Has anyone used gabriel air shocks in their 92 camaro...if so where can I order them. I found their website and got a part number(39203), but the website does not show where to order them.

never used them, but AutoZone has them.

-brian

Ive got them, they work great. I had to get them to raise my car up for my exhaust. Im running them at about 80-85 psi and it rides kind of rough but helps to plant the tires in launches. Ive also got coil spring stabilizers in the front springs. I love the way the shocks work. I ran the fill valve into the hatch and mounted on the passenger side just to the outside of the ttop bag holder. They work great and are worth the money, not to hard to install either.

Andrew

I just want you guys to know that running air shocks is known to place too much stress on the shock absorber mounts and cause them to tear. The area of the body where the shocks mount is not meant to carry load beyond simple damping forces. When you install air shocks and pressurize them, you're using the "shock absorber" as a spring which places loads on the shock mount that they're not designed for and have failed on other peoples cars before.

Hth,
Clem

Clem's 100% right- and I'm glad to have found someone else that's running the Hijackers right now!

Both of my upper shock mounts blew out; I rebuilt them with 1/4" of plate steel. (two 1/8" brackets sandwiched together, held to the body with 4 large bolts- I didn't know how to weld back then.) The upper shock mount is really just a hole in the body- put enough stress on it, and that body hole acts like a piece of wire that you bend back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and SNAP! The metal was actually snapped from all the flexing; it fatigued and cracked away. I made one mount in '95, and one in '96- I just checked 'em this weekend (blew out my 2nd pair of air shocks, now I'm on set #3), and the '96 one had one loose bolt. Not too bad!

I used to pump the shocks up to 150 PSI or so, now I run around 85-90. Once they stop lifting the car, I stop inflating 'em. They help me clear my P275/60r15 rear tires... and the gap between the tire and quarter panel lip is the same as between my front tire and front fender lip.

I've got the "custom air fill kit", which leads one hose to each shock. This lets me fill the right shock with a bit more air when I go to the racetrack. (Not that I need it with a V6... but hey, I do it anyway. )

Cost was $29.99/shock at Pep Boys, and $10 for the air fill kit.

Oh- with the shocks deflated, not only do my tires rub, but my handling goes to absolute crap... just a warning. If you bust thru an upper shock mount, your handling goes to hell. A welding shop can fix it too, or, if you want to do what I did, it works well. The plate steel was found at Home Depot, 2" wide by 6 feet long for $8, and I still had 4 feet of steel left. I'd suggest, for when this does happen, that you make a template out of thin aluminum, since it's easy to bend. Then take the template to your workbench, put the steel plate in a vise, and smack the hell out of the steel plate with a BFH to copy the template.

Oh- I believe JC Whitney carries 'em... I don't know the phone # off hand, but I'm sure it's at their website, which I think is http://www.jcwhitney.com !

I was thinking about getting those exact shocks...good thing i read this post though...so if the kounts go bad exactly how easy is it to fix?????? also...is the mounts do go bad, how long can u get away with them bad b4 they seriously F*CK up ur car????

In either case it's not if it's when.

The right way to do this is to get springs that are the right height and rate for you and forget about "air shocks". Rear springs are easy to change too.

If your shock mount tears out, you loose all effects of the damper (and it's added stiffness in the case of an air shock). Really, at some point, the dammage stops being done...until you crash because you lose control of a dangerous car...

HTH,
Clem

I agree again with Clem!! Know how I found out the first upper mount busted through? I took a turn that I usually took, a smooth gentle curve after a bridge, at high speed. I usually did it at high speed; nobody's around, there's no place for a cop to hide, and the turn is so gentle (15 degrees, maybe?) that there's no way to crash.

Well, one day, I nearly wiped out. The car swayed back and forth violently, as I struggled with the steering wheel to keep the car in line. I had no idea what happened, except that something broke, and I had better chill out. That weekend, I dropped the rear axle to check on the springs. Imagine my surprise when I un-did the lower shock bolt, and the air shock nearly hit me in the eye!

I pretty much detailed how you would fix the upper mount yourself. At it's basic, you're bolting a thick plate of steel (with a hole in it) up to the body, to go over the blown-out area. It's a pain to do, but not "technically hard". You need to make a template, and keep crawling under the car to double/triple check the dimensions, etc. Then you get to drill the holes to mount the plate, while you're upside down, drilling from underneath the car into the inside of the car.

I am much happer with the thicker plate up there, though. Seriously, the upper shock mount is about as thin as one CD. Now I've got 1/4" of steel up there.

[edit] I'll see if I can dig up the pictures! I froze in fear when I pulled back the rear section of carpet, and saw a gaping hole instead of a shock mount!

Oh hey Clem, do you know where they sell taller springs for our car? I had planned on welding some kind of perch for my rear springs this summer, to sit the springs up about an inch or two taller than they already are. (almost like an import's adjustable coil-over.) But if I can find taller springs, I'll do it!

Although, I am also thinking of losing the "big rear tires" look. I don't know. I'll hate to see those big guys go, but I know the car will handle much better on the turns. I don't race at all on the street anymore (too much to lose now!), but I enjoy not having to slow down for turns. I get my kicks on the turns, now. (sigh)

Its just a matter of finding the right spring.

Sorry I can't tell you for sure. Check with MOOG products (a division of Federal-Mogul...I work for them ). They've probably got something to work. You may have to do your own research though on what you need. It may come from some other application, I'm not sure.

Don't weld to your spring though! That's bad news, I'm sure. [edit: Take that back, I misread your post to say "weld a perch to my springs..."] You've got the right idea.

There's lots of ways to gain handling that are much more correct than the air shocks. What you like is the addes spring rate and the taller height (to clear your tires). Just get some taller springs with a higher spring rate and you'd be set. Then you could get some good shocks that actually get to perform as dampers (like they're supposed to) instead of compromising by being a spring and a damper.

My $.02...

Clem

So you think a perch would work? I'd probably make it out of two tubes; a 2" (lift height) one as wide as my springs, and a 4" tall one, thinner than my springs. I'd weld a 1/4" (or maybe 1/8"?) across the top of the fatter tube (or, pipe?). Then I'd drill a hole in the center of that plate, and place the taller one in there, and weld it to the plate. This way it puts less stress on the flat plate (due to the fatter tube), and, it keeps the spring centered on the "lift" (due to the thinner, taller tube).

Then I'd rig up some kind of bolt to go thru them all, and exit from the bottom of the factory spring perches, thru the hole in the center. Almost, I guess, like an internal coil spring compressor!

I wonder if I can do a picture:

s...s
s...s <- spring on its own
s...s
s||s <- skinny pipe with spring around it
<u>s||s</u> <- flat plate for the spring to sit on
<b>|</b>||<b>|</b> <- fat pipe (2" tall) with skinny pipe inside

Hey, that didn't come out too bad!

I had thought about other applications (like maybe a rear spring for a Monte Carlo would fit the axle), but haven't bothered to check it out yet. I remember, years ago, JC Whitney used to sell (they might still do) taller springs- for the FRONT of a 3rd gen. I understand that's more for weight xfer, but you think they would've sold a taller rear spring, too!

And yeah, that's what bugs me lately about the shocks- they don't dampen anything. I might as well have steel rods in there instead of shocks! I had bought air springs, intending to switch to those, but never took 'em out of the box- I heard they didn't raise the car. That's why I'm thinking I could go with shorter tires... these tall ones are raising my effective rear gear ratio, anyway. Hm.

I know this is an old thread but does anybody have any pics of a thirdgen with airshocks?

im installing airshocks regardless of what anybody here says. when it breaks, ill fix it.