I will do a engine conversion to my ke35 this summer. I have a carina ta62 with a 3tc engine as a donator car. I'll probably take the drive shaft and the rear axle from it aswell. Question is... Shall I rebuild and switch the ke35's leaf springs to the ta62's suspension setup? It should be much better both for handling and comfort but how much work will be there be and is there even room for the ta62's suspension?

Those are IRS aren't they? Big job getting that to fit into a live axle rear ended car, biiig big job. It's doable, there's currently a guy on here putting an S13 rear cradle into his KE25 http://www.rollaclub.com/board/topic/68457-my-ke25-4agte-irs-project/page__pid__680306__st__15#entry680306

 

It might be easier trying to fit a coil sprung rear axle in and welding in some spring seats, if you want an effective way of improving the handling in the arse.

You will be trying to put a coil sprung, trailing arm set up into a leaf sprung recipient. It won't work without a huge amount of fabrication. And unless you are building a sports sedan race car, a complete waste of time. But if you try, do put up a build thread!

 

Such things have certainly been done, but unless you are confident as a welder, and able to work out the suspension geometry, I would give it a miss

Why not use the leafs then fit a pair of anti-tramp bars to stop them winding up, and a panhard rod to keep the diff in place.

 

The anti-tramp bars require welding front mounts on by the spring mounts, although this guy bolted them on in a clever way.

 

The panhard needs a chassis mount and a diff mount. I'd expect the TA62 panhard rod to be fine.

Very interesting! Well it is not Irs, (had to Google irs to see what you meen :-$) it's a stiff axle. I will not be using it as a race car, so that means that the whole suspension conversion would be a waste of time? About taking the panhard stag to the leaf springs axle. Now this is a thought that has slipped my mind. Maybe that's enough to improve Road handling? That also means that I can keep my air suspension I have put on the leaves.

There are two problems with your Roman cart-axles. They 'wind-up' under acceleration then snap straight to give you axle-tramp which bounces the rear wheels up and down on the ground. The anti-tramp bars stop the leaves making an "S" shape of themselves.

 

The other problem is that the whole diff moves around in the car because of the leaf spring's flexibility, back and forward as well as sideways. The panhard takes care of the sideways walking and the anti-tramp setup helps with the fore & aft.

 

So the simplest solution is the anti-tramp & panhard.

 

The next most sophisticated is your 5link from the fastback being fitted, which means mounts for the 5 arms being welded onto the chassis. I find the KE70 suspension is fine, and that is after years of driving Datsuns with IRS (independent rear suspension). Ultimately IRS is better, especially something like my Altezza, but a 5-link does the job for day to day driving.

 

Stick your head under the TA62 and measure up what you would need to do, it shouldn't be too bad.

Better off with te70 rear end, then you can upgrade to ae86 stuff, and have a diff thats appropriate width for the car.

I agree with Altezza.

Also I rate a big 20mm rear sway bar as an easy massive improvement. It all depends how skilful you are, very few people have the skills to modify a car like for instance the 'Streetfast Rally KE30 2 door' build thread on here.

Really great comments! This will come in handy when it's time. About using the te70 rear axle to get the same width. Well, I don't have one and the difference in length is not grotesquely much. If I have to use the ta62's axle I'm thinking of compensate the front with spacers so the front will be wider than the rear. Can't wait for this! I'm so thrilled!

why are you using a 3tc in the first place? besides all the suspension points raised above...

Why not 3tc? I have a 3kc in right now so why not a 3tc instead? More power, less noisy and lots of info on how to put a 3tc/2tc engine in a ke30.

seems like a lot of work when there are so many other options available.

I'm pretty sure Joel is US based. So 3T is probably his easiest option. The diff problem however is universal unfortunately

I'm actually in Sweden. I want the engine to be approximately from the same time era. And it has to be a toyota engine. Here in Sweden we got the 3k-c in corollas, 2tc in celica and 3tc in celica and carina. That's basically all the options. And I do not want a newer engine because to me it would spoil the looks. But what other options were you thinking about?

If you want to run with something 30 years old, then the 3t is as good as anything else I suppose :)