Originally Posted by Badazz 97 TA

Its hard to say what made the most difference since I did it all at the same time.

I love the setup man as a whole. I was able to take it out on some back roads out here in the mountains the last few days. The car just feels confident and super easy to drive. It goes exactly where you want it to go without hesitation. I don't know how else to describe it. Its very fun to drive now. I can push the car much harder without feeling like I might die in the turn. lol

I was thinking about some type of product like that. Some type of bed liner. I might have to check it out and do it.

Originally Posted by Badazz 97 TA

Recently bought a lot of stuff to say the least. LE1 Heads/Cam and new exhaust are awaiting install in my house. That will be stage 2. But for now, the handling stage! Enjoy the pictures. Im still finishing up the front passenger side. The thread will be updated through out the week. I have the basic UMI stuff already.(Rear LCA's, Panhard bar, 3 point SFC's, relocation brackets, Long torque arm re located on the transmission mount)

This is on my 1997 Pontiac Trans Am

The mod list:
-Sam Strano Springs
-Sam Strano Hollow Sway bars
-Bilstein HD Shocks
-Mickey Thompson Street comp front tires
-Re finishing the Torque thrust II's
-Brake Pads/Zinc plated slotted Rotors
-New 2002 Steering Rack with LS1 intermediate shaft
-Alignment
-KYB Upper shock mounts
-Used Shock dust boots

Moog:
Upper Bushings K6689
Lower Bushings K6490
Upper Ball Joint K6462
Lower Ball joint K6145T
Left/Right Tie Rods ES3238RL
Moog dog bone K6573

-Summit brand Rear Bumpstops



Lots of rust removal and painting! Keep in mind it was a Midwest car that was driven in a few winters but still taken care of. in the end rust is going to happen which made some things harder. Its never going to be a show car and I wasn't going for absolute perfection but I figured I would take a little extra time to paint some things in there to make it somewhat better looking.

Now the pictures. You can view all of them in my album but I will post some of them in here. Over all this is a pretty in depth install. It took a lot of time and work to get to this point but it was all done with basic tools and a few loan a tools from autozone. Just the spring compressor and Ball joint kit. So it is possible without anything special really.

It took me about 6 months worth of planning (reading hours and hours of threads and lots of buying to get me to this point) so it did take some time. Also some ingenuity to figure how to get things to move that havnt moved in 18 years also was needed. Ive been at it for about 12 days now. Slowly knocking it out. Enjoy





Oops, wrong way. I had a 50/50 shot. haha Its fixed now and not hitting the pumpkin















Wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.





Assembly of the new shock/spring. All new parts


How I got the old bushing out. The nut helped prevent the control arm from bending as I pressed it out.



Painted upper control arm with new ball joint and bushings. Gloss black and wrinkle paint for some different texture and look underneath



Painted the wheel wells with some wrinkle paint. seems like durable stuff. still deciding on what to do with the splash guards. That will be another project some other time



New ball joint and bushing on lower control arm. That back bolt was difficult. I needed to cut it off with a diamond sawzall blade. To install the ball joint and bushings, I used nothing but the c-clamp kit from autozone. The bushings are also correctly indexed as well.



New LS1 Steering Rack to help clear my LPP headers that will soon be installed with the Heads/Cam


Shock assembly and newly painted control arms bolted up and in place







Some Caliper painting!



Finished Product. I really like how they turned out. I bought the vinyl over lays off of ebay. The little globs at the bottom is the aluminum, not the paint. I didn't think it would show that bad once they were painted. I should have smoothed them out more with the dremel.