Good evening!
I just joined the forum and I'm currently in the middle of building my first ride! I've restored several muscle cars but I'm currently building a 1939 Chevy Pickup that will some day turn into my NAVY Themed ride. Most of the frame is all built and I'm moving on to the engine and suspension part of my build.
The engine that I picked up is a new Gen III SBC 5.7 with somewhere around 400hp 425ftlb. I dont have a rear end picked up yet but I'm hunting for a Ford 8.8 out of an explorer. As for my question, I'm trying to decide what size steel tubing to use for my 4-link suspension. At first, the choice was 1.5"x.120 4310 DOM. Unfortunately, the cheapest I can get a 10' section for is $18.43/ft (vice $1.21/ft of 1.5"x.120 HREW) I'm wondering what you guys would do?!! Is the HREW going to be strong enough to hold up to that kind of torque??
Also, I found a very interesting article written for
'Chopper Frame Design' that has this to say:
"The initial resistance to bending of all carbon steels is almost exactly the same. It makes little difference what the grade is or what type of process made the tube. It all has nearly the same modulus of elasticity and in most applications is equally as stiff. Put another way all carbon steel tubing, (of identical size) whether it is lowly 1010 CREW or top of the line 1026 DOM have almost identical initial strengths when they are used to build a frame or a set of forks. If it takes, say, 500 pounds of force to deflect a section of ERW tube, the same force will deflect a section of high quality DOM. And put even another way we can say that all carbon steel tubes (of identical size) are equally as strong (or weak) with respect to initially resisting an applied load. Once the load exceeds the yield point, for a particular cross-section, the tube will start to bend. How far it bends; and how far it bends before fracturing; is determined by the physical dimensions of the tube and the grade of steel used in the tube and this is actually where the tensile and yield strength come into play."
Thank you in advance and I hope to be posting pictures of my project very soon!!!
