v1 to v2 rear cradle swap

There have been a lot of questions regrading the potential for retrofitting the improved 2009 CTS-V rear setup into our cars. I've spent the last few weeks researching the issue with a lot of help from some folks at GM (who shall remain nameless unless they say otherwise), and here's the final word- the following will be easier to understand if you have a working knowledge of the terminology of what's under your car:

Yes, it's possible.

No, it's not easy.

The biggest question (or so I thought) was whether the rear subframe cradle that everything attaches to would fit. It turns out that it will bolt right up, as the GMX322 chassis has the same cradle attachment points as our 320 chassis. This new cradle has all the correct provisions for holding the new rear diff in place, as it attaches to the cradle in a completely different way than our current one.

It turns out though, that this is the easy part. According the chassis engineers, our fuel tank will cause interference with the cradle, so we'd need to swap fuel tanks. Then the upper spring seats will not be in the correct location on our chassis, which means they would have to be moved. The unequal axle shafts from the 09 use a different spline configuration than our current ones, which means they won't mount to our 6 lug wheel hubs, so the hubs and rotors would also need to be changed to '09 pieces (as well as the wheels). There's also a new driveshaft in the 09 (Dana vs. GKN), so a new driveshaft is necesssary also.

So, to recap, it looks like you'd need the following:

-Rear cradle
-Fuel tank
-Differential
-Axles
-Hubs/rotors
-Wheels
-Driveshaft
-Modify upper spring seats

I suppose if one had a connection for cheap parts through GM, it could be done for about the same or less than the KARS cradle kit, and other than the spring seats, it would be a "bolt-on" modification (albeit a severe one). This would add not only the stronger rear diff, but cure the wheel hop as well, so I'm sure there's someone out there willing to try it next year when these parts become available to order.

Hopefully that answers the questions we've all had about doing this, and if there's anything I missed please feel free to shoot me a PM.