Hi, I’m very new here so sorry if these question are repetitive but I read through several posts and couldn’t find my questions.

To kick off I’m restoring an 52 old pickup. I have what I believe is a HT front suspension (3 point mounted subframe), calipers and non ventilated rotors, rack and pinion steering about 2/3 foot behind the x member which has been grafted to a ‘52 pickup truck along with a Salisbury diff, and a 383 big block.

How can I go about identifying which model subframe I have?

Assuming it is a HT, do they suffer the poor handling the HQ’s where ‘featured’ with.

So far the most informed users I’ve found seem to be on this forum, I’m trying to understand what is the differences between the HT, HQ and HZ setups

From what I’ve read it seems to be:
Upper control arm size
Lower control arm (centre hole to allow for a larger shock)
Steering knuckle (in particular the mounting bolt locations for the calipers, to allow for larger rotors

*I understand springs and sway bars sizing but not concerned about them for this conversation.

Where can I find any decent information on the suspension geometry, and setup?

What’s interchangeable?

If I wanted something larger to stop that 383 could I upgrade to later knuckle, larger rotors and calipers?

What’s interchangeable with something from the US, the WB suspension looks very similar to the ‘68 Camaro second generation suspension

https://youtu.be/55OHFwk7AHk

Is this the case? I’d like to ditch spindle and move to a hub knuckle (which seems to be available aftermarket for the Camaro.

Thanks

Ta,

I had read that race setups for the HQ suspension addressed some of the handling issues just a struggle with the age of it to find any information online around what they changed.

I suspect it handed like a pig too, setup a bunch of laser lines and found they mounted front suspension a couple degree off square (I guess considering they did it back in 1980 they did ok), but they had jammed the sway bar up between the x member and chassis, and looks like it was favouring the toe out and positive camber on the left.

Scuffed the outside edges on both sides, broke both springs (the left in two places).. I’m wondering if they heated them to try and expand them for the weight of the motor and ride height.

Anyhow I’m trying to find any dimensions for the HT, HQ and WB to try and get my head around the geometry to either set this back up factory or even improve on it.

I wouldn’t mind keeping this suspension setup it’s grown on me for what I want to do with the car

If you want to reduce understeer on a HK-T-G or HQ-J-X you have to start with setting it up with more negative camber, a good wheel alignment person can set all that up for you. most wheel alignment people are just dingbats who know f all and they will try to talk you out of it because they are simpletons. most destroy the HZ Holden's handling ability with what they call a fix, it makes a HZ understeer like a HQ and if you say No ! no no no I do not want my HZ understeering like a f ing HQ shit box c --t ! and don't be surprised that the average dolt they will argue with you, but if you get someone who can truly drive or races a car they will understand what you want.

The 6 CYL understeered more than the V8's because the weight is out front more so, a Big block is a disaster for understeer due to the extra weigh.

When I bought my new VS Commodore it was a understeering pig that switched to savage oversteer I could not believe what a total s box it was so I had to sort it out with neg camber, I went to 5 shops who said it can not be done, I had to show them how you can do it. I had a stock XG Falcon ute before that and it handled great, you could not get it to understeer at all and when in oversteer it was spot on controllable.