Hey there, I have a 1990 GTA that has 24k miles, this car rides like crap, you can feel every pebble in the road and it feels like your teeth are going to fall out. I have done everything too it, new kyb struts and shocks all around, new control arm bushings, new ball joints, new strut mounts, brand new tires. It only rides slightly better. I’ve had a lot of these cars in the day and I don’t remember any of them riding this bad. Only had 1 other GTA , still don’t think it rode that bad. So I’m thinking of changing the springs, maybe to base firebird springs, would this mess my ride height up? The front is pretty high the way it is now. Any ideas suggestions? It’s driving me nuts

 

Spend more on shocks and struts. OE springs need a performance damper to control them, not a "one size fits all" bargain basement part. KYBs are bare minimum. Try a set of Konis.

 

Hey thanks a lot, I’ll look those up.

 

before springing the 700 or so for new shocks/ struts, maybe put a post up in the regional forums for someone nearby to check out how other similar cars drive. I returned to a thirdgen about a hiatus for 4 years and was shocked at the rough ride, convinced something was wrong with mine. Got lucky (I'm in the UK) and drove another that seemed well kept on mostly stock stuff and there wasn't as much in it as I thought.

Not suggesting there isn't room for improvement, but with 24k on the clock and all that work having been done, may be worth firming up the possiblity that, like me, you may be getting a taste for 30 years of NVH development...

 

Yea that thought had crossed my mind, my taste may have changed lol, I was struck by how many people on here were having the same issue on here.

 

im not a fan of kyb but also not convinced that’s your problem unless you went for the ultra cheap ones.

first thing I would do is check every single bushing and link in that car including sway bars, trans and torque arm bushings, lca, end links etc... to make sure they are all intact and not rotting. If someone changed any of them to poly get rid of them and go back to rubber. Rubber will help isolate those bumps and jolts where poly will increase them.

If still the same after I’d look at the shocks and springs in combination. Cheap kyb and worn springs will ride crap. What springs are in there now? They could be good but possibly to high a spring rate causing the harsh ride. For example a eibach sport spring would barely lower the car by an inch a lot of people wouldn’t even notice it but the eibach front rate over oem stiffest spring is about 167lbs more. About 70lbs more in the rear. With out a proper shock to handle these springs it’s like not even having shocks installed at all. So make sure of the springs you have before you decided to change them out.

I will agree Koni are incredible shocks but they also ride stiff on the softest setting so if you feel like starting over I’d go with Koni yellows and hotchkis springs all around. The hotchkis are a bit stiffer than oem about 50lbs more upfront and about 33lbs out back, they would pair very nicely with the Konis for a smoother ride than the eibach. They lower the car 1” so you won’t get into crazy camber or geometry correction issues either.

Do a little more looking into what’s under the car before you throw more money at it and hopefully it’s a simple inexpensive fix rather that having to swap out springs and shocks.

I too have a very low mileage original car, 13k miles on an 87 my 85 with 100k miles drove better and it came down to too stiff a lowering spring paired with oem shocks and struts the previous owner had put in and some poly bushings he put in out back which also made horrible squeaking noises when going in and out driveways. Quite embarrassing but easily fixed. Some people don’t use their brain when putting parts on cars they just go got looks and hope it works out.

Good luck and let us know what you find.

 

If you want a soft ride get a base model with 15" wheels, those ride like a boat in the water. The Formula and GTA were "performance" orientated and had a harsher ride, you're not going to get that smooth boat feeling from them. I have a 92 Firebird with mostly stock suspension, I have the Global west del-a-lum bushings in the front, 36mm and 24mm sway bars, WS6 replacement Moog springs, Koni yellows all around and the rear is stock with replacement Moog springs. It is harsh, but it's not that bad. If you want smooth, get a luxury car, not a pony car

 

what does it have fer tires?

