Leaf spring question

[jos51700]

I've looked at fiberglass and carbon fiber leaf springs to save weight. Problem is, they break, and they're mono leaf.

Do people ever run a steel single main leaf with fiberglass or carbon fiber leaves for the rest of the stack?
No breaky breaky but still lighter than a pile of steel.

 

[Dan the man]

Are you looking to save weight for competition or ride quality? If it's for competition you can eliminate the leaf springs entirely and go with a 4 link set up. If it's ride quality your after then you can go with a air ride system. I don't know how much carbon leaf springs would be but I'm sure that they are not cheap

 

[jos51700]

Are you looking to save weight for competition or ride quality? If it's for competition you can eliminate the leaf springs entirely and go with a 4 link set up. If it's ride quality your after then you can go with a air ride system. I don't know how much carbon leaf springs would be but I'm sure that they are not cheap

Hypothetical question, but I would assume to be in favor of keeping the leaf spring system.

 

[AJ/FormS]

If it's for ride quality; try this;
I run 295/50-15s on 10" alloy wheels at 24psi...... and my springs have an extra main leaf, so I can run them with nearly no arch. Rides barely harsher than stock, but totally acceptable, and corners nice too. Oh yeah, I installed some plastic inter-leaf sliders between some of the leafs, behind the axle, but they don't last long..

If it's for street performance tho, the 295s will burn thru the soft-compound part pretty quick, so you might as well budget for something like Caltracks, in which case, yur back to just one steel mainleaf.

If I wanted more street-bite, on my two-main leaf system, I'd just build me some aluminum slapper bars.

 

[Killer6]

I've looked at fiberglass and carbon fiber leaf springs to save weight. Problem is, they break, and they're mono leaf.

Do people ever run a steel single main leaf with fiberglass or carbon fiber leaves for the rest of the stack?
No breaky breaky but still lighter than a pile of steel.

All of the 'W' body GM's (Lumina, GranPrix, SomersetRegal, CutlassSupreme) used a single transverse 'glass leaf, & for a more accurate comparison, GM's Astro & Safari vans used them RWD/AWD. In the entire time I worked, from their intro to the end of normal service life, I only saw a few failures. A lot of them were work vans & got abused, the actual failure rate was relatively low. Unless You're bulding a powerhouse, or planning on clutch-drop abuse, a normal cruiser will be fine.
Asking speculative questions like this is like asking if ***/XXR-XX are good tires for My A-body, well, exactly what are You going to do with it?......
I'm not aware if anybody has built a hybrid stack, & GM used steel mono's on F-body & NOVA platform cars, who said they never break? I've had front spring eyes break on a traditional leaf stack, sh*t gets old/fatiqued & fails, so nothing lasts forever.
EDIT; P.S., I like the hybrid concept, but not sure how many actual #'s it would save.