Recommendation on suspension....

[jerrysta]

I am in need of any recommendations on new suspension components. I know I need rear shocks but I want to drop the car also. I will be getting the eibach sportline kit and need a stiffer shock I would think to go with the springs. I also don't want to spend a ton of money, I'm not road racing the car or anything.

What other suspension components do you guys think I should replace while doing springs/shocks?

Thanks.

[Injuneer]

In order to select the best suspension modifications and components, its important that we know how you plan to use the car, and what handling characteristics are most important to you. Obviously with the Sportline's ~2" drop, you don't appear to be interested in straight line traction.

But still it would be good to know how you plan to use the car:

-"show" car and boulevard cruiser
-street racer
-1/4-mile track
-Auto-X or road racing (never either?)
-well balanced combo of all of the above.

Which is it?

[97LT1Z28]

F-bodies have a lot of "chassis-flex" due to their design. I would definetely get a strut-tower brace and subframe connectors when you replace your shocks and springs. These upgrades are inexpensive, simple to install and make a huge difference in how your car feels and handles overall.

[jerrysta]

I think well balanced is what I'm looking for. I do care about straight line accelaration, overall handling and also looks. I just bought new rims and tires and want to lower the car to improve looks and cornering. The only real performance number I will ever measure is the 1/4 mile. Eventually I would like a 12 sec car.

I have been checking online and lmperformance has a full front and rear set of Billstein shocks for 339.99. It's a lot cheaper than buying them separately. Are these pretty good shocks?

I will problably never autoX but I still want the car to handle well around town.

BTW I have to change my sig as I have just installed gears and SLP CAI to go with the Borla cat back that as been on for a couple of years.

[Injuneer]

With a 2" drop, you are going to have traction problems. You would definitely need to include the LCA relocation brackets and the adjustable panhard rod, specifically for that reason. The 2" drop will also limit the use of some performance options like long tube headers and torque arm mounts that drop below the floor pan, because of the reduced ground clearance. I had the front end down 1.8" and the back end down 1.0" and the bottom of the car dragged on the crown of the road, between the ruts caused by the 18-wheelers.

My thoughts would be:

-Bilsteins specifically valved for the springs (check out Sam Strano, he knows these cars like a book, and sells the revalved Bilsteins).

-Tubular, non-adjustable rear lower control arms. Choice of the "ends" for these will be a problem. Using the fairly rigid poly bushings on both ends is "quiet" and OK for a drag car, or even a car that is seldom pushed to the limits of cornering. But the poly ends will cause "bind", preventing the LCA's from moving correctly when the body starts to "roll". The solution is to put a poly bushing on the body end and a spherical rod end on the axle end of the mount, eliminating the bind. The rod end will add some noise and harshness. All-out setups use rod ends on both ends of the LCA, but they are noisy, harsh and the rod ends do have a limited life.

-Weld-in LCA relocation brackets.

-Tubular panhard rod, adjustable. Again, consider at least one rod end for best handling.

-Larger diameter front and rear sway bars. This will limit body roll. It will hurt 1/4-mile handling, since it will reduce the ability of the front end to rise on launch and limit weight transfer a bit. I used all poly bushings, both on the bar and on the end links, and just the bushings made a huge improvement.

As far as the shock tower brace (there are no "struts" on the front of a 4th Gen) the value has been called into question more than once. I have one, and I thought it helped solidify the steering. Some Auto-X fanatics claim they add enough stiffness to make the car more erratic in breakaway on extreme cornering . Others claim it does nothing. For the sub frame connectors, I waited a while to do that, and had the SFC's put in at the same time as the roll bar, and integrated with them, and I agree the change in the stiffness of the body was amazing. You can jack the car at any point on the side, and the entire side of the car lifts, not just the front or back. But I'm not sure how much the roll bar added to that.

[jerrysta]

Wow, I did not think that the 1.8 drop would scrape that much. Mayber for a good balance I should just get the pro-kit. I'm not sure it's worth doing the mod for a 1'' drop, though. Can you even tell it's dropped with the pro-kit.

Do you think 21mm rear and a 32mm front are a good set of sway bars for my application?

[Copernicus]

Personally I am not too much of a fan of the stock ride height on the 4th gen (I guess I am too spoiled by the look of the C5 ) but am also worried about the effect it would have on my car if i did drop it slightly. Is the Pro Kit worth the change or is it better to stick more closely to the stock ride height?

