How to build your suspension for handling?

[TurboII]

I was just wondering what TM'ers are doing for suspension stiffning. mainly the rear? i'm looking for a good street handling car? and this going for mainly ever car (g j h k aa body's)


Joey

[glhturbo1985]

There's a post up for G body subframe connectors that are welded up under the car. there are pics on the thread too. I imagine this would have to help with stiffening the rear. Hope that helped!

http://www.turbo-mopar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32032

[TurboII]

anybody use them yet?

[GLHNSLHT2]

the 1st thing you need to do is get a REAL alignment. That'll improve the handling better than ANY other suspension mod you can do sans going from shitty tires to good tires maybe. Read here. http://www.turbo-mopar.com/forums/vbarticles.php?do=article&articleid=121

[chilort]

I've been thinking about redoing all of the bushings on my '86 Daytona C/S. PB bushings has quite a number of good products for these cars both front and rear.

If you bushings are shot, then fixing that has got to help.

I'm also under the impression that the newer front suspension (post '91 or so) is better (specifically the lower control arms). But I've never been too sure about all of that. Before I redo the front end, that is something I will certainly have to consider.

[GLHNSLHT2]

If you're gonna upgrade to the better dual pivot design and are looking for all out performance you want to stick with the 89/90 stuff. Why? because it's lighter, a lot lighter than the 91+ stuff. Basically this is known as less un-sprung weight which makes the suspension react quicker to bumps and stuff. Also the lightweight 11" brake spindles bolt on or you can use your stock spindles and brakes without worry. There's also no worry about caster changes which may or may not cause your tires to rub or hurt your axles. Also Energy Suspsension carries poly bushings for these now and they are NICE and also fairly cheap. I'd use them if I didn't have SS Heim jointed bushings. I can't recommend PB bushings in these. I tried them and they were scarier than stock.

[TurboII]

the 1st thing you need to do is get a REAL alignment. That'll improve the handling better than ANY other suspension mod you can do sans going from shitty tires to good tires maybe. Read here. http://www.turbo-mopar.com/forums/vbarticles.php?do=article&articleid=121

okay my setup of what i have now consist of

kyb gr-2 struts (front)
kyb gas a just (rear)
eibac lower kit
aliment
new tires too
bushing? whats better poly bushing or energy suspension?

has anyone use the subfram connectors?



If you're gonna upgrade to the better dual pivot design and are looking for all out performance you want to stick with the 89/90 stuff. Why? because it's lighter, a lot lighter than the 91+ stuff. Basically this is known as less un-sprung weight which makes the suspension react quicker to bumps and stuff. Also the lightweight 11" brake spindles bolt on or you can use your stock spindles and brakes without worry. There's also no worry about caster changes which may or may not cause your tires to rub or hurt your axles. Also Energy Suspsension carries poly bushings for these now and they are NICE and also fairly cheap. I'd use them if I didn't have SS Heim jointed bushings. I can't recommend PB bushings in these. I tried them and they were scarier than stock.

what do you mean by dual pivot design? does the 88 come with thsi design?
what are the benefits?

[chilort]

PB Bushings has a slight primer on the different LCAs.

http://www.polybushings.com/pages/moparcast.or.not.html

[turbovanman²]

okay my setup of what i have now consist of

kyb gr-2 struts (front)
kyb gas a just (rear)
eibac lower kit
aliment
new tires too
bushing? whats better poly bushing or energy suspension?

I think your going to find the KYB's are going to be very bouncy with the Eibach's. I would go with Gas A Just in the rear or Gabriels all around, not the red box specials either.




what do you mean by dual pivot design? does the 88 come with thsi design?
what are the benefits?

Not sure if you would notice a difference unless you were road racing.

The link Chilort posted shows the dual pivot. Yours have a substrut that goes back at an angle into the K-member. To run the dual pivot, you need to change the K-member and sometimes the knuckles too.

[GLHNSLHT2]

okay my setup of what i have now consist of

kyb gr-2 struts (front)
kyb gas a just (rear)
eibac lower kit
aliment
new tires too
bushing? whats better poly bushing or energy suspension?

has anyone use the subfram connectors?




what do you mean by dual pivot design? does the 88 come with thsi design?
what are the benefits?

Go back and read what I typed. Clearly said 89/90 for the dual pivots. I also talked about the bushings to use. The benefits is the suspension moves more freely. So it goes up and down over bumps better. Which keeps your tires more in contact with the road. The Kframe is also much stiffer than the early stub strut version (what you have now) so the car is more solid and handles better. Here read this: http://www.pnw-sdac.org/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=2993 These are for the 89/90 kmembers. And the better bushing is also cheaper.

[Johnny]

you want to stick with the 89/90 stuff. Why? because it's lighter, a lot lighter than the 91+ stuff.

Not true, (among other things he says) the cast are only one pound more each. I weighed them.

Johnny

[GLHNSLHT2]

that's just the control arms, the spindles are heavier too. And a lb each is a lot when you're talking unsprung weight.

What else did I say that isn't true? You think what I said about your bushings ins't true? There's a downhill off camber corner here I used to test things out. You have to brake going into it. My alignment is always the same. With the stock bushings the car turns in predictably and smooth. With My heim jointed bushings the car turns in instantly . When I had yours on there the car wouldn't turn in. Wanted to go straight and I almost ate the wall on the other side. I tried it a couple times and then tried a couple different corners. Same thing, the car doesn't want to turn in. Funny it works with stock worn out bushings. Works real well with my solid bushings, never had a problem with the old stub strut design and poly bushings way back when I ran that setup. But yours I had a problem with the car not turning in. I drive my car hard, I love corners and I like to go fast through them. I'll take predictable handling over unpredictable handling.

