Hey guys! Long time no chat!

Back on the datto band wagon after a bit of a break...

anyway, I have a 1200 sedan I'm doing up, with CA18DET etc. and I happened to poke my nose under an old sunny we have parked out the back, and saw it has a 4 link rear. Mind goes clunk, and now I can't stop thinking about swapping out the 4 link from the sunny into the 1200 sedan.

I don't know much at all about suspension, but would it be worth starting a 4 link setup based on the sunny setup, or would I be better off starting from scratch? I don't doubt my fabrication skills either way.

I'd venture that the sunny would be very similar in weight and layout. I haven't run a tape measure over the two yet to compare chassis rails or anything like that, but yeah...

any comment suggestions or warnings?

i would say go for it...cant hurt...i have both the sunny and the 1200 sitting next to each other in my drive way....my poor sunny got raped for the 1200, but why does so many parts have to be interchangable hehehehe

p.s. what sunny do you have...i need parts hahahaha but i need them from an 81 model

I think the major thing is that the rear strut towers hafto be reinfourced as the weight of the car and road shock all goes there now.

and I dont emagine the sunny has optimum geometry, and ya might get a better result buy reeding up on the subject and comeing up with ya own geometry..

If ya hav the skills, why not!

ca18det and sunny diff = fail imo

might be worth while upgrading to a bigger diff and there some uni 4 link set ups you can get

You could use the 4-link from a Stanza A10. It is the same except is an H165.

I reckong the linkage is near perfect for a street car: tuned for a smooth ride with some performance for hooking up. Datsun engineers did all the calculations when they designed it.

For a track car the live axle might actually be a better approach, but if it's a streeter the 4 link would have to have better bump handling abilities.

Both are live axle suspension setups.

I would like to go 4-link one day... might be a step forwards considering leaf spring suspension hasn't changed a whole lot from the horse and cart days.

And yes the stanza sedan H165 axle assembly will swap with the sunny's.

whats your intention on what to rest the top of the coil spring against? all the other pros and cons aside, the little chassis rail isnt designed to take the shock of the wheel on 1 point over potholes, and the spring might be too long to even go in.

Having raced both 1200's (B110) & Sunny's (B310), I can say the Sunny puts the power down better. Where I was spinning tyres & leaving black strips with the 1200 sedan, the Sunny sedan would just accelerate. The best thing to do would be get a H165 1200 ute housing & weld the Sunny mounts to that, as the Sunny housing is about 100 mm wider than the 1200. The problems of mounting the upper & lower arms come next. I can remember a metallic green 1200 sedan with a R31 diff in it from a Goulburn Datsun Nationals, I just can't remember the owners name, but he's on here occasionally & is on Datnet (Sydney Datsun Club) as GTR110. You could use coilover shock absorbers on the back as a way around the spring mount problem, & you'll probably have to put urethane 'rubbers' in the trailing arms, or it'll axle tramp due to the soft nature of the original rubbers. You could also keep the original rear springs, but you'd take out the 3 point mount at the front & put a 2 point mount, so the spring could move forward & back as the rear end goes up & down. Or make it so the diff housing slides on the spring pack as it moves up & down. Probably better to go for the coilovers.