I've got the front end apart on my '99 T/A and decided to freshen things up. The steering rack is leaking, so I figure I'll replace it. The bushings on the LCA's are cracking, so I thnk I'll upgrade to tubular arms. Brake rotors and calipers need replacement, so I'm considering upgrading to C5 components.

I'm hoping you guys have suggestions on which brands of parts to get. I'm kind of a cheap bastard, but I also don't want total crap parts. I'm looking at the WS6 store C5 conversion kit and Speed Engineering LCA's. There's a company called maxspeedingrods that sells a complete new rack for $175. Anybody have experience with that?

Thanks

 

So I went ahead and ordered the C5 brake upgrade kit and Spohn control arms from WS6 store. I cringed at the price of the control arms, but I didn't want to take a chance with the Speed Engineering brand. Where I did take a chance was with the Maxpeedingrods steering rack. I may well regret cheaping out on that, but I can at least let you know if it's as big a piece of crap as I imagine it could be! But I did see decent reviews.

 

I've seen people rocking China stuff with no issue and people breaking name brand stuff

Let us know how it works out

 

I myself dont think the C5 vette caliper swap is a worthwhile investment.....you would do better to get the later Cadillac or 5th gen camaro calipers....plenty of write ups on those swaps on here

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I did look into this a bit. My options are limited because I am keeping my stock wheels. The main thing I wanted was just new calipers and rotors. Upgrading to C5 was a little bonus and the price was decent.

 

Not all China stuffs are bad, I've used a few and they worked really great.

 

I replaced my rack with a Detriot Speed rack. Pretty much the other side of the spectrum and most likely overkill, but what the hell. Good luck with that one bolt. I ended up cutting mine out. Simply not dropping the K member for one damn bolt.
The orings for the steering pump lines were unobtanium in 23 so maybe a heads up there. I just bought new lines which had the orings. Probably available in today's world.
For my calipers I just rebuilt them. Seals were shot from age even though they looked fine. Lots of corrosion inside which I had to clean out. C5 is nice option though.
Strano stuff was still good so ignored that.
Rust treated and repainted everything I could front and rear.

Back in 23 my dad died and to get my head back on straight I tore into the 25yr old front end. Rebuilt, painted, replaced, updated anything under there one way or another. Poor girl needed some attention.

 

My 2 cents coming from Audis with 5 link suspension short arm long arm rear inverted shocks and control arms are maintenance spec every 30k miless....


I put Mevotech supreme upper and lower arms on my f body.

I filled the bushings voids with chinese brand window weld and they have held up well over a year. Ball joints had some resistance felt proper preload wise in their sockets and you can see inside there is a halfway decent grease used.

Mevotech upper A arms have extra steel welded between the open area on the bottom so if you window weld the air gaps they are very strong arms for about 50 bucks each.

Lower arms my first set bushings cracked early on 17x9 wheels 285 tires. The second set went in with China window weld in the gaps and the car is one of the best driving f bodies ive been in for the low mods it has.

Moog is trash, AC delco is reboxed China, timken wheel bearings have little preload now and are made in china but cost a ton.

Hope this helps someone save money.

The mevotech supreme arms also can take the mevotech TTX heavy duty truck lower ball joint but i have not had any socket or ball failures only early bushings wearing on mevotech supreme. I only get the supreme.


Oh my next wheel bearing set will be the strano x tracker setup with adapters.

Timken hubs and besrings arent good i sent two back that were lumpy with almost 0 preload and the next two were close enough to be acceptable.

So if you need hubs I would buy once cry once. I wish I had bought the x tracker setup and my car is a street car instead of two China timkens at 165$ each tjays 1/4 of a dead nuts reliable setup.

So I'll buy twice cry twice because I trusted timken.

 

You need to check your option codes to get the correct ratio steering rack.