demonkey36

Alright I'm just going to admit it...I don't know CRAP about suspension/chassis stuff. I was wondering if someone would mind taking the time to fill me in on what lower control arms/panhard rod/torque arm/sway bars/subframe connectors are and what they do? Correct me if I'm wrong, but subframe connectors stiffen everything up, don't they?

FruityOne

Some of it i know, some of it I don't. Don't take my word as teh bible. Cause if I'm wrong I know they'll jump on me.

Sub-frame connectors connect the front and rear frames. Since our cars are unibody there isn't really a 'frame' per say. However our cars are basically connected by the floor pan, and the roof. That however isn't very stiff. Most modern unibody cars have sub-frame connectors built in to the body. Cept our cars, they don't have those. Yes, SFC's will significantly improve chassis stiffness. I don't have them yet, nor have i ridden in a car that has them. But I WILL have them in my car. SFC's are the first mod on my list.

Not quite sure about everything else, but i'm sure if you plug some info into the search box you'll get a crapload of threads.

Lower Control Arms

Sway bars control the side to side body roll. When you enter a hard corner the body will lean towards the outside of the turn. Stiffer sway bars will reduce body roll.

Panhard bar explained

If you had bothered to use the search button you would have found this out for yourself.

demonkey36

actually i DID search quite a bit......but so many people list LCA's, SFC's, panhard rods, etc. in their sigs that i got a whole bunch of posts having nothing to do with the topic and no explanations that i could find. either that or the posts were talking about which brands were better...which isn't what i'm really looking for here.

thanks for your help though!

automec

LCA ; locates the rear housing , and connects it to the chassis. the only need for adjustabilty is to essentially change wheel base , or correct wheel in wheel well alinement. Panard rod ; locates the rear housing side to side , when raising or lowering it is nessassery to change the length of the rod to center the rear housing in the chassis. Torq arm keeps the axel housing from rolling over its self instead of the tires. other cars use upper control arms instead of a torq arm. hope this helps
mike

TomP

If you pick up the GM Service Manual from http://www.helminc.com , or if you're on a budget, the Haynes 82-92 Firebird or Camaro book, you can see diagrams of all these parts, and get instructions on how to remove them and install them.

Here's a link to a page that will explain the front suspension stuff (tie rods, pittman arm, etc): http://www.howstuffworks.com/steering3.htm (We don't have rack and pinion steering; and for the price of those racks, I'm very thankful!!)

demonkey36

thanks TomP and mike! that helped a lot!

demonkey36

ooooh....90 bucks for that manual...

MdFormula350

then get the Haynes manual, like 14 bucks..

demonkey36

i have it

i just don't think there's a section that explains what all those things do, which is why i posted.