My conclusions are the bushings A) don't press into the LCA tight enough. If I can take them in and out by my hand then that's not good. Ever put Energy Suspension early stub strut bushings in? You either have to take 15 minutes to beat them in or freeze them and STILL pound them in. B) the poly is too soft. not by much but for suspension pieces you don't need it and don't want it flexing 99.9% of the time. So make it hard as you can. C) the sleeves are too long. So you clamp up on the sleeve before you touch the poly. This allows the LCA to move front to rear in relationship to the car before it hits the poly and stops. When your LCA moves you get a toe change. Under acceleration and the wheels will toe out as you accelerate. This will make the car want to hunt from side to side. Hit the brakes, the LCA's slide back and the tires now toe in. Oh we both know what happens if you have too much toe in at the AutoX. The car won't like to turn in. Hmmm now we're back to the issue I had. I took them out and put stock J-yard LCA's back in and cured the problem. The car became predictable and would turn in to the corner predicably.

You think you need some give in the suspension? I thought that going to solid bushings with a spherical bearing was going to be a bad idea because there is ZERO give side to side or front to rear. The LCA is ONLY allowed to travel in it's arc of swing. But I made them anyway as an experiment and figured if there was some more road noise and roughness I could always take them out. So I put them in and OMG. To take a line from Cars the movie, the car floats like a caddy and stings like a beemer. The ride down the freeway was smooth as can be expected with Eibach's and Koni's set at almost full stiff. Much smoother than stock or the PB bushings I had. It tracks so straight even in the huge ruts that are in some spots in the freeway it's scary. You can fly down the freeway in the ruts filled with 2" of rain water with one finger on the steering wheel at 70-80MPH and not even really need to think about what you're doing. Wanna change lanes while doing this. No problem, move your finger a 1/2 inch in the direction you want to go and you're there! The car reacts instantly. Oh those nasty railroad tracks that are right after a 90 degree corner you have to let off the gas for because it feels like the front end is gonna rip off? Not anymore! Hit those things at 20lbs of boost with the throttle through the floorboards. The suspension moves so easy in it's arc of travel and not anywhere else you NEVER lose traction over them. It's like they're not even there. Less than a week after putting them in I drove the car from here, 1350 miles to SoCal and then around SoCal's lovely expansion jointed freeways from hell and back. Never once did I soften up the Koni's. The 22 was under construction and pretty beat up. Everyone was doing 40 down it at 2am in the morning (yes I like to go drive late at night in L.A.) it was so rough and they had you changing lanes back and forth. I was able to bomb down it at 75. I wouldn't of been able to do that with the stock or PB bushings.

Anyway what I'm trying to say is there should be very little give in the suspension other than in it's intended arc of travel. If there is give then the suspension angles you're trying to keep as far as camber, caster and toe all start moving around in angle's we don't want while negotiating a corner. You also want as little weight as possible. The less weight the better the car handles. I'm sorry Johnny, I've tried your stuff and read from others about it and I can't recommend you LCA bushings.

[Vigo]

Holy crap im bypassing that whole thing.

IMO (!!): If you are starting with a stock car and want to make it 1. SAFE to drive faster, and 2. Handle better, this is the sequence i would use.

1st thing: TIRES! you need 'good' tires. The better they are, the safer you are in a given maneuver. What constitutes a good tire is its own gigantic thread. Suffice to say, though, that you CANNOT have an adequate tire on a rim less than 6.0 inches wide, so if you are still running steelies, you will need to get some wider rims before you can put a decent performing tire on it, considering the weight of these cars. To get into a more complicated area, your car's gearing and what cruise rpm you are comfortable with will partially determine the wheel diameter that will work best for you. I.e. there are some 14" tire sizes which can provide a big performance increase over most stock 14" tire sizes but their diameter is so short that you will have to accomodate that with taller gearing or your car will suck on the highway. Wheel/tire choice is its own thread, really, but you NEED good tires as your first step. Safety first.

2nd thing: You NEED a better track bar then the stock one. If you have any amount of grip on the rear and drive it hard, you will be deflecting the stock track bar by a large amount. It may not STAY bent when you get out of the turn and go home and park it and look at the bar, but then again it might. What a flexing or bent track bar will do to you is make your car handling inconsistent, especially left vs right hand turns, and essentially unsafe for that reason. You may take a turn at a certain speed in a certain way and get through it safely, assume that your car can handle it, try it in the other direction or in a slightly different way and spin out. Your overtseer limits need to be PREDICTABLE for you to drive fast SAFELY. So either buy an upgraded track bar from a guy like CSRacer or reinforce your stock one by boxing it in and upgrading the bushings at each end.

A third, somewhat less frequent/important issue is having WORKING (only necessary to the extent that they are 'safe') shock absorbers, especially in the rear. Shock absorbers limit weight transfer under braking. Whatever the state of your shocks, you can 'learn' them and even exploit worn out shocks to unload the rear tires and aid rotation in a turn, but we dont always have a choice to do things exactly the way we KNOW will work. If you are in the middle of a turn and you NEED to slam on the brakes for some reason, worn out rear shocks will let nearly all the weight transfer off the rear tires, making you lose traction, oversteer, and possibly crash. So, in my opinion, you need WORKING (not necessarily 'performance') shocks to limit weight transfer off the rear tires under hard braking for SAFETY before you can drive your car hard.

IMO those things fall under safety and come first. Get those two things going and you can THEN begin your 'performance' modifications in earnest.