I am planning on running my 88 Iroc on the Spectre 341 Challenge next year, everything going well. I need some help on how to set up my suspension to handle a track full of curves. What do I need to do? I have no clue with reguards to suspension. Help me please.

Quite honestly, considering this, you have no place in the Spectre 341. That is a highly dangerous event that is participated by mostly experienced racers. Several folks have died running this event.

With that said, I would love to do it at some point when I have further experience. I only have about 100 laps of road course time in my Camaro.

I would highly suggest you try more traditional track days and events like the Silver State Classic first.

If I offend you, I am truly sorry. This is just not an even to jump into inexperienced. If you do, be sure to post up your experience.

John

No I understand totally. I am working on building up my car to handle the course, but will work on getting experience and what not before I make the Hill-climb. I am already getting enlisted in some course classes and such, but I dont have any knowledge on how to setup my suspension and such. That is why I ask. I my self have about 50 hours of road course time with several different vehicles, and each one handles differently. My '88 is parked and being worked on and I have never driven it yet, so don't know how it drives yet. My only experience in a third gen was my 89 RS with a lsd and it sucked *****, especially compared to my 65 gmc pickup that was a posi-rear, that would brake loose on corners nicely, but when I needed it to, would grab and hold. So I am needing some help here while I have it parked up to get the parts and suspension set.

Hey Bart.

Perhaps you could consider a few autocross events and as John suggests, some more track days. At both autocross and track days you could hook up with other more experienced drivers (and builders) to determine which setup to run. Spectre drivers are mostly pros or at least builders and owners who live this kind of thing. Cliffs with no guardrails are nothing to mess with.

To answer your question, it's easiest to add some subframe connectors and larger sway bars then evaluate your car. After you check the balance you can add springs and/or convert to coilovers up front along with a new K-member. Build your car in stages and learn.

ramey

Ok, thanks. I will check into that as soon as I can. I am kinda stuck at the moment, though with my car parked getting ready to do some work, and away on business as well out of the country temporarily. When I get back in town I will start looking up some events and such that I can get into and what not, does anyone know if there is anything in the state of Utah or nearby that I can get into fairly easily?

Hey Bart.

Try this: http://www.utahscca.com/

SCCA is a good starting point to learn.

ramey

Sounds good.

For an event like the Spectre 341 I would go for ultimate reliability and consistency to begin with rather than ultimate handling. That means I would go for big brakes, all delrin bushings in the suspension, all fasteners safety wired, and all fresh steering components. Make sure to run a quality wheel and tire. I would also run a tire pressure monitoring system to make myself aware of a tire losing pressure.

This is pretty much what I have done with my car and so far it has worked well.

Next you need to decide if you want to run a stock geometry style suspension. Personally I would run a stock style suspension as its a proven design and handles very well. There is also little chance of failure.

Sub Frame Connectors, All new Poly or better bushings, stiffer sway bars, wonder bar, rear lower control arms, adj panhard rod, and a strut tower brace, all new struts/shocks, springs, a rollbar to spec. and torque arm (stiffer) would be a good place to start. While I believe 3rd gens handle well, there is a hell of alot of room for improvement. Getting stronger heavier parts and bracing things up is the key. These cars flex way too much, it's a weak design to start with, not to mention that these cars are 20-30 yrs old w/ alot of mileage. Research all of these mods on here and you will find alot of useful information..... Just my 2 cents

No, Thats awesome man. Thanks for the help really. I am trying to learn as much as I can as I go, so this really helps. I'm also researching these parts and such on the rest of the forum and, ramey, I am getting ready to check out that site right now. Thanks guys and please don't stop with the info.

Are these bushings any good or not? http://www.hawksthirdgenparts.com/ca...hingset-1.aspx

And I was wanting to put on the new camaro wheels on my camaro. Would they do as good wheels with Eagle F1's or not?

That bushing kit will do you well, new camaro rims are awfully large for our cars, I would not do that...

