Knoxville

I pulled the trigger on some suspension and handling upgrades. I figured my car makes pretty decent power, now its time to do my due diligence by purchasing parts to manage and handle that power more effectively.

I ended up purchasing the following upgrades to improve handling and performance:

• Pedders Street XA Package
• Pfadt Rear Control Arms (Trailing Arms & Toe Rods)
• Nitto NT05r 285 18 inch Drag Radials

G8 ready for surgery...

Pfadt arms ready for bushings:

Drag Radials ready to be mounted:

Nothing like brand new rubbers!


The Pedders Street XA kit has not arrived yet, but I'll be expecting that early next week. I plan on installing the Pfadt arms tonight in the garage, and meanwhile the Tires are already at Discount Tire getting mounted on my stock 18 inch OEM wheels.

Very excited to see how this boat handles after these much needed upgrades!

Knoxville

I got the tires all finished up and mounted from Discount tire yesterday. They came out looking pretty decent on the stock 18 inch wheels. I can't wait to see how these wheels will do at the drag strip!



I also got the Pfadt trailing arms installed on the G8 last night. I'm going to save the toe rods for a different night.


Trailing arm without the metal sleeve installed

Stock vs Pfadt


Stock Trailing Arms


Trailing Arm removed:


The toughest part of the install was removing the OEM bushings in the rear knuckle that connect the lower part of the trailing arm.

Pfadt recommends using their custom bushing removal kit that is $30 dollars, but I ended up renting a ball joint press for O'reileys and it worked great to remove the bushings.

Knoxville

UPDATE:

With the Pedders XA coilovers and Bushings arriving next week, I wanted to prepare the car. I'm assuming with 285 tires on the rear that the drop could have me rubbing badly.

So I got my fenders rolled this morning, and I'm pretty impressed with how they came out. Naturally the fenders bulge out a little bit more, but its quite smooth and well done where I don't feel its noticeable.

Can't wait to drop this car and install the missing parts!





Drag Radial installed

Knoxville

Finished product

Knoxville

Some pictures from the rear

Knoxville

I'm still waiting on Pedders to get their act together and send me the remaining parts for the XA Street Package. It doesn't sound like the remaining parts will be shipped until the 25th-26th so my plans of having this all installed before the drag strip is shot. Kinda blows considering I placed my order 2+ months ago.

Anyways, that didn't deter me from installing some parts on the car. I was able to wrench on the car last night with @Murlo to get the strut tower brace installed.

Here are some pictures of the process and results:


Test Fitting



Bolts trimmed and tightened




Finished Product

Rican219

Nice how does it feel?

Gordon0652

iTrader: (4)

What size are those nittos? They look HUGE to fit on the factory wheel. And some specs on your H/C please?

Blackpanther99

iTrader: (8)

Nice car man! Sucks to hear that the progress will be delayed but will be worth it at the end!

Knoxville

With the nice weather we are having in Minnesota, I decided to work on the car tonight.



Removing scrape pad to get at front lower control arm bolts



Control arm removed, will be replacing these bushings with Pedders


Removing Strut to install coilover


Out with the old, in with the new





Engine bay view

Knoxville

Feels a little bit tighter around the hard twisties like clover leafs or turns at high speeds. It also makes the car feel more stable at higher speeds imo.

Nitto NT05r 285/40-18 drag radials. The heads are ported LS3 with PSI beehive springs running a vector motorsports stage 2.5 with a yank ss3200 stall torque converter

Thanks man, I'm so looking forward to getting all this stuff installed and aligned. Should feel like a new car from what I'm hearing through the grape vine.

Knoxville

I just picked up the front control arms from DB Performance with the newly pushed bushings!

I'm excited to bolt these back onto the car because that will complete all of the suspension work on the front half.

The old OEM rubber bushings were absolutely destroyed when they were pushed from the control arms. I should have taken a picture of the metal sleeves because they looked like a pop can sent through a garbage disposal.

These polyurethane bushings are so much firmer than the stock rubber bushings and gets me excited to see how the car will handle soon.

Pictures of the new Pedders front radios rod bushings:

Knoxville

I just got the front control arms with the new Pedders bushings installed on the car. Now with the arms back on the car I was able to bolt everything back together and put the front wheels on for a test fit.

Installed front control arm:



This is a picture with the front coilovers installed. I just pulled the car out of the garage to turn it around so I could start working on the rears. These obviously have not settled and will drop more. The rears have not been installed in these pictures.










Now I should be all set to start working on the rear half the vehicle to install the subframe bushings, diff bushings, rear coilovers, and toe rods.

Knoxville

I got some time to work on the car last night with @Murlo. Thanks a ton for all of the help.

We managed to install the rear coilovers on the car after a few hours of wrenchy wrenchy. The car hasn't been driven yet so I'm sure these will settle some more to make it lower.

I'm thinking if the back end doesn't settle a bunch more that I'll be dropping it a bit more. Anyways, all 4 Pedders XA Coilovers on the car without and alignment at this time.

Rear coilovers:



New stance:

02LS1z

iTrader: (11)

How does it ride with the coilovers? Is it harsh? I want to lower my g8 but I don't want to kill the ride quality

Knoxville

I got a chance today to lower the rear end some more. I think I've finally got the car to the desired height. Here are some pictures of the car as it sits now. Let me know what you think!

02LS1z

iTrader: (11)

How is the ride quality?

Knoxville

I haven't really been able to drive the car because I need an alignment first once all the parts are installed. Still need to install diff bushings, subframe bushings, toe arms before I can get it aligned.

The quick drive around the block was not harsh at all. Need to drive it more for better analysis.

Knoxville

I'm told the remaining Pedders parts will arrive at my house on Thursday (tomorrow). I've made an appointment for Friday to have the 4-wheel alignment done (let's hope its not snowing).

I prepared the Pfadt toe rods by installing the Polyurethane bushings. I love the look of these toe rods, and can't wait to have them on the car.

No Bushings installed:

No Metal Sleeve installed:

Bushings Installed:



Car is getting close to completed. Can't wait to drive this thing with the new handling upgrades.

Knoxville

Finally got a chance to work on the car again after being out of town for the last couple weeks.

Right before I left for my trip the remaining Pedders parts arrived. So I now have all of the parts to finish my suspension upgrades.

Subframe Bushings


Full Alignment Kit


We got most of the subframe bushings installed tonight. Here you can see the front upper subframe bushing installed. I also removed the subframe weights that really serve no critical purpose.

Here you can see the rear upper subframe bushing installed and mounted in place.


This is the driver side all finished up with the Pfadt trailing arm, Pfadt toe rod, pedders toe bolt, and the subframe bushings installed

Good image showing the removed subframe weights and the new bushings installed: