Hi forum guys. soo i was wonderng if the 36mm/24mm would be too outragous in my 88 2.8l im getting new moog springs and front rebuild kit and wanted to upgrade the sway bars to make it better because i have 17x7 in the fronts and 17x8 in the back and i dont want to go overboard because i am on a budget. any help with be considered thank you.

 

i have a 36mm bar on my 92 v6 car, have no issues. Dont change the rear bar until you know if you need it or not, usually a huge rear bar is too much and the car will tend to oversteer.

 

Use the 24 rear and a 34 front if the suspehsion is mostly stock and you do not have SFC's. You can even use a 32 front and 24 rear.

People need to understasnd that V6 cars have a much lighter nose- so what does this mean? when the roll weight of the front of a v8 car is heavy with a larger sway bar, it will want to pull the chassis as it trys to roll whicj makes the inside rear lift.... The V6 engine is lighter and less roll weight as well as better front to rear bias, so you can use a heavier rear bar than a V8 car.

 

Explain SFC for me please? soo should i or should i not use the both 36mm and the 24? and is there anything else i can do. i think the moog springs with help because the stock ones are on it now and have a lot of sag and its lower than any lowered third gen i have seen out there. and will sub frame connectors help and a strut tower bar? or a 4pt or 6pt roll bar? or any further weight savings? any help once again is appreciated

 

Subframe connectors will tighten up the groans and creaking noises the car makes while turning onto a steep hill. Good for getting rid of dash vibration/squeeks. Gives the car a tighter feel. Pretty much a good idea for any car.

I know Konis aren't cheap. But they are on sale right now. $200 for a pair of rear shocks. Springs are another $60 or so. Do the fronts later on when you have more money. That's what I did.

Roll bar? I wouldn't bother. Lot of labor charge to install them. You lose interior space. And they add weight to the car. I wouldn't bother with a roll bar unless I was fast enough at the drag strip that the car needed one.

I think most strut tower brace bars are ugly. Would they improve side to side stability? Probably. But what are they connecting? If your front struts are old and tired, they're not going to give much benefit. Vetruck likes the 3 point strut tower braces (that connect to the firewall). For stiffening up the front end, I agree that the 3 point is better than the 2 point. But the downside is that if anybody ever runs into your front quarter panel, you'll end up twisting the firewall.

Regardless, I'd say strut tower braces are one of the last things I'd do.

Sway bar sizing? Don't know. They're a bit of a mystery to me as well.

Honestly, the best bang for your buck is going to be the struts/shocks. Spend the money on them and then let the other suspension mods wait. You may not even need or want to do much else.

 

okay will im getting stock replacement shocks struts from napa as just napa brand and moog springs and all the parts to rebuild the front end are from moog as well but getting tie rod adjusters from hotchisk(sp) and SFC and strut tower bar from edelbrock(3pt design) and hopefully the 36/24mm sway bars. my last and final question is if i replace all the bushings front and rear do you think it will help out at all? thanks soo much guys

 

Don't waste your money on anything else performance if you are just putting plain old crappy old lady shocks on the car. Those are so soft even the wheels and tires you are doing are pointless, they are just now more unsprung weight which translate into an even worse ride quality.

And as for me recommending a 3pt STB? ...
.....ONLY IF you first install solid bearing strut mounts.

At the very least, befre you screw een with swaybar purchases, Spend your money and at the very least get some KYB AGX's for a package price of 472.00- FOrget spending a few hundred on swaybars, keep the ones you have and put better shocks and struts like reid already suggested.

SFC's are always good to strengthen the integrity of a metal fatigued 20+ year old frame and body regardless of stock or modified.

 

alrighty ill shell out the cash for the struts,strut mounts and shocks. do you think the spring will help? because mine are sagging pretty dang bad

 

Skocks (and struts) Vs. Swaybars when making a decission on purchase when it comes to a tight budget:

What do they do?
Swaybars- basically lock up the independence of the two front tires, and the two rear tires side to side form working separately and keeping the tire contact patches on the road. WHY? in the name of reducing body roll in a corner. THis aids only in a corner.

Shocks- aid in controlling body and chassis weight at al times. Why are good quality shocks impotant? because the quality of valving is much better than a stock shock to resists rapid weight trasnsfer of sprung weight. How is this better to purchase GOOD shocks rather than sos-so shocks along with swaybars? because GOOD shocks will have a higher rebound resistance to resist body roll into a corner and slow it down. THe swaybar will resist it also (again, just in a corner where shocks work even in straight line stuff- swaybars hurt straight line ride quality) and the weight rolling over onto the swaybar will be abruptly forced backwards mainly less dampered by cheap shocks causing poor chassis control to the driver imputs.

I take 'good shocks and cheap swaybars'- over -'cheap shocks and good swaybars' any day of the week.

You want the best ride quality and best performance out of ANY CAR? Spend as much as you can afford on just shocks first- before you buy anything else suspension wise other than strut mounts and tires. Why strut mounts? They take away the unwanted vertical slop that is present in the nose of the car with the factory rubber insert strut mount design- regardless of how much you spend on expensive struts. This is a suspension weak link.

 

okay and thank you and i was getting used 36/24mm sway bars the bars alone are 50 bucks for the pair and with end links and bushing prolly have bout another 70-80 in them and you still didnt answer if me replacing my really sagging orignal springs with stock replacements will help?