 

This too. Cheap tires are a major contributor to poor ride as well. New or not a good tire is worth the investment. It’s why i decided against federals or other Taiwanese or the like type tires. Yes very reasonable price and for the 500km a year my car will see they fit the budget. After trying to smooth out my ride I’d be doing myself a disservice by skimping on tires to save money and re introducing poor ride characteristics with a cheap tire.

 

Very good thoughts! As for tires, it has brand new bf Goodrich g force, I really thought it would help and it did a little. What do you think about new base firebird springs with a set of konis to go with it? It has the stock ws-6 springs, still have factory tags on them. I know I’m older, a rough ride didn’t bother me when I was a kid, But I swear I can be driving on a road and I’m hitting expansion joints that I literally can’t see lol. I have changed all the bushings but sway bar, and the transmission mounts

 

123k miles on my 91 Formula. All stock suspension aside from new Moog links on the sway bars, new Delco front sway bar bushings, Hotchkis control arms and panhard in back, 15 year old BFG Comp T/As, Konis on all four corners. It rides stiff but not uncomfortable. The original struts I replaced with the Konis weren't REALLY bad, but they were getting soft, it had brand new el cheapo Monroe shocks out back. It went from rattle your teeth, to firm but comfortable, just by changing the shocks and struts to something that wasn't 25 years old or cheap trash.

There's nothing wrong with hard rubber or poly bushings as long as they're installed and lubed properly. FE2 cars came with harder rubber and poly bushings from the factory. They also came with different shocks and struts than a V6 to control the stiffer springs found on not a V6'es.

Base Firebird springs are fine, but you'll start bottoming out easier and you'll lose a bit of the performance feel. Ride height won't change much. If you really want the F41 feel, get some taller sidewall touring tires without a 140mph speed rating. 90% of the slightly softer ride comes from the tires. P215/60R16 were the non-FE2/WS6 tire, they'll fit the existing wheels and won't throw anything too far off.

I can't emphasize enough that GM had a colorful rainbow of shocks and struts to choose from. A one size fits all shock/strut isn't going to work well with 90% of the applications. Aftermarket springs are going to throw a ton of engineering out the window in favor of "lowering". If you want a more comfortable ride, and everything checks out/passes the visual inspection, get a better damper package. If you want to start thowing the baby out with the bathwater, tires are the easiest sacrifice to switch back, and probably the least harmful to performance.

 

UMI springs are great. I use them on my car with Bilsteins and the ride is firm but nice. Not harsh.

 

Got the yellow Koni's on my 90. Not convinced these are the shocks for these cars. Havent played with setting yet. suspension is all stock. New sway bar bushings and wonder bar. Performance is great, just a bit rough. Sure would like to compare them with some Bilstien's - not even sure they make them for 3rd Gens. scratch that, just saw tooties comment.

 

Bilstein did offer thirdgen shocks and struts, but they only offer shocks now. The struts are NLA. When I was shopping the Konis were less expensive anyway, and adjustable. The Bilsteins were way overpriced for what they were/are.

 

Want to soften the ride?
Monroe Sensa-Tracs.
I don't purport these to be anything special but the ride in my Camaro is far from harsh. They seems to be a good fit between the aggressive springs and sway bars. I doubt very much they would prove themselves very well on a road course but for the everyday drive (and I bet I put more miles on my 3rd gen than most folks here) I have nothing to complain about.
They're also inexpensive (on this side of the pond).

 

I might try a set of the softer base springs, they are only 59 bucks for brand new ones and relatively easy to change. If I don’t like them I’ll still have the old ws-6 ones to put back in, I think I’m going to work my way from cheapest to more expensive lol. I think your right about tires, I wish I knew there was an alternate size when I bought those. I’ll have to look again to see which suspension option mine has, I looked it up once, but I didn’t know what it consisted of. Thanks again!

