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i need some of your guys ideas.i am putting a 9" ford rear end in my 53. i boxed the frame and want to put the shocks inside the frame on a tube cross member. what i need ideas on should i put the shock in front of or behind the axle?and what angle should the shock be set at? the truck will have about 450 h.p if that plays a roll in where the shocks are

I don't think it should matter too much whether the shocks are fore or aft.Unless they are coilovers,with say..a 4-link.Forward will increase the firmness as they will be closer to the main pivot point,consequently if they are placed to the rear they will be softer.
If you are using leafs,some manufacturers use to place one front and one rear.I can only think this was to try and counteract spring wrap/torque.I dunno if this actually worked or not!
They play no part in locating the axle.The angle the shocks are placed will have an effect on the damping.
Personally I would try and keep them as upright as possible but if you have to angle them I wouldn't go much more than 10/15 degrees off vertical.Just make sure your axle is well located!!
450hp ???? MMMMM sounds like fun!

Put one in front and one behind.

It does make a difference, and the more power you put to the axle the more important it is. From what I understand it doesn't matter which side is front or rear, just that one be front and the other rear.

It is interesting that the shock configurations have changed somewhat through out the years. The 1/2 ton ADs had the shocks out board of the frame angled forward at the top. I have always thought that this was a good configuration and did not need to be changed, unless there were clearance problems.

To make things even more interesting; one would think that the earlier setups were based less on testing and sound engineering and more on what may have looked best at the time. The current 1/2 ton Chevy trucks have the shocks in board of the frame; perpendicular to the axle with the drivers side in front of the axle and leaning forward at the top and the passenger side behind the axle with the top leaning to the rear. Both are close to the inside of the frame.

Now take a look under a new blue oval badged 1/2 ton and you will see the shock configuration exactly like a 1/2 ton AD. What may have looked like the best setup 60 years ago has been decided upon by, lets hope, sound engineering and testing by Ford Motor Company.

Go figure!

Lonnie

The further outboard they are, and the more vertical, the more they'll work, and to greater effect.

The entire idea of angling a shock has an effect on how far it moves for any amount of suspension travel. If it's exactly vertical, the shock will only move the same distance as the axle. Now, angle it 45 degrees. It's the hypotneuse of a right triangle, and the piston will travel much further as the suspension moves up and down, since that's the longest side of the triangle. Since shocks dampen by moving fluid, which way will the shock be more effective?

Obviously, placing a shock at 45 degrees is not too practical, but what about a 30 degree tilt or so? I believe a pretty radical angle will allow the shock to do more dampening than a straight-up configuration. Which way you angle it is up to you, considering what other parts you have to work around.
Jerry

I've seen tested this same argument.
The majority of diff movement was recorded as pretty much straight up and down over road surfaces, and the fore and aft twisting of braking and acceleration.

This is why they mount shocks near to vertical and on opposing sides of the housing eg. one at the front of the housing and one behind.
They just want to cover what the suspension forces will be 90% of the time under normal driving conditions.

This is for a road driven vehicle, 4WD's differ only because of their intended useage. But you will still find even extreme off road desert racers and monster truck that still run the shocks pretty much vertical.

High horsepower will benefit from the shocks being as a pair at the rear of the axle on a 4 link set up or one front/rear of a leaf sprung rear to combat spring wind-up.

In the end, it's not too much effort to chop and change and see what works best.

thank you all i now i have i dea what i will do. pics to come

As said the one in fron tone in rear at slight angle was to reduce wheel hop and brake windup. With you HP I would stagger one front one back. When the 67 camaro came out it had shock on one side and the higher hp cars had severe wheel hop on acceleration, in 68 they changed to a one in front, one inback design and cured all problems except in the highest Hp bigblock cars with 4spds, which they had a factory option of a traction bar for the pass side....food for thought.