 

This is a great thread. My son's 88 v6 needs the complete suspension rebuild to. What is the thought on OEM style bushings or something like PST's polygraphite or Energy Suspension products?

 

from what i have heard the going to poly bushings help but not much if still using the factory stamp steel suspension pieces. but i will tell you now that i am going to do it because i priced all just oem rubber pieces and it was only a 40 dollar difference. and it will make the ride a still bit stiffer but its not harsh. i think i am going to upgrade to poly and like above do the shocks/struts,replacement springs, STB,SFC and front end rebuild kit. i think it will turn out to surprise people how well it handles. I live in Ohio we have a lot of winding roads ands the car was fun to drive already and i think it will be alot more fun and im going to be autocrossing it this summer at Goodguys in Columbus. If your looking for an estimate my fully suspension package will come out to a little over 1100 bucks and im doing all the work i can on it.

 

Where are you getting your parts? There are so many places selling and so many claims of theirs being the best. I just want it to work well, handle as good or a little better, and be safe since it's my kid's car. What your figuring isn't to bad for price. We won't be doing any autocross, but if we want to go have a little fun, I want it to be up for the task.

 

well the springs are MOOG(from NAPA), the front rebuild kit from PST,shocks/struts(KYB) from summit racing,SFC and STB are from summit racing also, and the sway bars im getting them used and painting them and getting the bushings and stuff and all other bushing from energy.

 

Thanks. I have a book from PST. Prices look pretty good and I like the idea of getting a kit so I don't have to chase around if someone doesn't have everything.

 

yeah thats why im doing and i am trying to keep the labor cost down as much as possibly i have already asked my lab teacher(im currently enrolled in Auto Tech at local career center) if i get the control arm or what have you off the car if can press or whatever to get bushing out. but i also asked my local alignment shop and they said for the same deal they would charge me 5 bucks a bushing, which is pretty good.and a good word of advice if your doing the front end at home like me take the whole tie rod/center link off as an assembly if you plan on trying to drive to the alignment shop because then you can measure the overall length and measure how far out each tie rod is adjusted to get it in the ball park. now this is given it have a fairly good alignment on the car already. glad to of helped.

 

Yep, I will be doing it all in my garage. Great idea on the center link as an assembly thing. I have a buddy that quit his job and started a shop doing rod and custom work so what ever I can't do at home, he can take care of for me. I do electronics for a living so I help him and come over whenever he has to thrash to get a car out of the shop.

 

Awesome! hope everything is a sucess and yeah a lot of people have just taken apart the front and then tried to drive it. bad bad idea. and you can go back to the stone ages and do a tape measure alignment because toe is the biggest tire wearer. its just the relationship of the front of the tire to the back. you can find prolly someone that has done it on the internet for measurement. and if you want like im doing at school im not going to go back to true specs on the alignment im going to add a little bit for camber and caster because they arent big tire wearers and will help with cornering and im going to do just a little little bit of toe out so i can have a little better turn in. hope helps you.

 

coon which springs are you going with? Been looking and have found a couple different Moog parts for the rear.

 

just the moog stock height stock replacement. they are a 107 lb spring rate. and i think the cargo coil is a varible rate spring. i dont know the difference between them but the cargo coil was prolly used on the 305 base camaro because im pretty sure you could get them with a hitch. yeah i know crazy but its true i have seen 5-6 that way.hope i helped.

 

Do you have to Moog part numbers that you are using? You are just going with stock replacements correct?

 

the springs are coming from Oreillys and the part number is #5665, hope that helps also getting my front springs from them and they are #5598. hope it helps. ill keep updated if anything changes or show results. with the list of parts i gave you it should come out nice.

 

Thanks man, that's exactly what I wanted to know. I was wondering about the variable rate springs. A hitch on an F body, that's not for me. It may be necessary for somebody, but i'm glad it's not me.

 

yeah it pondered me afirst but i know a guy that autocrosses one and uses a small trailer to carry his tires and gas and anything else. thats actually kinda smart haha

 

I guess for a deal like that where "ya run what ya brung" it would be nice and not really heavy.

 

yeah cuz the interior is stripped and caged and he's working his way up to track days and road racing. i have also seen miata racers do the same with small trailers.

 

coon, did you get your suspension work done?

 

Almost i got the rear almost done. All new poly bushings. Kyb gas a just shocks, springs, and just waiting for sway bar and control aarms and the panhard bar to come back from powercoating. The front i have all the steering linkage off and sway bar off. Now just cleaning just the linkage and sway bar to get ready to sell. Now just trying to get the lower control arms off and shocks. Its gonna be tight. Here soon be getting a steering brace, 3pt tower bar and sub frame connectors then im done for now. What bout you? Hows it going?

 

Just going to get started. No heat in the garage in North Dakota in the winter means not a lot of progress on the car. I coached youth basketball and my oldest son, who's car this is, was playing JV basketball so that cut into the time bank. Time to get started!

 

Pffft no heat all i had was a little old electric heater that doesnt have blow lol but yeah sounds good. When the suspension is done im also going to swap out the brakes to drilled and slotted and swapping the rear to discs with slotted as well. All getting ready for auto cross gonna be a good one. Well good luck imma post my results of suspension and then brake then auto cross. Hope goes well.

 

You might consider after market strut mounts, to eliminate the rubber/deflection, before adding the STB.

JamesC

 

the kyb's come with some haha soo im all good but thanks bro. i almost have the front setup done just waiting on brakes to get here then all getting put back together.