What's a nice setup for a budget drag suspension on these cars? The Mustang guys have 1000 and 1 ways to get their cars to hook on a budget, our cars should follow the same principles. Does anyone have tips on what stock spring combo's work, how to preload sway bars, what shocks and strut combo's work well? I'm thinking V6 springs in the front with the stock style struts, one regular Camaro rear spring on the drivers side, WS6 spring on the passenger side, possibly an air shock on the passenger side or performance shocks on both sides. Also does anyone have a listing of the stock spring rates for the different years and models of Camaro/TA's?

 

I don't have a spring list, but hit the local parts store and ask to see their spring catalog. I use O'Reilly 'cause they carry moog springs, but the real trick is to look up the stock spring then go to the back of the book look at the listing thats ordered by diameter. You can then look at a whole list of ones that will fit and have their rates and heights beside them.

Must have is an aftermarket torque arm, if you're gonna spend money spend it there. If you can weld box in your own rear control arms to save some green. If you have those skills you can also fab up you're own subframe connectors, but you can buy those so reasonably it's hard to justify making 'em unless you have a lot of steel laying around, also a must hav e though. Loosen or remove the front sway bar for the drag strip. Preloading the rear sway bar can be done, reverse of where you stiffen up the springs I believe, though I've had better luck just locking it down real tight, others results have been different. Rather than run 1 stock spring and one ws6 or iroc spring, I'd run one stock spring and see what you could find in a softer spring for the other side or even 2 softer springs and relocate your battery into the spare tire well for preload. Oh and the lower control arm relocation brackets are a good buy to for less than 100.

 

non-performance v8 up front, ws6 in rear, both rear drag bags pressure varies on track conditions. 90/10 struts, 50/50 shocks, slicks and skinnies, hit it and go. LCAs, relocation brackets, no front sway bar, jegs torque arm, etc etc and you'll be there.

 

Right now I'm sitting on 225 pound front coilovers, stock 91 RS rear springs, cheap Auto Zone Gabriel shocks in the rear and some kind of generic worn out strut in the front. I've already done a tubular panhard bar, LCA's, and subframe connectors. Right now I'm cutting 1.8 and 1.7 60 foots, what I'm trying to do is to get the car a little more lateral. I'm also working on a Firebird Formula that won't have as much money stuffed into it. Right now the Camaro's launching with so much roll it's squatting the passenger side all the way into the fender well and the front end travel's tremendous.

 

Here is my setup... for some reason its working.

no front sway bar
rebuilt stock frontend with poly bushings and stuff
cheapo KYB shocks and struts
WS6 springs (1/2 coil cut up front)
SFC's
Chris Alston tq arm (similar to Jeg's one)
LCA's
LCA relocs
APHR
slicks/skinnies

Car does 1.51 on motor and a 1.48 on the bottle bogging a little bit.

This is also with a T56

I'm shooting for high 1.4's on the motor and low 1.4's or better on the bottle next weekend. Dumping the clutch at about 6500 or so.

 

get the biggest baddest rear sway bar you can get that will help with the roll, also a bag in the right rear can help but too much air can get it squirlley later on down track

 

Stock v8 springs and struts up front, with no sway bar. Stock springs in rear with old school air shocks in back with enough air in them to sit level. Tubular lower control arms in stock location, stock torque arm, stock sway bar, $89 weld in sub frame connectors, stock t-5 trans, ram clutch. 28x9 et drags. 3225 lbs with me in it. Oh, and a 9 inch with 4.11 gears. 1.6 60' on motor. 11.90 on motor. I cut a 1.72 60' with a stock 7.5 rear with 3.73 gears. My philosophy is dont replace it until it doesnt work anymore.