AaronGTR
03-23-2003, 10:13 AM
Well, my suspension's finished. I have basically every bolt on part available now. The list includes 'eibach' springs, 'kyb' front struts, 'kyb' front strut boots, 'ingalls' camber correction bolts, front and rear 'next level' sway bars, and front and rear 'next level' strut tower braces.
A few points for people to be aware of. The ingalls camber bolts do not fit the rear struts. The holes are a different size.
Also, the kyb boots are much nicer than the stock plastic ones. They are made of rubber and are a one peice boot and bump stop which seals much better than stock which is 2 peices. However, if you use drop springs you are supposed to trim 10mm off the bottom of the bump stop. The bottom of the bump stop is in the boot, so I used a hack saw and trimmed 8mm off the top of the bump stop instead. I cut it right at the edge where it starts to taper so it would still snap into the top spring plate.
I did the springs at home with a new set of outside strut-spring compressors from sears. They are only $40 and work quite well. However, if you don't have air tools and don't feel comfortable working with suspensions, I don't recommend doing this at home. It still took me 6 hours to complete and a shop could do it much faster and more easily.
My initial impression of the suspension is... goodyear RSA's suck! My tires can no longer hold the acceleration, cornering, and braking forces of the car, so I will be ordering new wheels and tires next week. After that is brakes, then we'll see what kind of G's this baby can really pull!:D
I took the car for a shake down run and it handles so much better now. No nose dive when braking. Almost no lean in the corners. It just feels confident, and the ride isn't too harsh even though I do feel the bumps more and get a little more road noise. There is some creaking from the rear springs, but they probably aren't settled yet. My dad's taking it in tommorrow for an alignment and to get the trans fluid and filter changed.
After some road driving with some quick corners and doing some figure eights in a parking lot the front tires were much hotter than the rears and the surface and shoulder were really "scrubbed". This is usually a sign of understeer, although both ends seemed to stick like glue compared to before. The rear sway bar could probably still use to be stiffer. It still uses the stock end links with rubber bushings, so maybe I can get someone to make me some adjustable end links with polyurathane bushings.
I'm thinking of having them leave a half degree of negative camber on all the wheels tommorrow. Tell me what you guys think.
A few points for people to be aware of. The ingalls camber bolts do not fit the rear struts. The holes are a different size.
Also, the kyb boots are much nicer than the stock plastic ones. They are made of rubber and are a one peice boot and bump stop which seals much better than stock which is 2 peices. However, if you use drop springs you are supposed to trim 10mm off the bottom of the bump stop. The bottom of the bump stop is in the boot, so I used a hack saw and trimmed 8mm off the top of the bump stop instead. I cut it right at the edge where it starts to taper so it would still snap into the top spring plate.
I did the springs at home with a new set of outside strut-spring compressors from sears. They are only $40 and work quite well. However, if you don't have air tools and don't feel comfortable working with suspensions, I don't recommend doing this at home. It still took me 6 hours to complete and a shop could do it much faster and more easily.
My initial impression of the suspension is... goodyear RSA's suck! My tires can no longer hold the acceleration, cornering, and braking forces of the car, so I will be ordering new wheels and tires next week. After that is brakes, then we'll see what kind of G's this baby can really pull!:D
I took the car for a shake down run and it handles so much better now. No nose dive when braking. Almost no lean in the corners. It just feels confident, and the ride isn't too harsh even though I do feel the bumps more and get a little more road noise. There is some creaking from the rear springs, but they probably aren't settled yet. My dad's taking it in tommorrow for an alignment and to get the trans fluid and filter changed.
After some road driving with some quick corners and doing some figure eights in a parking lot the front tires were much hotter than the rears and the surface and shoulder were really "scrubbed". This is usually a sign of understeer, although both ends seemed to stick like glue compared to before. The rear sway bar could probably still use to be stiffer. It still uses the stock end links with rubber bushings, so maybe I can get someone to make me some adjustable end links with polyurathane bushings.
I'm thinking of having them leave a half degree of negative camber on all the wheels tommorrow. Tell me what you guys think.