F73 QUADRALink Rear Suspension Installation - Four-Way Connection

All the areas that needed to be trimmed were carefully measured, scribed, and marked. Because unibody cars can twist and the subframe and body could be out of alignment, A&E checked to make sure the Camaro was straight before making any cuts into the frame.

Using a cutting wheel in some areas and a Sawzall in others, we cut away sections of the subframe and floor.

Here you can see an example of the section of subframe that was removed and will be boxed in with an inverted piece of sheetmetal. This adds clearance for the lower control arm to articulate without hitting the subframe.

The Detroit Speed pieces are made slightly oversized so that they can be trimmed to fit perfectly and welded into place. Many of the pieces require welding around the edges, boxing in, and additional spot welding on both sides of the sheetmetal to ensure a strong bond. Triangulation plates and gussets are also included in the kit, ensuring each section is much stronger than the factory frame and thus able to hold up to some high-horsepower launches.

Other areas of the body were cut out with a Sawzall. This section will make room for the wide spring pocket bracket that will support the lower control arm.

The bracket for the lower control arm requires a bit of room. There's a lot of cutting here, but the heavy-duty brace will actually strengthen the area.

Looking down into the back-seat floorboard, you can see the areas that were cut away.

With several of the pieces tacked and welded into position, you can see how it boxed in the rear subframe area.

The upper control arm mount pocket is mocked into position and holes are cut along the outer portion of the area. This allows the outer mounting plate to be spot-welded from inside the floorboard as well as around the outside of the plate.

From the inside, this is how the control arm pocket fit into position. That reinforcement plate will be spot-welded to strengthen the area.

The upper control arm pocket and upper framerail doubler is a single piece that's also spot-welded along the frame, which includes gussets and added support for the top shock mount.

A triangulation bracket provides extra strength to these areas.

A close-up of the brace where the shock mount is located shows how the wider brace is welded to the original subframe. What you can't see are the small pieces at the top of the bracket that fully box in the area. Once the welding is complete, the welds are ground down for a smooth finish.

To help locate the track bar, a transverse tube must be welded to the top of the assembly. A&E carefully measured, trimmed, and welded it in place. Two L-brackets also secure it to the floorboard.

The Camaro's original leaf-spring mounts are reused. They're bolted to the new spring pocket bracket assembly (shown tacked in place here) that provides a much stronger structure.

Detroit Speed's control arms feature rubber bushings and the company's Swivel-Links that allow the endlinks to pivot, eliminating binding and excessive load on the jam nuts.

The lower control arms are mounted to the leaf-spring mounts with a spacer. From there, the mounts are then bolted into the Detroit Speed spring pocket assembly on the frame.

We also opted for a Moser 9-inch housing to which Detroit Speed added its bracket assembly for the track bar, control arms, and shock mounts.

Since we were trial-fitting the system, we didn't tighten any of the control arm bolts just yet. These need to be tightened with the rear axle at ride height to avoid any binding of the bushings.

Detroit Speed offers a number of shocks for various needs, including double-adjustable aluminum coilovers that allow you to adjust both the compression and rebound. We opted to stay with the lightweight aluminum coilovers included in the package, which feature their own custom valving.

Once all the cutting, welding, and grinding was complete, A&E assembled the suspension components to see how it all fit. Because the system is fully adjustable, there's no limit to how well this rear suspension can be tuned. The control arms can be adjusted for optimum pinion angle to improve drag racing launches. The track bar (Panhard rod) can also be adjusted to provide minimum side-to-side movement of the rear axle. The next step is to wait for our Moser axles and differential to arrive. From there we'll install the Baer disc brakes and have a rolling chassis again.