gbody coilovers vs. non

[86regalss]

I currently have in my '86 regal:

2'' drop beltech spindles - front
1'' eibach lowering spring - front
1.5'' lowering springs beltech 5100 - rear
Bilstein Shocks all around

I want to upgrade to 17''s soon to get some good handling, would i notice a big difference with coil over springs? If I were to get tubular a-arms would it be noticeable difference, or is that more for drag racing? I will be doing some occasional autox

[xxxturbo6]

I currently have in my '86 regal:

2'' drop beltech spindles - front
1'' eibach lowering spring - front
1.5'' lowering springs beltech 5100 - rear
Bilstein Shocks all around

I want to upgrade to 17''s soon to get some good handling, would i notice a big difference with coil over springs? If I were to get tubular a-arms would it be noticeable difference, or is that more for drag racing? I will be doing some occasional autox The big difference with the coil over shocks will be the adjustability more than anything. I don't use them and I Autocross my G-Body and it handles great! But Coil over shocks will be in the future up grades just for the adjustability alone.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2010/09/20100919413-1.jpg

[ArtosDracon]

I personally don't see the use of them in this suspension, especially the QA1 system, the springs are just too short and they rely too heavily on the shock stiffness for roll control which makes them harsher than I would like. My S10 uses essentially the same front suspension and my plans are just 2" drop spindles 5.5x12" 700lb/in springs, adjustable shocks, 1.25" swaybar w/ custom spherical endlinks, custom delrin bushings, tall ball joints, a small UCA relocation, fully adjustable UCAs and a whole lot of weight loss. I'm betting that gets me well over most stock-based coil over set-ups.

[Steven]

Adjustable upper A arms from Marcus at SC&C is the way to go for additional handling. You can adjust for better camber, check out his web site for more information. they made a big difference on the handling of my Monte. Not to mention the tall ball joints and eibach lower springs.

[xxxturbo6]

Adjustable upper A-arms from DSE and their "Track Shim Kit" is a very easy way to go. If you want to add camber simply loosen the two a-arm nuts and slide in a shim, Done with both sides in about 10 minutes! Plus DSE's upper A-arms are also adjustable Fore & Aft.

Check out DSE's full line of G-Body suspension products on their web site!! They now offer a complete Front & Rear bolt-in suspension with 2" drop springs...



Scot W.

[fletcherscustoms]

The coilover will give you the ability to adjust ride height without affecting coil stiffness. Plus the adjustability of a double adj coilover setup with the proper spring ratio will be better then any std coil and shock setup. I can do AFco's with springs for about the same thing you will spend for a set of drop spindles, coils, and good shocks. And then with AFCO units you want haev to sacrifice geometry with the drop spindle

[86regalss]

Thanks for the tips, I'll probably go with taller ball joints, and adjustable a-arms and see how it goes. Tryin to work with what I have.

Probably swapping out the rear sway for that swivel rear sway bar, it seems like itd work well. I modified a '95 9c1 caprice sway bar to work, not sure how well it'll hold up.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2010/09/IMG_0590-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2010/09/IMG_0579-1.jpg

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2010/09/rear2-1.jpg

[xxxturbo6]

Thanks for the tips, I'll probably go with taller ball joints, and adjustable a-arms and see how it goes. Tryin to work with what I have.

I modified a '95 9c1 caprice sway bar to work, not sure how well it'll hold up.

The sway bars that work best are the ones that mount to your Chassis and NOT the lower control arms. DSE offers a real nice rear sway bar for only $325.00 and works Great!

I have it on our GNS test car.


Scot W.

[ArtosDracon]

The coilover will give you the ability to adjust ride height without affecting coil stiffness. Plus the adjustability of a double adj coilover setup with the proper spring ratio will be better then any std coil and shock setup. I can do AFco's with springs for about the same thing you will spend for a set of drop spindles, coils, and good shocks. And then with AFCO units you want haev to sacrifice geometry with the drop spindle

I have a few questions for you based on this post.

In what way does a drop spindle sacrifice geometry?

How does a coil-over with a double adjustable shock, besides ride height adjustment, actually perform better than a divorced coil and double adjustable shock?

[driftinblzr]

I had the QA1 Pro-coil over on my S-10 Blazer. I was very dissappointed with them. I used the recommended 350lb/in springs which I felt were too soft compared to the Z85 (firm ride) coil springs I had from the factory.

If I had to do it over again, I would have went with some Afco or similar traditional coil springs with a higher spring rate.

Later, Doug

[T-CHRGD]

Adjustable upper A arms from Marcus at SC&C is the way to go for additional handling. You can adjust for better camber, check out his web site for more information. they made a big difference on the handling of my Monte. Not to mention the tall ball joints and eibach lower springs.

Give Mark a call. He will gladly explain your options.

[Marcus SC&C]

Okay, before you get your wallet out just sit back and think about what task each component performs and how it might, or might not get you closer to your goals. You have a good set of springs with a nice rate for a performance street car. You have a decent set of shocks. Now substitute a set of coil overs with exactly the same spring rate and for comparison`s sake the same dampening rate, mounted with the same motion ratios and what have you changed? Nothing at all. How much performance will you gain? None. Why would it be any different? If you do what you`ve always done, you`ll get what you always got.
Now, you can potentially gain some performance with the adj. shock dampening. That`s a good thing but you can gain that by simply adding a good adj. rate shock like a Varishock to your existing setup.
As far as tubular arms go, they`re widely misunderstood. They can be used to tweak the static alignment a bit and make itsy bitsy changes to the geometry due to small changes in length but overall they play a supporting, not a lead roll in the geometry of the car. The geometry is dictated by the pickup points or pivoting points of the suspension, not by the arms which simply connect those dots together. the G body platform has some major geometry issues, backward camber curves, unstable subterranian roll center, huge bumpsteer. It doesn`t need need a little lipstick, it needs reconstructive surgery. To do that we need to make some major vertical changes in pickup points (taller spindles or talle rball joints). No A arms can do that for us, no matter how fancy or how great the ad hype. It`s not physically possible. So the best solution is to re engineer the front suspension pickup points first, correct the major issues rather than trying to mask them. At this point you`ll find the stock upper A arms no longer properly fit the car. They`ll be the wrong length, the wrong offset and have the wrong ball joint mounting angle. Here`s where properly designed new upper A arms come in! There are also some potential gains to be had with tubular lower A arms, again if they`re well designed such as SPC`s. They won`t make any change in suspension geometry to speak of, they can`t. But they will give you adjustable ride height (without going to a coil over), two sway bar end link mounting options (at adjust rate and fit), progressive rate jounce bumpers, greasable delrin bushings and a build geometry designed to optimize tire clearance at higher caster settings. That clearance is at a premium on G body cars since they don`t have as much room in the wheel wells behind (toward the back bumper) the tires as A bodys and some others. If you think those features might benefit your car they`d be a good addition. The game changer is the geometry and bumpsteer correction, the other features are icing on the cake. I really like some modern features like turnbuckle alignment adjustment which has a much larger range than old school alignment shims and without limiting header clearance so that`s why we prefer SPC upper A arms. We can and do sell other brands when people request them but no other brand can match their performance/utility and certainly not at anywhere near the price.
Getting off topic a bit, the posts pertaining to getting the rear sway bar off the lower trailing arms are spot on! We built our first link mounted adjustable rear bar on our G-5 Cutlass test car about 9 years ago. Spohn Performance has been making the production version for us for about 3 years now and we`ve just released the new Hellwig collaboration as a tubular chrome moly adj. rate link mounted rear bar ( wow, that`s a mouthful!). We`re on our 4th generation of 3way adj. rear bars now, it`s good to see that some other companies are catching on to the only logical mounting format for these cars. It reduces kinematic binding and makes the bars much more mechanically efficient so we can generate some serious roll rate with very light weight bars. Our tubular rear bar alone weighs 6lbs.! I appologize that we haven`t gotten the new Hellwig bars up on our site yet, we`re about to debut an all new site and it`s taking longer than expected (big suprise right?). The G body Hellwig bar is very similar to the A body bar shown though. Introductory price...thank Hellwig for this...$199, for the ultimate G body adj. rear sway bar. :) We also have a matching 1 5/16" thin wall tubular chrome moly front bar. A solid 1 5/16" weighs 34lbs., our Hellwig bar is 15 lbs. We have them everyday for $199.90, with our SC&C only Severe Duty high articulation endlinks. I hate to sound like a stupid commercial but sway bars are part of the big picture too and these are brand new so you probably haven`t seen them yet.
Bottom line, to select the best parts for your project car look at the car`s design, fix the weakest link, then move to the next weakest link and so on. This will give you the best performance overall and the best value. As always feel free to pick up the phone and call us for a free suspension counceling session so we can help you integrate the parts you have with the right choices in new ones to achieve your goals. Mark SC&C