[Injuneer]

NJ roads are terrible. And, I was running a huge 3" Y-pipe with 3" cats, plus a dropped mount for the Spohn torque arm, so I had less ground clearance than a more stock setup would have. Still, I hated having to search parking lots for speed bumps so I could avoid them, and having to drive up sloped driveways and over curbs at a 45deg angle to avoid doing too much damage to the stuff under the car.

I agree the stock ride height sucks, but there are drawbacks to excessive lowering. You might want to wait for "Joe1320" to respond... he just lowered his car, and seems very happy with it.

[Joe 1320]

You might want to wait for "Joe 1320" to respond... he just lowered his car, and seems very happy with it.

happy, but not very happy yet.........

I went with Intrax http://www.intraxsuspension.com/prod_springs.html 2" drop springs. I chose them because of their advertised daily driver type ride quality. I can vouch that the car rides fantastic even with stock DeCarbons. Bilsteins are next on the agenda. The car sits great, all the fender gap is closed up and the car looks so much better.



The negative....... I lost some drag type traction, even with lower control arm relocation brackets. Lowering the car changes the geometry of the suspension and if you drop it as much as mine, you will probably lose some bite. It still hooks OK, just not as strong as prior to the drop. If the ride quality was not as good and also didn't hook, I would have pulled them and went with coilovers. As it sits, I think a stiffer shock like the Bilsteins would help control the rear axle a little better. Airbags may help too. I just did the swap a month or so ago and haven't finished dialing in the whole suspension yet. Shocks/airbags are next.

Another note: Advertised drop of a spring is not an exact science. Most other springs will "settle" after some use and end up being too low. Also a 1.5 inch drop doesn't mean the car will be 1.5 inches lower. After some research and experience I found that in the case of the Intrax springs, it did drop my rear 2". That is because I had changed the rear springs at one time to a pair of base springs and the rear was raised about an extra 1/2 inch. That made the rear fender arch peak at 28.5 inches measured from the ground. So evidently it is a 2" drop for base cars, but less of a drop for WS6 and SS. The bottom line is that the rear fender arch peak is now 26.5 inches from the ground with 285/40/17 tires. You can take that measurement and compare it to your car's measurements to see what your ride height would be. Other manufacturers also seem to rate the springs the same way unless they designate individual models with different spring part numbers.

[jerrysta]

How much of an issue are you having with scraping?

Car looks real good! That is the look I'm going for. I want the car to be fast at the strip eventually though so it seems like I may have to make a compromise somewhere.

What about an adjustable torque arm?

[Joe 1320]

How much of an issue are you having with scraping?


What about an adjustable torque arm?

No scraping except a little tire rub on full compression, but I've found that is due to the offset of these particular wheels. Airbags will cure that problem as well. Using a 17x9 factory wheel eliminated the rub too. I have an adjustable torque arm and it helps big time. I don't get any other scraping or rubbing other than the front air deflector grazing a few curbs, but I also don't have long tube headers or Y pipe associated with reduced clearance. I run SLP shorties with a random tech dual cat Y pipe and no clearance issues.

[jerrysta]

Thanks. Do you think Intrax is as good of a spring as Eibach?

I hope someone comes in that has the sportlines because I'd like to find out how bad the scraping is with those as well.

Also, I'm sure I've seen people with the sportlines and I'm not sure it looks quite as low as those Intrax springs.

[fastTa]

My 97 WS6 has the sportline kit on it. Took some measurements when we installed everything but I don't remember exactly offhand how much the car was lowered. I think it was like 1 7/8 in back and 1 7/8 in front.

Point is, it looked great, but I lost all conceivable straighline traction on the street. With a 285/40/17 first and second gear with my 4l60e were worthless. Handling was dramatically improved though! It really stuck the turns much better, even with the stock swaybars.

I had the Jet Hot 1 3/4 LT's with a custom y-pipe that was well made to tuck nicely to the underside to my car, so there wasn't really a header or y-pipe clearance issue. I just had to go slow over large speed bumps, but I never scraped the header or y-pipe on the street.

[95z28]

Get the intrax springs, that pic joe posted sold me on them right away.

[Injuneer]

This is with the Pro-Kit. The back went down 1", and the front (because of the way the QA1 adjustable height shocks were set) was down about 1.8"



I think the "coil overs" is the way to go.... that will alllow you infinite adjustment.