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AJE RACING: K-MEMBER
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Long ago, I had decided to go to a tubluar front cross member, both for the looks and for the weight savings!

After the PA Racing A-arm incident, I wanted to be sure of what I was buying this go around... First thing I did was find out what was even available and who made it! Then I wanted to get some opinions of those in the business... I had taken my PA a-arm to a a local world know Chassis shop for an inspection. Lance Carter of Carter chassis was just down the way from me. He is a very well known and well respected chassis builder known thru out the country. After I got my A-arm questions answered, we went on to discuss K-members� He has heard horror stories about them (PA) and most others... he said there was only one company he would consider a prefabbed unit from and that was AJE... He had seen their Mustang stuff and was impresed with what they offered. I never mentioned AJE to him at all. This was his unsolicited opinion! Funny thing...he offered to build me some a-arms...asking price $1800... but they would NEVER break! LOL!

So after I got to see AJE's stuff in person at a Super Chevy show, I finally made my decision. I went with AJE Racing's tubular road racing front suspension conversion. The road racing version is supposed to be beefier and made to withstand the harsh road driving versus the standard drag racing version that might not hold up to the street!

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CROSS MEMBER
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To remove the stock cross member, you can go a couple of different routes. You can remove the engine, then pull the cross member. Say if you are doing a v-6 to v-8 swap. You could swap the crossmember or gain access to the engine mounts to simply swap them. If you are replacing the cross member with one that is a direct bolt in, you can also do the following... Either jack up and hold the engine from below, drop the cross member out from under, and install the new; or the other idea, hold the engine from above with an engine hoist, drop the crossmemeber, and put in the new.

In my case, we were doing a direct bolt in swap with a twist. This was a 3rd gen f-body tubular k-member, but it is not a direct v-6 application. AJE, as the others, only offered a v-8 version. So we were going to have to fabricate a conversion plate to give the v-6 mounts a place to mount.

The following is a picture of the engine braced to hold it in its exact spot, while the stock cross member is removed and replaced with the AJE version. Stabilizing the engine in its exact stock location, allowed for exact measurements & marking to be made for the new mounting plates. The new mounts must be perfectly lined up with where the stock mounts once sat. Any misalignment here could could cause a costly misalignment to move back into the drivetrain components. A misalignment there could cause premature wear or even failure of my drivetrain components.

Here sits the stock cross member out of the car. Its pictured with the stock a-arms attached (red)

You don't realize just how big it is till you see it compared to the AJE version.

Now back to the car...

Here are the AJE engine mount plates in comparison to the v-6 engine mounts...

Here just to show a general fitment...

You can see the mounting points to the frame rail

It took a bit of opening up of the holes to get them perfectly lined up with the frame rail holes. This was mostly due to slight differences in cars, and the powder coating! Nothing major to tweak.

Here you can see some preliminary exhaust clearance with my custom y-pipe and PF&E headers...

Now with the engine out for painting and the new paint in the engine bay, the K-member and be put in for good.

Here are the conversion engine mounting plates...

Passengers...

Drivers...

Here is the thickness...

From below...
Driver...

Passenger

THe oil pan clearances...

A few showing the exhaust clearances...
Drivers Side

Passenger side

Now with the freshly painted engine dropped in and things bolted up!

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WEIGHT COMPARISONS
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Here are the AJE weight comparisons to stock...

Its hard to read the writing, but it says...

Stock K-member with stock a-arms: 78lbs
Eibach Prokit Springs: 27lbs

AJE K-member: 21 lbs
AJE A-arms: 10 lbs
So combined the AJE K-member and A-rms are: 31lbs
Coilover conversion and springs: 13lbs

Total Stock w/ Eibach stock style Prokit springs: 105lbs
AJE Front w/ coilover conversion: 44Lbs

Total savings: 61lbs

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HOME PAGE

Follow this link to additional information on the car not found on this site!
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DIRECTORY FOR RAIF'S HANDLING SITE
01 Site Overview
02 Rims
03 Tires
04 Shocks & Struts
05 Lowering Springs
06 Panhard Rod & Lower Control Arms
07 Steering
08 Sway Bars & Wonderbar
09 Strut Tower Brace
10 Old PA Racing A-Arms: Failure
11 Old PA Racing A-Arms: Passenger side damage
12 Old PA Racing A-Arms: Driver side damage
13 Subframe Connectors
14 Underbody View
15 Brakes
16 AJE Racing: Tubular cross member <<<
17 AJE Racing: Tubular A-arms and coilover conversion

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