Upgrade Your Third Gen Camaro Or Firebird For Drag Racing
When you think of pony cars or muscle cars—lightweight and simplistic coupes, throaty V8 engines, and rear wheel drive—the first thought that generally comes to mind is straight-line performance and acceleration. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the third gen Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird GM F-bodies and the fabled Fox body Mustang ruled the roads. While GM's 3rd gen pony car has been out of production for more than three decades, the 1982-1992 Camaro and Firebird have not lost their relevance in straight-line competitions at drag strips around the country.
The third gen F body was engineered with a fresh redesign of the suspension system from the first and second gen F bodies, featuring a k-member and a front strut with an independent spring perched in the lower control arm basket, and a transmission tail housing-mounted torque arm and panhard bar with coil springs in the rear. This design was great for handling purposes off the showroom floor, but left a lot to be desired for drag racers who tended to enhance engine performance and then drop the hammer on a sticky drag strip, stressing the tail shaft of the transmission beyond its design capacity.
With so many of these timeless rockstars of the '80s still out there, QA1 engineered suspension kits and components specifically for the needs of third gen F body drag racing enthusiasts, so they could swap in bigger engines, install turbos, superchargers, or nitrous oxide, and plant the drive tires to the ground efficiently without worry of breaking parts.
Which kit is right for you? Whether you're looking for modest upgrades or. full suspension overhaul, our guide to QA1 suspension systems and components will have your Camaro or Firebird turning quicker elapsed times and boost (no pun intended) your cars' performance capabilities.
Streetable Track Performance: Level 1 Drag Racing System
The level 1 drag racing kit is perfect for those with stock horsepower output or mild engine performance enhancements, who wish to get better launch and straight-line traction with simple bolt-on components for their 3rd gen F-body. This kit is engineered to stiffen up your suspension and provide significant control over the compression and rebound of your shocks and struts, so that you can more efficiently tune your car to hook and book.
Adjust Wheelbase & Pinion Angle: It's typical to use larger diameter wheels and tires for better traction in drag racing. Adjustable trailing arms allow precise positioning of the axle centers to align them in the wheel wells for proper clearance and appearance. QA1 trailing arms are much stiffer than factory parts, reducing deflection and energy loss in your suspension.
Adjustable Panhard Bar: Enhance strength and rigidity in the entire torque arm rear suspension assembly with the added benefit of adjustability. This ensures the axle remains square in the car when making any ride height adjustments. The panhard bar also allows fine-tuning of pinion angle to maximize your traction off the line and reduce stress on your U-joints
Complete Control: This kit offers full control over both compression and rebound for the front and rear, with double adjustable coilover struts in the front and double adjustable coilover shocks in the rear. Adjustments are as simple as turning the dials left or right to fine-tune your vehicle’s on-track performance.
Tune Your Traction: Trailing arm relocation brackets allow you to move the trailing arm position down on the housing and adjust the vehicle’s instant center to gain better “bite” on launch.
Eliminate Chassis Twist: A QA1 tubular rear sway bar will keep the rear of the car square to the axle and greatly improve launch characteristics. QA1 subframe connectors significantly enhance the stiffness of the F body's unibody frame to prevent flexing and twisting during acceleration.
At this level, you may have made minor performance upgrades and perhaps even swapped out the rear axle housing and the transmission to accommodate more horsepower and torque. To further bolster your F-body chassis, consider QA1’s torque arm offerings for Strange 12-bolt and 60, as well as Moser 12-bolt housings, along with transmission crossmembers and driveshaft loops for a number of popular transmissions. QA1 torque arms are also engineered to work with OEM 9 bolt and 10 bolt housings, and most 9 inch housings that accept a stock torque arm should be compatible— give our customer service and support staff a call if you have a specific project for clarity on product compatibility.