NO NO NO. Poly is a horrible choice for your application. The last thing you want is to be flying around a turn during the 341, have a poly bushing bind up, release and send you flying off a cliff. I would only put delrin bushings on that car. Delrin is much much smoother, quieter, and firmer than poly. If you don't want to do that, stock replacement rubber would be my second choice. At lease it won't bind on you.

Also, I would hardly call the new Camaro wheels ideal. They are big, heavy, and narrow. And they probably require spacers. I would not run spacers on a track car.

The age old debate continues, I should clarify a Poly spherical type bushing on the rear lca, past that I have run poly on everything else for years w/ no problems, poly bushings need poly grease then they don't bind, my car sees alot of track time and I have had no problems. I also grease all of my bushings at least once a year... Whatever you do do not use rubber bushings they collapse, get soft, flex and generally are not for racing type applications...http://www.hotpart.com/shop/index.ph...ct_detail&p=42

I have a friend who gets under his car supported by just a hydraulic jack. It has worked for him for years, but I wouldn't do it. It only takes once to have a major problem.

I just don't understand how you would recommend poly over delrin. If you already have poly, then yeah I can understand not wanting to buy bushings again, but the OP is starting from scratch. For a performance application delrin is superior in every way.

I would not have expected your car to be a road racer. How does the stalled 700r4 like it? How is your visibility with the big hood?

I have to totally disagree. Rubber is a fine product and very consistent. It should last more than 10 years on a well treated car. Sure it is softer than other options, but it is very safe. The key to Spectre 341 is survival, then speed.

Well I wouldn't use rubber in race apps, yes delrin is good, though poly has come along way in the past 5yrs, as far as my auto it does fine, considering I have a plate and screws holding my foot together and my ankle doesn't bend, otherwise I'd have a gear. Been through 3 very built trannies trying to get it right, so far so good. Visibility isn't an issue I'm 6'3". I am not here to argue only offer my experience.
By the way how many track cars have you built and used and raced in NASA or SCCA events, drag racing, any of the above??? I'm 50 yrs old pal this ain't my first rodeo, have a good day....
By the way that's a 4" cowl not a scoop and I use every bit of it...

Wow, I didn't realize we were arguing. Just sharing both of our experiences and have a difference of opinion. Its good to share both sides so the OP can make an informed decision.

I asked about the trans b/c I tracked my 700r4 once and didn't like it very much. Downshifting was a bit clunky with no rev matching. I can understand the choice in your case, and I am sorry to hear about your injury. I find these cars a bit harder than most to place in a corner due to the long hood. I certainly would not be able to see the right front corner with a 4" cowl. I am 5'10". By the way I never called it a scoop, just said big hood.

Regarding my experience, I have casually drag raced and "road raced" my Camaro along with a few other cars. The road racing is my passion. My car is a bit to customized to fit into any class. And I have no interest in competitively racing it. That doesn't mean I don't go out a beat the **** out of it on the track though.

Either way, a full on race car will be using rod ends, not delrin or poly. Perhaps there are some lower classes that don't allow spherical bearings. In that case, I have no idea what those guys are using. Again though, common road racing is way safer than the Spectre 341. An off during the Spectre can very easily be deadly.

All is cool, I've checked out your car before it's nice. You are right about the 341, I wouldn't run that one no way.....

Ok guys, stupid question here. Do I need LCARBs or no on my build? Or do I just need new LCAs? I am sitting down and making a list of the parts I need to start the build, and also, when I access the SPOHN site, I can't seem to get in and see the parts. Is that normal?

If you are lowering or launching, relocation brackets are a good idea. If you are staying stock height they might not be necessary. LCA's in general are one of the first performance upgrades guys usually do. Actually, subframe connectors are the first, then LCA's...

Ok. I don't plan to lower the car, and don't want to do a lot of straightline racing, but more course runs. So LCARBs aren't necessary?

Brackets aren't necessary even though they won't hurt anything if you put them on. They will help on low speed corner exits where you're putting a lot of power down. Tubular LCA's with poly or Roto-Joints are a good bet.

