i just installed new springs on my 86 v6 firebird. seems to sit way to high now. allthough i have not yet re-conected the sway bar (note: i am driving a backup car, not driving the bird with no sway bar) it seems to almost have positive camber, the tires seem farther apart at the top then the bottom. is it possisble that i was sent the wrong springs? did they make different springs for the v8 models? i think i may hve a real problem here.

on the pluss side i did take it for a quick testdrive (with no sway bar, badd me) and i can go over 25mph speed bumps at like 43mph with no problem. and without catching air. annyway i will post some pics tomorow after i get the sway bar back on. hoping that will bring the car down a little.

BTW: the new springs raised the car about 5 inches. thats how bad the old ones were. i think they had been cut. they were also sagging bad.

 

check your isolators, and make sure you got the springs indexed correctly, if they aren't indexed properly, the front end will sit very high.

 

did you get V8 springs?

 

Whoa! 5 inches? that's quite a difference! what brand springs did you get?

 

how do i know? those are the rubber thingies on the top right? they are possitioned as correctly as i can figure. and the bottom of the spring is the way the haynes camero manual said (thats right camero, not camero/firebird, just camero, wtf?)


Tibey

they are OEM GM springs, stock. i ordered from GMPartsDirect.com

 

I have a feeling you've installed fourth gen springs. Although, my first guess would be that the isolator isn't on the top of the spring correctly. Did you use the tape trick (tape the isolator to the spring) before installing it to ensure they don't move?

The bottom of the spring end of coil should be between the two drain holes as far as I remembe.r..

 

It's OK to drive without your sway bar Give the springs some time to settle. If they are in right you will probably be fine after a while. Do you have a pic of the way it sits now??

 

4th gen front springs will never fit into a 3rd gen. as laiky asked, did you get v8 springs? i can understand about a 3" rise going from very old to new springs. pics are here of a spring swap i did.

http://www.fl-thirdgen.org/frontspringswap.html

and yes when putting in new springs, the car will raise up and camber will be more positive as shown in the link above.

 

I just finished doing the same thing with my 85 V-8. I put new springs AND struts on the front, and new springs on the back. The ride height seems to be about like a 4X4, but I've been assured by "front-end specialists" that the height will settle down to what it's supposed to be.

For what it's worth, I was told by Advance Auto Parts that the only springs available now are the 1LE springs. I don't think so, but that's what they said.