Serious Performance Gain at the Track: Level 2 Drag Racing Kit
This kit, light on weight, big on traction, is ideal for those who are serious about dragstrip performance but don’t want to take the more extreme step of cutting their car apart to build a complete new back half. This kit strengthens and stiffens the front end of your car while reducing all-important weight, with lightweight control arms and a tubular k-member, and gives you full control over your traction and suspension characteristics with double adjustable coil-over struts and shocks.
Drag racing vehicles perform at their best with factory-width or narrower front wheels and tires where there’s less rolling resistance. The QA1 third gen F body drag racing suspension kits move the front suspension “outboard” with coilover struts; the result is a streamlined and very lightweight front lower control arm that reduces all-important nose weight.
Drag racing vehicles perform at their best with factory-width or narrower front wheels and tires where there’s less rolling resistance. The QA1 3rd gen F-body drag racing suspension kits utilize aluminum coilover struts and caster camber plates, which provide ride height adjustability and double adjustable strut valving, in the most compact and lightweight package achievable. The coilover strut gives us the ability to use a streamlined and very lightweight front lower control arm that reduces all-important nose weight.
At this level, you may have already upgraded your rear axle housing along with the transmission to accommodate more horsepower and torque. To further bolster your chassis, consider a QA1 torque arm offering for GM and Moser 12-bolt housings, along with transmission crossmembers and driveshaft loops for a number of popular transmissions.
Eliminate Weight & Bolster Front End Stiffness: QA1’s tubular k-member ties your framerails together and serves as the bedrock for your engine mounts and lower control arms, making the front end of your Chevy Camaro or Pontiac Firebird rigid while at the same eliminating significant weight over the factory stamped-steel k-member. Subframe connectors further stiffen the chassis so that every last horsepower arrives at the tires without any wasted energy.
Double Adjustable Valving: Take complete control over the compression and rebound settings on your QA1 front struts and rear shocks, to easily and precisely dial-in how hard your car hits the tire and transfers weight for better traction and quicker elapsed times.
Featherweight Lower Control Arms: When it comes to drag racing, less is more. With this kit, the tubular front lower control arm has been specially designed for straight-line performance, as the coilover strut eliminates the spring basket elements of the lower control arm, resulting in a very lightweight arm that reduces nose weight to improve your horsepower-to-weight ratio (and thus your elapsed times) and weight transfer when launching. The lower control arms also feature QA1 low friction ball joints and lower friction polymer bushings to allow the springs and struts to do their job more effectively.
No Compromises: Upgrading Your Factory Third-Gen Torque Arm
A stiff, high-quality, thoughtfully-engineered torque arm suspension system is highly capable of efficiently and effectively planting horsepower and torque, be it around corners or in a straight line. The factory torque arm, which mounts to the tail housing of the transmission, is widely considered the weak link when increasing engine performance, as the torque arm will literally crack the tail housing — nevermind the potential to bend the factory torque arm itself.
If you’ve increased the power level of your car enough where you need to move the torque arm off the tail housing of the transmission — and there’s a lot of advice out there on this, which is partly dependent on your use case and the kind of traction you’re typically getting — then a beefier, aftermarket torque arm and a dedicated transmission crossmember to tie it into will give you greater performance and peace of mind.
With so many combinations of transmission and rearend housings, the QA1 torque arm offerings are sold separately from the handling and drag racing kits so that you can upgrade as you go, with just the right components for your driveline package. So, if you want to take your factory suspension system or your QA1 3rdgen handling or drag racing kit to the next level and open up your performance window, QA1’s tubular torque arms are designed to pair with your stock 12-bolt GM rear differential or aftermarket Moser S60 12-bolts.
Six different transmission crossmembers are available for these torque arms, including those for:
- 700R4/4L60/T5
- TH350/Powerglide
- 4L60E
- TH400
- T56
- 4L80E
SHOP TRANSMISSION CROSSMEMBERS & DRIVESHAFT LOOPS
When upgrading your transmission crossmember and torque arm, you’ll also want to pair them with the correct driveshaft loop. QA1’s 3rdgen F-body loops include those for:
- 700R4/4L60/T5/TH350/PG/4L60E
- TH400/4L80E
- T56
