2nd Gen camaro suspension help

[Chriss71z28]

I have been doing some searching through old posts on 2nd gen suspension parts and i'm still out on trying to figure out what to buy.My car is a 71Z28. I did it as a street/strip car about 10 yrs ago. Rebuilt all the suspension parts in the front with quality moog parts, reman z28 steering box, all energy suspension bushings in controlarms and body, new 5-leaf factory springs in the back and all rear bushings. I have kyb shocks which i now know suck. I have a set of edelbrock ias to install, but i'm not sure what to do with the rest. I want the car the car to handle like a late model muscle car. I want to be able to use the car more. I had a old school 406 with a huge cam and heads, big stall converter and 4.10 gears. Going to replace that with a 6.0L LS motor and a 700R4 trans with 3.73 gears. I thought about the agr steering box to tighten up the feel and upgrading to 17" wheels with some nice tires. I don't want to road race the car or anything,just want a nice handling street ride that i can use more. What else do you guys think i should add?? Thinking about the tubular upper arms to get better caster. Any ideas would be great. Thanks

[exwestracer]

Talk to Mary Pozzi on here...she'll set you straight about what you do and DON'T have to do to make it handle.

[formula]

I'm by no means a maestro like the pozzis, but my two cents:

--SPC upper control arms and tall ball joints to improve static camber, camber gain, and roll center axis position.

--hotchkis or better springs, get them to suggest shocks to match.

--front and rear swaybars, hotchkis or pro-touringf-body.com are both nice pieces.

Agr box is a goo idea, as are subframe connectors.

--better seats will also help a lot!

[fbody_mike]

I'm by no means a maestro like the pozzis, but my two cents:

--SPC upper control arms and tall ball joints to improve static camber, camber gain, and roll center axis position.

--hotchkis or better springs, get them to suggest shocks to match.

--front and rear swaybars, hotchkis or pro-touringf-body.com are both nice pieces.

Agr box is a goo idea, as are subframe connectors.

--better seats will also help a lot!

Yup, nothing like sliding out of the driver's seat in a turn.

[SLO_Z28]

Pro Touring F Body upper A-Arms with the tall ball joint. Those will add positive caster, about 5 degrees which is a good thing, and the tall ball joint helps with roll center. Upper control arms can fox 99% of suspension issues, as 2nd gens are setup really good from the factory. If you're not going to be 100% serious about racing don't worry about lowers.

Factory Z28 front sway bar with poly bushings and new end links. Either the hotchkis or PTFB adjustable rear sway bar(Sway bars arent a one size fits all thing, adjustment is good). For springs, I like the hotchkis fronts and either the Global West Cat 5 complete rear setup, PTFB setup with the cat5 style bushings, or hotchkis, all 3 are proven performers.

Shocks are incredibly important, I have adjustable ones built for sever duty racing, the edelbrocks might work OK, it depends on exactly how you set your car up.

I have a ******* of a suspension setup but it works great, dont be afraid to mix n match.

[Hotchkis]

Thanks to everyone for recommending our suspension.

There are several very good suspension companies. Choice often comes down to personal preference and budget.

Hotchkis is well known for making Camaros handle well. In fact, we just had an all Camaro open house where we discussed things like alignment, shocks and springs.

As other posters noted, sway bars are excellent starting place.

Hotchkis Sport Suspension Tubular Upper A-Arms will offer vastly increased handling and control. The bolt-on arms provide increased camber and caster adjustment over stock, and can be used alone or with the Hotchkis lower arms.

You can get an entire Hotchkis TVS, or upgrade individual components as you have time and need.

Hotchkis Sport Suspension

[aronhk_md]

The Vette Brake Products (VBP) transverse monoleaf suspension is going on mine. Single leaf across replaces the coil springs (like the C5 & C6 vettes), plus tubular upper and lower A-arms, QA-1 shocks. Its not in their catalog since they sell so few but they have them. One nice feature is you can adjust ride height. Whole system minus swaybar runs around $700 I believe....which is excellent.

Heres an article:

http://www.superchevy.com/technical/...ion/index.html

I have another article from Hot Rod mag. with a bit better info but its paper and I'd need to scan it.

Nothing against Hotchkis personally, but there are at least 2 american companies that will BUILD you custom front springs to your specs and they are VERY accurate at hitting the ride height you want plus any spring rate you desire.....all for the same money you'd pay for Hotchkis off the shelf springs that some have found didnt give them the ride height they wanted. Coil Spring Specialties is the company I used, Eaton-Detroit is the other. I think I paid $165, and I can point you to threads with detailed info on the springs in a 2nd gen.

[Hotchkis]

The Vette Brake Products (VBP) transverse monoleaf suspension is going on mine. Single leaf across replaces the coil springs (like the C5 & C6 vettes), plus tubular upper and lower A-arms, QA-1 shocks. Its not in their catalog since they sell so few but they have them. One nice feature is you can adjust ride height. Whole system minus swaybar runs around $700 I believe....which is excellent.