After talking to a racing buddy of mine, if you are not doing straight line races you should not do the LCARBs. He said even on his lowered car he had better turning when the were removed versus being in.

If I were you I would not dive into getting all of the fancy parts quite yet. Your car will benefit from adjustable parts. I would go adj. panhard bar (although for the ultimate setup you may want to go with a Watts link or at the least panhard bar relocation brackets, this will get your panhard bar level with the ground to help even out your roll center), adj. lower control arms, adj. torque arm, subframe connectors (there are some running inner style and outer style and are happy, I say no matter what you do you are going to help yourself out). For sway bars you can either go with large hallow ones or a little bit smaller solid ones. In my stock IROC I have 36mm hallow front and 21mm rear and have been pretty happy with them. Although I am looking at getting a little larger rear one. If you do nothing to those, at least get new bushings for them. For the front I would replace all of the steering components (sticky at the top of the forum will help). You could then look into an adjustable bump steer kit instead of the outer tie rods for more adjustment. Adjustable caster/camber plates are probably a must for your car. For shocks/struts the one choice here seems to be Koni (I have them, just not on the car yet...man I am lazy). A strut tower brace can be a good addition, but there are some that do not agree with that. Brakes are also going to be a must, stock is just not going to cut it. There are a ton of options for these, it just depends on your pocket book. The 5th gen Camaro's brembos seem to be really nice. I have LS1 front and rears and they do a pretty good job, but I can see the benefit of going to a 6p caliper in the front and 4p or 6p in the rear to really maximize your braking, but that is big money because it leads into new rims and tires. Now for saftey I would price out a roll cage/bar.

The list will go on and on. To be smart and safe you are really going to need to swap out everything that can be swapped out because your car is 20 years old and most everything is going to be worn out.

Read up and learn about camber gain (it's actually negative camber gain). Go to a circle track supply house and get a magnetic caster/camber guage that attaches to the hub in the spindle nut area.
After learning about how the guage works, take your front springs out and re-attach your suspension and use a jack to move the suspension through it's travel while turning the wheels from left to right. At different stages of suspension travel. measure the camber readings with the wheels turned. You want the get more negative camber as the wheel moves up into the wheelwell.

Most cars lose negative camber and move into positive camber as the car rolls down into the spring on the outside corner of the car. This is exactly what you do not want and makes the tire have less contact patch when you need it most, and in extreme cases can make the tire roll under the rim and come off.
This also makes the car go into an underdsteer or "push" condition, meaning it won't steer in the direction you want it to and the front end heads toward the outside of the corner- to the wall or cliff, whatever the case may be. In many cases, when the car finally slows down enough for the tires to plant the front end, the center of momentum will swing around the instant center and then make the car snap loose and possibly spin out.
None of that is good!

It is usually hard to make the needed changes to a stock suspension on a stock, street driven car, and possibly even harder on our Camaros and Firebirds. There are ways to do it, but you quickly run out of adjustment on our cars where the top of the strut is attached to the inner fenderwell. In any case, it's good to have a skilled professional at the very least, advise you about needed mods.

All right. So now I have another question, I was checking out Spohn's webiste and they offer lots of good products, obviously. I started looking at struts and springs and all that jazz, but are coilovers an option that I want to consider or is it better to go with new struts and springs in the stock style mount up?

Hey Bart. We are working on a coilover design for these cars. I'm also curious to hear what others think of the current coilover products out there...

For the most part, the stock location spring and strut combo satisfies most of the population.

ramey

Stick with stock style suspension for you application.

I would suggest a few things:

Stiffen the body as much as possible with subframes and an STB
Swap out the sheet metal control arms, TQ arm, and panhard rod with tubular aftermarket ones
Regardless of what sway bars you use, go with poly bushings and endlinks
Start pulling weight out of your car - the better the fr:rr balance and the lower the cog, the better
Go with a 275-40-17 tire and a 17 x 9.5" wheel - the increase in grip is a good thing.