Im looking to lower my TransAm...What would be the best all around lowering kit. I want a smooth ride, yet i want the car to handle well. I was thinking about getting the Eibach Pro kit 1.5" in front and 1.3" in back. What does everyone feel the best set up is for my car??

 

I hear Eibach's suck for handing comfort. But many people still have them. I'd look into DMS, BMR, and Hotchiks

 

Get Hotchkis spring's bilstein shock's, LCA relocation bracket's, and a adj panhard rod. If you want the best ride. If not just get the shock's and spring's.

 

What is your height right now? take a tape measure and go from the floor (please do it on a level floor) to the highest point of the wheel well. Also, what wheels/tires do you plan to run with this suspension?

 

No one can tell you for sure what is best for you. I suggest doing lots of research on shocks and springs on this forum. Eibach, BMR, Hotchkis, Hypercoils, SLP Eibach's, Ground Control, etc.

Check out this link: http://www.angelfire.com/my/fastcar/suspension.html

 

Right now im running 275/40/17's all around...later i plan on going to a zo6 wheel 18's back 17's front...I also want to do long tube headers eventually....

I saw a guy tonight that had the pro kit that i wanted and it really looked good...

 

if you want long tubes, you're gonna need clearance. that was reason #1 why you don't want to go that low. reason #2 is that the suspension geometry out of factory is not bad, it's just the shocks suck beyond belief, so if you lower it more than 1 inch, the benefits of lowering will be negated by the screwed out geometry. try to keep it more than 26.5 inches from the floor to the top of the wheel well, otherwise you're gonna chew up your tires with bodywork. also, some cars are heavier (full option SS/WS6 for example) thus naturally sit lower. My friend's 01SS needs to be lowered only about 0.75 to get to 26.5 ride height. And that's about what I would recommend to most people, unless you plan to have some really stiff springs, or just never actually corner and have it lean
measure your ride height, then we can talk more detail. also, what is the purpose of this car: drag? autox? road racing? or just a competent daily driver that's not afraid of corners and off ramps?

 

Its going to be pretty much a highway car, i will be able to take it to the drag strip and do a little road racing if i wanted, yet just have the highway top end/blast... I know the drag/road racing setups are completly different. I want the car to look good thats why i wanted to do the pro kit, the way i am i just think an inch wont be enough for me as in lowering the car. I want the car to be low, ride smooth, and handle better than stock....Springs is about the only thing i want to do right now and shocks will come later.

 

Not to jack the thread, is it common to remove the rear spring isolators to get the back a little lower?

 

The generic answer is to call Sam Strano Jr.
He'll talk to you about the car, what you do with it, your wheels/tires, other suspension pieces that are on the car already, and then tell you to get konis SA in the front, and bilsteins HD's in the rear. it's a VERY competent setup, people been winning events on it, when backed up with a decent driver.

For a minimal setup i'd go with a big front sway (any size bigger than stock will help, go with strano's new 36mm hollow one if you got the cash, but you can also find 1LE for very cheap sometimes), and shocks. if you drag, you pretty much have to get lower control arms, as the stock ones are so weak you can bend them with your hands. These are the low hanging fruits on the car. Sam's revalved shocks will make your car lose about 1000lbs in feel, it's absolutely phenomenal, I regained my faith in f-body after they went on (I got Koni DA/SA combo with full coilovers). everything else is just sprinkling on the cake.

 

This is what the formula looks like on zr1s and 26.5inch ride height. that's not that much of a drop, so 1.7" drop will make it just chew up tires and make the handling...adventurous, but not in that good way.

 

when i bought my car it already had the eibach kit (sporttune?)..anyways, the real low one......at first i was sure i was gonna raise it back up, but i love the way it looks....it doesn't handle bad, it launches fine(and it didn't even have a rear swaybar at first, still no front) and i rarely bottom out......i am carefull though. i'm not a big fan of the kyb8way shocks on it, but oh well.....i didn't even bother with an adj t/a, i just got an edelbrock.......it already had welded in sfc, lcas, stb, but i added 555rs and it is fine......of course, i'm not too picky on my ride quality.....i still have the stock manifolds, but i can't image headers hanging lower than my y pipe or drive shaft loop already do.......i'll get some pics for you....

 

there are a few pics here: it's hard to see how low it really is with all the shadows, but it's about a 2" drop......it hooks fine(w/3.73s) and handles good enough for me..
http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jdu...fd.jpg&.src=ph

 

for some reason I cant get the link to work ....

 

maybe it got reset to private....hold on...try this
http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jdu...bum?.dir=/3c03

 

car looks good -- same color as mine!

 

I love my Sportline springs. I sit on a set of 97-99 corvette wheels 18 rear, and 17 fronts. The ride is stiff but I live with it. We all want a certain look, and power but sacrafice some sort of driveability

 

With the different size front and back wheels, does that mess up your abs system at all? I've hear that it does, but see quite a few people do it.......

 

I had eibach springs on GC collars and koni shocks on the DSM... The eibach springs sag pretty fast.... I bought some QA1 springs to replace them and they dont sag and are of higher quality.

I'm sure it applies to these cars too so running a coil over setup with adjustable shocks is probably the way to go...

You can adjust the ride height.. Go to low or to high than what you were thinking with drop springs and you are either stuck with them or selling them and redoing the install... With coil overs just crank it to where you like it and try it then adjust the toe....

On a live axle rear it should be a cakewalk to correct the geometry...

In the front with an upper and lower arm front just check the camber... If it goes a full -1 to -1.5 * more negative than stock from the drop just leave the camber alone and enjoy the increased grip in the corners.... Stock is +1 degree of camber... that sucks... You could have camber go negative by 2.5 degrees so it is now -1.5* camber... That is MY prefered setting on the street for most cars I have done... Do ADJUST THE TOE BACK TO stock specs. Or rather the specs here on Zano's link

http://www.angelfire.com/my/fastcar/suspension.html

A tiny bit more negative camber wont kill your tires and it will improve cornering. TOE eats the inside edge of tires like crazy you would need front camber that looks like a drift car to eat tires like 1/4" too much toe would..


Also with coilovers you can adjust ride height and shock valving at each end and corner individually... You can have street, drag and autocross settings...


This is a bigger mod but and I dont know if there is a kit but I'd consider running a truck arm rear suspension (NASCAR).... Basicaly two long trailing arms which serve the same purpose as the stock lower arms but are as long as the torque arm... They connect to crossmember by the transmission on either side of the trans... It needs to be a beefed up trans crossmember which is part of a beefy subframe connector kit.... In reality on this setup the section of the subcon behind the truck arm mounts does'nt matter so much as all the thrust is going into the frame farther forward... It is an advantage since a chassis acts stiffer when it gets pushed on in the middle instead of outback...

It could be done two ways...


A relocated Adj Panhard would be needed by either setup......


One way is to basically toss the LCA's and TQ arm then connect what amounts to really long LCA's as far forward as the tq arms front mount one on each side of the trans then run a relocated adjustable panhard rod kit. It wont have a torque arm anymore since they are rigidly attatched to the axle on one end and a bushing on the frame end....

The other is to run the arms to the stock LCA mounts and keep the tq arm or an adjustable one... This will alow for eaiser pinion angle changes and it will be even less likely to bind in corners... Id run a spherical bushing on the frame end of the arms and a poly at the LCA mount if you went this way. IMHO I think you could hook and corner hard as hell with this suspension mod when combined with swaybars and adjustable coilovers...



Notice how bad an old lead sled wailed on a stock 02 Z28 with this suspension?

 

My setup i have i don't have any complaints. It handles great and the ride is not rough at all. Ground clearance is kinda of an issue though.