Hey all, I want to lower the beast, and I am looking at Air Ride's stuff. I know how the front end alignment changes and all, but when I lower the car, what else changes?? Like, the pinion angle, how much is that changed? and things like that. Will I need castor/camber plates for the front?? Do i need lower control arm relocation brackets in the rear? Oh, and a adjustable panhard bar, will I need it to center the car over the wheels?? I am looking for around a 1 3/4- 2 in drop maybe a little less, will the tie rod bump steer kits be needed for a drop like this??I just dont want to be a ricer with my car all lowered, **** bouncin all over the place, bottoming out, and parts wearin' out all f'ed up because they're in a bind. And this car probably won't see much track time, so I am not worried about the 60' time. Thanks for any help.

 

i have the same questions~~~ but i believe all u need is a lower springs and adj panhard bar...

 

your front castor/camber will change along w/your pinion angle but only by a couple of degrees but it still makes a difference that you can hear pretty bad vibrating if you go to low. You'll also need a front end alignment, im pretty sure the suspesion gurus will chime in and give you detailed info

 

Is the torque arm put in a bind since your pinion angle changes?

 

its not really in a bing just out of angle. There fore you going to need to readjust it, dont ask me how to do it cause im going through that **** myself.

 

Ok. I'm not a fan of "air ride" anything. I would never run those on a race car, and would never run them on my personal street car (I just don't have any interest in "lowering at the flick of a switch", I'd use an adjustable coil over and if I ever needed to raise it, I can do so in about an hour). However, you may want to do other things and that's ok.

Alignment will change. Not a lot, but some. When I lowered my Camaro (1.5") and went to the alignment shop, it was still within factory specs (Surprised me). I had the alignment "tweaked" for better handling while I was there though. So, you can get away with small ride height changes without killing the tires (more than likley, your results may vary). However, I'd still suggest using regular lowering springs to drop the car (my preferred method).

Pinion angle is usually fine for around 1.5-2" of lowering (give or take). I know of one car that was too low and had a very bad driveline vibration. This was a race car and was just too low. It was raised slightly, problem solved. So, you can go too far.

The front of a 4th gen F-body does not need camber plates (the suspension is designed in such a way that we can't use them), a 3rd gen can use them and can benefit from the additional camber (for handling, if you just want "low", then you can probably skip them).

Adjustable PHB seems to be required by some cars, and not others. So, it can't hurt to have the adjustment if needed, but it may not be required. You can always lower it and then order one if needed.

Relocation brackets. I don't use them, but they will allow you to reset the control arms to be parallel with the ground. You can always add them later as well.

Hope that helped.

 

Here is post I put on another forum, I had an argument with a guy about Air Ride, and it wasn't even the Q, I really never liked the idea of air ride on a f-body, but it has all the features I am looking for, I explain all of that in the post.

http://www.streetnstrip.org/forums/s...=&threadid=959

Q: Is the torque arm put in a bind?thus stressing the mount points and the trans mount? A4 trans

Q: is a bump steer kit needed with a 1.5-2" drop? Just eyeballing the tie rods they are already pretty parallel to the ground.

Ok, it is nice to speak with someone who knows what they are talking about vs those that have just done it. Again, i am going to think about this and will let you know if I have any more questions. Thank you for the help.

 

The torque arm really isn't put in a bind. The new ride height should be within the normal range of motion and the bushing should be able to compensate (unless you go extremely low). The problem is that you can put the U-joint in a bind. That is what caused the vibration on the car I was speaking of. A "radical" driveline angle will not do good things for U-joint (and possibly pinion bearing/seal) life. I'd avoid going "too low" for that reason.

These cars really do not need bump steer kits. You may be able to make things ever sl slightly better, but you need the bump steer measuring tools and time/effort. I've not seen a need, or found anyone who felt that the kit was required. Most of the F-bodies that are being raced (road raced) are not running a bump steer kit, so I'd pass on that one as well.

 

Can any and all binding be avoided? Like with an Adjustable torque arm, and adjustable lower control arms?

By the way I just visited your site, very nice. I wish I had seen that before posting here. Thanks.

 

To avoid binding, you need something that flexes. Rubber bushings flex (which is why the factory uses them), or Heim joints. Poly is what causes the rear suspension to bind. So, as long as one end is rubber (technically, still binds slightly, but not nearly as bad as poly) or a heim joint, you will be relatively "bind free". If both ends are heim joints, you should have no binding issues.

Did that help?

I'm glad you checked out the site. I need to do some more work on it soon, but it's always a work in progress. I hope you found some useful info on there.

Kevin

 

I understand that, the heim joints would be way to stiff for the street, it just seems that when the pinion angle is changed it puts a load on one side of the torque arm. Not really binding it, just putting stress on the mounts and bushings.