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  • 164 front suspension

Doing a little research for my 164 on the front suspension and came across the modification done to the front end of a 164 shown in the photo below.





Any thoughts on the mod done and if it would work and be possibly worth doing, or has anyone done anything like this.
What specifically are you interested in doing? fitting a coilover setup? I would expect that you wouldn't ever get that particular arrangement engineered. Too much has been cut out of the crossmember. Although it looks like a rough mock up both the top mount and lower control arm look inadequate for the amount of load that they will take with that setup.

You can box the factory lower control arm and get a coilover that mounts to the factory lower shock mount and uses a tapered 2.5" to 5" spring to retain the stock upper spring mount.

What are you trying to do just get it low or improve handling?
Yes am looking at getting it lower without having to cut springs, and hopfully retain reasonable handling . Yes like the look of the style coil-over you added the link for, would say it would work a lot better than the set up in the photo. Have you seen any systems like this in Australia
Lower with out cutting coils is easy.
You purchase your desired height coil.
The front of a 120/140/160 use the most common coil diameter. 5"
The wealth of coil heights, number of coils, rate of coils, brand of coils (who's color tickles your fancy) I'm an eibach man (but it's not for the coil color but their quality and actual rate v's claimed rate is the closest I've seen on coils.

Then all you do is get a quality damper (shock) to put in there. Job done.

Handle well, that's a hard one.
There is a lot of information out there about the "roll center" of our double A arm don't cars. And it's quite bad.
So lowering A lot can have adverse effects, though I personally don't care too much as the majority of driving I do with the 142, is mild. And won't cause me much issue.
The guys really driving these cars hard may find issue with one that is far too low.
Basically, what Jay said, going to coil over style is a waste of effort when you can get Springs to suit very easily adj perches to adjust even.
On the same token, we can't say don't do it for any reason other than you may not find greater benefits.
If you want to do it "just cos" for shits and giggles, because someone said you couldn't/shouldn't.

Personally I feel if your going through the effort of fabrications to mount coilovers. Consider fabricating the front end to perform better, change the design.
Yes am open to ideas, as am looking at maybe changing the design, had seen a few places that design and engineer front ends for some early model holdens as in photo below. As yet have not contacted them to see if they might be able to do anything for a 164, or if the cost in doing something for the results you might achieve would just not be worth it, as the budget is not endless.

Yeah, the kind of $ involved no doubt would be a big decision on what you intend to do with the car.

Note that there are a few very successful local 120 and 140 race cars still using the standard front set up
Not planning on racing the car or anything like that, just want it to handle a little better than my last one and sit lower. I have a spare front end so will allow me to play around with it and see what I can come up with on the cheap, it helps to hear what other people have done to their cars or would like to do to improve handling, as it allows you to sometimes see things you might not have thought of or come across before.
Did you change shocks and springs on the last one?
Changed shocks but not springs, so it was probably not the best set up and it was a long time ago. So with this one I wanted to hopfully do it right form the start as would like to keep it and plan to spend a few dollars on a bit of a rebuild on it.
I'm personally right in the middle of this right now.
Currently on heavier coils all around. With ok dampers.
Now putting in excellent dampers, while increasing the rear coil rate to complement the front.
they feel much nicer with much heavier front springs.When i was a boy dad and searched through a bin at the local wreckers with a vernier until we found some thicker springs, then chopped them down until we were happy with the height.
i would suggest taking a more scientific approach but you can improve the handling dramatically with good springs and shock absorbers. A lot cheaper than a custom suspension.
If you're really chasing a solution that is lower and handles better without any more specific requirements than that, something like the Holden (?) solution is probably overkill. It also wouldn't be cheap.

In the initial pic, the top shock/coilover mount is what worries me and the integrity of the crossmember is certainly compromised. If it is just a mockup of what you might want to achieve, then no problem but I'd be keen to see how those issues might be addressed.

As @blondejay mentions, he's looking into solutions at the moment.
We hope to catch up in the next couple of weeks and he's going to give me a couple of factory spring samples.
I'll test them and then have some actual data on what they are and should be able to really work on a suitable alternative spring from there.
Justian;104644 wroteNot planning on racing the car or anything like that, just want it to handle a little better than my last one and sit lower.
Wanna make it handle for the street without spending a fortune and changing things to the extent you need an engineer's report?

Go 30% stiffer and 1 inch lower in the front springs and have shocks to suit. Give it about 1.5 to 2 degrees negative camber if you're going to drive it hard on the street, and dial in as much positive caster as you can get (+4 degrees is good), and 30 seconds of toe-in. Go to a 25mm front sway bar, reinforce the brackets on the lower 'A' arms for the sway bar mounts, and bush all the sway bar mounts with urethane. Together with 30% stiffer rear springs, good tyres, suitable shocks, and a smallish sway bar (about 21mm) will make the thing handle like it's on rails. In a 164E, you will have the capacity to easily run away from any modern-day road gnat in corners, and leave most things on the road for dead.

The 140 / 164 front end is a good enough base to work with, without needing to cut and drill and slice and grind and weld. The main problem with 140s is the antique steering box that requires numerous turns lock-to-lock; the 164 however doesn't have that issue, because of the very good power steering box.

Convicted con-men like Robert Jackson tried to exploit the 120 / 1800 market by offering to supply modified Mustang front ends (which he almost never delivered!), because the 120 / 1800 front ends had a number of weak points that made themselves apparent with age. However, if you look at @Vee_Que's Amazon build thread, you can see how he fixed the flaws in the front end very well, without mortgaging the farm. Although the 140 / 164 front end is similar in appearance, it is far stronger in many areas.
Thanks to all who have commented has given me some ideas to work towards and @AshDVS don't worry about the first picture I posted it was one off a Page I found on line and thought the same as you, would not like to be going to quick into a corner with that under the front end of my car

@blondejay let me know how you go with your front end and who you get the springs and shocks off, or maybe @AshDVS could you also let me know if you are planning any 164 suspension parts although there is probably not a huge demand for it
Everything will come through Ash, front coils I'm quite happy with the rate with the 25mm bar. Just need to getter dampers in.
Rear needs to be changed to complement the front. And add sway bar mounts
That will work for me, would rather give the business to Ash than some multinational company.
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