Paul 1953

It's been a marathon week. My wife is glad it's over. In addition to the 1" drop, I cleaned all the brake dust off the inside of wheels, painted the calipers red,
and added secondskin sound dampener from the doors all the way back to the trunk. Enough for now. Just want to enjoy driving it.

Before


After


Before


After


Before


After


After


After

mac62989

iTrader: (1)

Looks great. You must really like those stockers lol.

bad_408_vert

iTrader: (6)

I like it, you always should do suspension first & then decide on the wheels.

MEGATRONSS

iTrader: (2)

Well you got much more than a 1" drop in the back....let me guess, prokit?

Mine looks the same with the stance all effed up.

But looks good at least you got ride of the monster truck ride height. How Long did it take you to put dynamat in/whatever else u used?

mac62989

iTrader: (1)

In the title bro, Strano springs.

jc98ss

iTrader: (13)

i'd put the isolators back in the rear, add the heater hose mod, or cut the front springs.....it's lower in the back than in the front.....it LOOKS like a car with the prokit.....nevermind, don't cut the strano's.....put your stock rear springs back in and trim them down until the stance is perfect.....just my .02

99FormulaM6r

iTrader: (2)

Who says he took the isolators out?


Give it a few miles, the fronts could settle some. Also, it's possible that the photo angles are making it look lower in the rear.

Other possibility....do you have a lot of weight in the trunk?

6spdchevy

iTrader: (2)

yea im curious as to why it sags so much in the rear did you remove the rubber spring isolator in the rear?\

looks good btw

01ssreda4

iTrader: (96)

Looks a lot better........

riceburnerZ28

iTrader: (20)

Looks good! I like those exhaust tips.

Paul 1953

Good call! The rear dropped another 1/4 " after I added 50lbs of sound dampening, evenly distributed from the rear seats & sailpanels to the trunk.

Now instead of 1/4" higher in front, it's 1/2 " higher. (Without a driver... maybe it evens out with my 200lbs in the front seat

Probably about 3 days, ( i worked on it on & off). The hardest part was getting the sailpanels back on with the Secondskin LLP underneath. The ride is definitely quieter, don't have to turn the music up so loud. But I still hear the (lower frequency) exhaust. But with less road noise (tires) I can hear the engine in front better, which I like.

My .02 : I wouldn't do that. The stock springs are much softer than the Stanos. Stock springs have to compress 3" before they equal the uncompressed height of the Stranos. Much more likely to hit the bump stop if you do that.

Actually I did the suspension years ago (Bilsteins, STB, welded SFC, Poly LCAs, swaybar), before I started on the engine (LTs, TB, Cam). Just finally doing springs which is probably more cosmetic than performance for a DD.
When I bought the car new in '02 I immediately thought about wider tires & rims, but I found that for the stock power, the 245s were plenty enough rubber. And I liked (still do) the snowflakes. Now that I'm up near 400rwhp (since Nov.) I could probably use more rubber...but then I'd be putting more load on my stock differential

Thanks. Corsas. But I swapped the Corsa muffler (keeping the tips etc) for a quieter Magnaflow after I put the cam in.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

sokr915

iTrader: (3)

Looks good, I think you just convinced me to paint my calipers red, I was pretty set on black but now im feeling red

Paul 1953

Yeah, I debated that for awhile too, esp with the black accents on my pewter factory color scheme... But red is classic. Go to google pics "painted calipers" and you'll see plenty of examples.



ps..I took one off to paint it, then decided it wasn't worth the hassle, and just masked the rest. It worked fine.

Crispy

iTrader: (6)

Clean ride bro. The drop came out looking good. These pics have just helped me decide I want lower than Strano. And damn your wheels are clean.

Badguy7

iTrader: (6)

Mine sits like that with the rear isolators still in there. Its been that way for over 6 months now and plenty of miles on it. I might add the heater hose mod to lift the rear a bit or re-install the springs/shocks when i do more front suspension mods and see if that helps drop the front any. If not, maybe swap out the fronts for BMR's springs. I just want the fronts to drop just a tad bit more and ill be happy.

jc98ss

iTrader: (13)

i know exactly what you mean.....the only cars i've ever seen sit like that had older Prokit springs or the rear isolators were removed....i thought the strano's gave more of a hot rod look slightly raised in the back, so i assumed he didn't reinstall the isolators.....mine used to sit similar to the OP's car, the heater hose mod helped a little, but not enough......it had saggy Eibach Prokit springs when i bought it......that's the only reason i mentioned cutting springs earlier......i cut 1/3 coil off my fronts and replaced the rears with BMR's.....i love the way it sits/handles now.....

MYSTIC-1SC

iTrader: (14)

Very nice.

LilJayV10

iTrader: (39)

Looks nice, but "classic snowflakes" makes me think of a 2nd gen.

pewter2002

iTrader: (4)

I thought changing springs would get rid of the saggy bum look on my car too, it didn't, I guess my car is destined to drag its' butt no matter what...

Paul 1953

Now that I'm up near 400rwhp, I'm finally reaching the limitations of my 245/50/16 GSD3s when I accelerate with gusto... So I will be looking at wider rims. ie... what WAS just a cosmetic/fashion issue that I didn't want to spend money on, has become a performance issue.

The "saggy bum" issue is, in my opinion, much to do about nothing, Measure the high point of the wheel wells to the ground, and then measure and subtract the distance of the line of the rocker panels to the ground, and you will see that the front wheel well is 1/2" taller than the rear. I actually have only 1/4" net "sag" in the back prob due to >50lbs of sound dampening I put from behind the seats to the trunk.