Heres an article:

http://www.superchevy.com/technical/...ion/index.html

I have another article from Hot Rod mag. with a bit better info but its paper and I'd need to scan it.

Nothing against Hotchkis personally, but there are at least 2 american companies that will BUILD you custom front springs to your specs and they are VERY accurate at hitting the ride height you want plus any spring rate you desire.....all for the same money you'd pay for Hotchkis off the shelf springs that some have found didnt give them the ride height they wanted. Coil Spring Specialties is the company I used, Eaton-Detroit is the other. I think I paid $165, and I can point you to threads with detailed info on the springs in a 2nd gen.

Aronhk is right in that there are plenty of ways to give a car the perfect stance. Custom springs, airbags, coilovers, even cut factory springs. However most of these solutions are more focused on ride height then performance. When we develop a sport spring it takes months of R&D, track testing, street testing, autocross and FEA analysis. We do this to make sure that our Sport Springs actually improve handling and work with our sport sway bars and modern tires to improve the overall driving experience. Many other solutions simply change the spring rate or number of coils to drop the car. We also test ride comfort, since we recognize that most owners don't want to crush their kidneys every time they go for a drive.

Since we offer five spring combos for the 2nd Gen (2" sbc, 2"bbc, 3"sbc, 3"bbc and firebird) there is usually a setup that will work for just about every customer. New developments like Carbon Fiber body panels and all-aluminum engines like the LS3 mean we keep developing new parts to stay ahead of the curve while still offering a balanced complete performance package.

There will always be a less expensive way to do things. Some enthusiasts choose to mix and match our parts with other companies to make their own package, others choose to mix and match the least expensive parts on the market to save money. We offer all our parts individually to make that possible, and we also make it possible to buy a thoroughly track tested, performance proven system engineered to work as a complete package composed of parts designed and manufactured right here in the USA out of domestic materials. We feel that's the way to go. If you have suggestions for a new part, our R&D team is always running with great ideas from customers... so send it along. In the meantime we will continue to concentrate on building the best systems at affordable prices.

[aronhk_md]

Hotchkis...this is a great place to connect with people, and anything researched and added to our sport is something we should be grateful for. At the same time those of us who have had experiences, or have friends who had them, are going to share them with as many facts as we can. From there others can do their research and make choices as they will. If its not a first hand experience of my own I will state that.

I have not had personal experience with your products, but I have had 4 friends who bought hotchkis springs for their cars. 3 of the 4 had an end result with ride height that did not please them. 2 of them the ride height was too high, and one was too low. The other person was quite happy. Now I was told that they all researched what to use before they made a purchase, and I heard some of the details, but not all.

I can tell you this much......3 of the 4 people are no longer using those springs. In fact they were removed almost immediately. These were all in 2nd gen firebirds/trans ams. Handling is of course important, but ride height plays a part even in that. Not to mention looks ARE important. We want our car to have the look we desire. If it doesnt, all the rest means very little.

Since we offer five spring combos for the 2nd Gen (2" sbc, 2"bbc, 3"sbc, 3"bbc and firebird) there is usually a setup that will work for just about every customer.



Now to me, as a "firebird" owner thats not a lot of choices. Firebirds came in many configurations (even though all the blocks were essentially the same) with hundreds of pounds of variation overall depending on A/C, manual or power steering, manual or power brakes, fender flares/body packages, other accessories, etc. Add to that the propensity in pro-touring or racing to modify things and now we can have several hundred more pounds to consider. I know guys running 2nd gen firebirds at 3300lbs, and also some at just under 4000lbs.

To me its like buying a suit that is ONE SIZE FITS ALL. I have no clue what firebird(s) you used in your research, and therefore would have no clue if I was making a good choice buying your springs. I have not seen you post any information on the test vehicles you used. I dont believe I remember seeing information on your springs that indicated what spring rate I would be getting with your springs.

Also, handling is a somewhat subjective thing even WITH track results. Herb Adams is a proponent of using milder spring rates than some of the other "experts" who claimed one needed higher spring rates. Yet in track testing his car was faster around the course. Today there are people who will still go in one direction or the other with spring rates.

My purpose in mentioning Coil Spring Specialties and Eaton-Detroit was to let people know there are options out there...american made too. I HAVE had experience personally with CSS, and they have been excellent. So have 2 others I know. A 3rd person has had experience with Eaton-Detroit that mirrored mine with CSS. That is to say they delivered a spring EXACTLY fitting my requirement for ride height with MY car and equipment.....dead on. They gave it to me with the spring rate I requested. They can also give recommendations if you arent sure what you need.

This was not an attempt to "go cheap", it just turned out that way. And again, this isnt an attempt to knock your product. Perhaps those I know did not research well enough before they purchased. This is just a way of sharing my story, and stories I have been a partial observer to.