uofipilot

Those are some beefy subframes. Mine are just single rails...now I'm jealous.

Emanpimpster

arent you suppose to weld the subframes in on a drive on lift so you dont weld the brace in while the body is flexed or does that matter?

PaintballFreak

+1 that's what I was gonna ask..

Machwon

What he did was raise the car and prep the bottom side of the car where the welds were going to be made after test fitting the subframes. Then he lowered the car off the lift onto 4 jack stands located on the front A-arms, and rear control arms /axle to pre-load the suspension as if it were sitting on the tires. He then tack welded on the subframes in place at all the locations with the car's suspension loaded- then raised it back up on the lift to finish the remaining welding. When i first showed up and saw he didnt have a drive on lift I was like ****..then he told me the techninque he uses to do it and was relieved. The guy really knows his stuff.

PaintballFreak

It would seem to me that unless you have a force pushing directly up on the wheel, things are going to be different than if it's actually on the wheels. The same force on a shorter torque arm (the a arms and c arms as opposed to the wheel) means the suspension won't be as compressed as normal. I dunno how much difference it makes but it would seem like it would matter.

Jexey

That's a pretty interesting technique for the sub frames... if I was in your area i'd let him do some welding on my car

Jskeezy84

Paintballfreakhas a point. Less leverage. but im sure its nothing to worry about.

Machwon

Well you can measure the amount of suspension load there is by the wheel gap from center of the fender- My normal gap is 2.25"..when loaded it was 2.75"...fully unloaded is approx 6.5"...so yeah it was about 95% loaded which is by far enough to set the frame in the correct position. The guy has done many new edges in this technique with no problem... and I know the mach is fine because I just beat the **** out of it on a twisty lake road