 

If the brand new springs you're looking at are Moog "stock replacements", they're anything but. They're another "one size fits all" solution that fits everything equally poorly. Look up the part numbers on Rock Auto, you can view all the applications they fit. Some of the Camaro/Firebird springs also are listed to fit things like El Caminos. They're generic parts, which is why so many people complain about their ride height, and/or end up cutting the springs to get a reasonable ride height.

All GTAs are WS6. All WS6 cars are FE2.

You can pretty much break down thirdgen suspensions into three levels. Level 1 is your basic Camaro/Firebird suspension, 4cyl, 6cyl, base V8. FE1 in later years. Tiny sway bars, sometimes no sway bar in back at all, soft rubber bushings, soft ride. Level 2 is the F41 suspension. Larger front and rear bars, 15" or 16" wheels, stiffer springs, harder bushings, better steering box. Level 3 is FE2. Wide stiff tires, stiffest springs, thickest sway bars, harder bushings, better steering box.

There's a lot of overlap between F41 and FE2 on the later cars, but the F41 cars generally drive much more civilized. Every 91-92 RS with 16" wheels from the factory is an F41 car. There isn't that much difference between the FE2 springs and F41 springs. IIRC the rears overlap, depending on how the computer selected the springs you'll find the same springs on some F41 and FE2 cars. The front springs are only a step stiffer. Generally speaking, on a given suspension level car you'll have 3 or 4 springs that the computer would select from. Meaning that you'll see more difference between the softest/stiffest springs in the same suspension level, than from the stiffest spring on an F41 car to the softest spring on a FE2 car. What makes a 91 RS with 16" wheels perfectly acceptable for the office receptionist, is the tall squishy tires, not the marginally softer springs.

 

If I understand you correctly and I’ve heard this before also, The computer at the factory picked different springs for identical equipped cars? If so, Would that mean because of differences in the chassis? It seems odd to me that there would be that much difference in the tolerances to require a different spring. Or is it because they intended one car over another to be softer or stiffer. If that’s the case, maybe mine got the stiffer ones. I believe someone said sometimes side to side was different? That would make it really tough to get it right. Anyway the replacements I was looking at are a/c delco, so I assumed they would be correct?

 

had similar experience with the sensa trac, a fine tread tire will really soften it up, too.

 

It's more like no two thirdgens are exactly the same, and the goal was that every Z28 should feel like a Z28 and every GTA should feel like a GTA, so they had a few different springs to choose from in order to attain that goal. Without writing an essay on the subject, suffice to say GM was fairly specific about which cars got which springs, and it's not entirely obvious just from looking at the year, make, model, major options, which springs a specific car will have. Early on it was important to GM, later on less so as they started to discontinue service parts.

AC-Delco printed on the box doesn't always mean Genuine GM parts in the box. Especially in 2020. GM isn't terribly interested in producing/selling thirdgen parts at this point. AC Delco on the other hand has zero qualms about putting parts store generic parts in a pretty AC Delco box and selling them over the counter. Sometimes you gotta get after it Sherlock Holmes style to determine if an AC Delco part number is going to be an actual GM NOS style part, or if it's going to be a Sunsong Chinese brake hose in a Delco box. An AC Delco spring is probably going to be the same thing you'll pull out of a Moog box on a different day. I reserve the right to be wrong, but I doubt you'll find an NOS spring or an actual GM produced spring in an AC Delco box in 2020.

Personally, I wouldn't mess with the springs. The chances of getting a spring that both softens the harsh ride, and is remotely appropriate for the car, without having detrimental effects on other qualities of the car, are pretty slim. In my opinion. Further, I'd chalk it up as defacing the car in an attempt to turn it into something it was never intended to be.

I'd say figure out if the car is actually objectionably stiff for being a GTA. Then if it seems considerably stiffer/harsher than a very similar thirdgen, look into why it's that way and fix it right. As a rule, a WS6 Firebird is stiff, but a GTA is going to be as comfortable as any of them. If it's knocking the fillings out of your teeth, it's something that's failed or something that's been changed.