Thanks for the kind words all. I have gotten back to work on this car recently. I decided to go all out on the rear axle rather than worrying about breaking it every time I stomp down on the throttle. I started off by buying a bare ford 9" rear from quick performance with nothing but an F-body style torque arm mount installed.
Here is a photo of it having the Monza brackets transferred over. Getting these cut off the old rear, lined up properly, and welded back on was a full 2 days work.
This is what the F-body style torque arm mount looks like.
Here is a photo of the brackets all welded in and the rear bolted into the car. I made some reinforcements for the brackets as I am sure they were never meant for this kind of HP.
I had intended to use a Jegster F-body torque arm on the car. The Jegster arm is shorter than a factory arm, much beefier, and mounts into the tunnel. It hits the tires much harder on launch than the long rubber mounted bendable item GM gave us. Here is a pic of the Jegster arm as delivered. Unfortunately the tunnel mount was way too wide, and the mounting point being off to the side made it impossible to mount up without major mods to the floor. The Camaro obviously has a much wider tunnel area to accommodate this.
The width at the top of the saddle was OK but In order to get the mount into the tunnel I had to split it about 1/2 way through along its length. I was then able to bend it so it was thinner at the bottom. After bending it so that it fit the tunnel like a glove I welded it back up along the seam I had cut.
After spending about 1/2 the day getting the rear positioned as accurately as I figured ride height would be, I used 2 pieces of strap steel to move the mount from the side of the arm to the rear. Getting everything lined up and at all the right angles before tacking these in place turned out to be the hard part.
OK so I got a little carried away with the bracing, but its not going anywhere!
Bolted up to the torque arm mount. Note how the offset built into the mount now moves the arm in front of the mounting point rather than off to the side of it.
And in it all goes!
It will need some cleanup and detail work when I pull it all back out, but it all fits great!
I am currently mocking up the exhaust now that I have the rear in and know what has to clear where. I will post that voyage next, it turned out to be another entire quest.