I've had the WS-6 suspension taken out of a wrecked '87 GTA(5.7L TPI 350), and put it into a '90 Firebird (TBI 305, although it's now got the GTA's motor). The car is together, but the front end sits up about 2" higher than it should. I keep getting conflicting stories that the coil springs for the two model years and suspensions are different, but every time I go parts hunting, I can't find anything that lists for the different model years. What's worse, is the old springs got sent off for scrap before the project had finished.

Can someone bail me out of this? The car is twice as fast as it was, and handles like it's on rails, but it looks terrible, and it's probably killing my tires with the geometry all screwed up.

 

Make sure the springs are indexed/installed properly.

What did you take apart when you installed the springs? Some parts need to be tightened up while its sitting on the suspension like your parked.

Springs need to be drove on for about 100'ish miles before they are wiggled into final position. This is mostly for new springs, but does work on used springs as well.


Did you remove any options when swapping engines? Ac, alumn heads, etc?

 

Thanks for the reply. No options have been removed, and I've driven on the front springs for about 250 miles or so now. They have squatted down a bit, but they still seem high. I ran into problems with the rear end though (figures.. the one part I didn't get a rebuild done on in the whole damned car ), so it'll have to be rebuilt before I'll be able to tell if everything's going to be ok.

For the record, the whole suspension went from one car to the other. WS-6 on the '87, and standard suspension on the '90. Do you think the difference in weight of the ground effects and other parts on the GTA could be causing it to sit up higher in the lighter firebird? It's now only sitting about an inch or so higher than it should, so that sounds plausible, but we're only talking about a difference of maybe 50 lbs.

As an aside, I didn't do this particular round of work. I've done smaller projects on this car before, but this one was a little out of my league. Both cars were torn down to the frames; wiring, suspension, and power trains all being swapped, so I had it done by a reputable shop as a side project for them. I got a great deal ont he labor, and kept their best mechanic busy through the slow season.

 

Rereading your post, I am not so sure the mechanic tightened things up with the car on the ground as you suggested. What should I be looking for if I have to redo it myself?

As background, I worked on F-15's in the Air Force, so I can turn a wrench, but I'm not too experienced with auto suspension.

 

it would take some major weight to have the front end raise an inch. Like whole ac system, convert to alumn heads, possibly even fiberglass front end parts.

If you had a shop do it, what kind of warranty does it have? Take it back and ask them to recheck everything.

If they didnt tighten the control arm parts with the weight of the car on it, it could be causing the rubber in the pivot points to be binding not allowing the arm to move as needed.

Springs indexed on the bottom.. the end of the spring should be between the two "seep" holes on the arm where the spring sits.

Upper spring, it should have a "crown" sticking thru the middle. Its very commen for the spring to get caught on this crown, this causing it to be crooked and not seat properly.

 

Thanks for the help! I'll get it looked at.

 

Now that I think of it, the springs may not be indexed correctly. They are sitting crooked. A second mechanic thought they were the wrong springs because they were bowed in the suspension setup. I hope I don't have to replace them.

 

While I'm on the subject, I asked this in another post, but does anyone know of a good set lowering springs for the WS6 package? Someone mentioned that the Eibach pro kit (which I had been eyeing) softens the ride up too much. When I had the suspension pulled off of the GTA, I had every piece of rubber replaced with poly, and I love the way it handles now! I can't imagine a car being more solid in the turns, but I would like to see it dropped an inch if I can make it happen.

 

OK, I figured it out. It turns out the springs were screwed up. replacing them with OEM replacements worked great! Thanks for all the help!

Now I just need to find out how to get cones and springs to rebuild my 9 bolt 3.27 rear end