aftermarket control arms? is it a shock mounting issue? is it something specific to this particular car?

I went with the adjustable arms to give some flexibility. My goal for my car was a happy medium of stock looks with some suspension upgrades. I also have future plans for a tranny swap. My car had several things wrong wit before I started my resto. The drive shaft was too long so the previous owner cut the yoke down to nothing to make it fit. I am basically starting from scratch to make my drive train correct.

On my 67 elcamino and my 68 malibu 2 door i went with
moog cargo coils. On the 68 i have monroe sensa-trac shocks and the 67 elcamino has monre coil-over shocks.. Per only direct replacement for air shocks by book at the time. Both working very well and have nice ride heights
good luck jay

I was wondering what the impact would be if I swap out the rear springs with ones made for a '66 wagon. Will it raise the ride height or will they just be stiffer?

Check out my '70 in my signature, those are rear station wagon springs installed since about 1980.

Most likely Monroe Cargo-coil springs will fit both vechile with same part numbers What I like about them is empty they ride good but stiffen up
under load
jay