I did a search, but didn't come up with anything pertaining to this problem.

I read and re-read the walkthroughs, printed 2 of them out, and got a friend to help. Unfortunately, I didn't have a spring compressor, and found that a local shop could do the shock swap for me, but it was getting late by the time the rear shocks and rotors were done, so we were under the gun somewhat.

I know I've read people here have done it without disconnecting the upper ball joint on the spindle arm. And since we were pressed for time, we tried that.

It worked well enough to get them out, and the shop did the swap.

First we had trouble getting it back in over the tierod end, but then that was solved, and then we had trouble getting the lower mount to line up with it's holes. We were able to find an old compressor that we didn't trust to completely remove the sping, and used that to lightly compress them to turn the upper mount and got past that.

Then after finally managing to get it back in again, the last problem is the roll angle of the lower mount.

The lower mount holes are at an angle to the LCA holes. Looking at it from behind, the mount on hte shock is rolled to the right, and the LCA to the left, making a > of sorts.

We had to call it quits for the night but are going to jump back on it first thing. And the first thing we are going to do is split that balljoint and try to get the UCA off and see if that helps.

Is it possible to turn/rotate that lower mount on the shock? (remember, if you look at the mount from the rear of the car it's roll, not yaw, that was already dealt with)

I would think that it has to rotate in order for the suspension to travel, but I just can't seem to get it to budge - but I didn't try using any real leverage on it either, I didn't want to risk breaking anything.

 

I Believe I had to do the exact same thing you are planning on doing because the adjuster was not pointing outward of the wheel well.

 

It should be able to turn to line up properly with the top bolted up if I understand you correctly.

 

Well, I was able to turn the shock body to get them to line up in that direction, but the problem is the angle of the holes relative to the plane of the LCA.

If I stick the bolt in from the bottom (the way it was stock), it hits the hole on an angle and won't go through it. Likewise, if I stick it in from the top, it get's stuck because the lower mount is rocked back, relatively speaking.

It's almost as though I need to either find something to stick in the hole and pull towards me to line it up, or, try bolting in the bottm first, then pushing the top of the shock back toward the upper holes.

I don't want to break anything, and I really need to get this back together. Most people seem to have had no issues, I just hope I'm not missing something basic here.

 

Gotta keep trying, I know its a bitch, but use a pry bar and go to town.

 

Can you post a picture? I think I know what the problem is, but I'd rather not give you advice that would put you in a worse spot.


-Mike

 

I had to use a jack under the control arm to get them to line up ssomewhat. It was a biatch.

 

Ahhh, I think I see now. I'm with Chupr0kabra, a pic would help.

 

...I remember having to deal with this. I could not get that thing to rotate in the bushing. It seemed like the bushing material was bonded to the piece that bolts to the lca. It wasn't going to budge.
I ended up rotating the lower half of the shock/spring assembly (about the shock centerline) 180 degrees so that the bolt holes came into proper alignment - meaning the bolt hole centerlines were now parallel instead of at that funky angle you described.

Hope this helps.

 

You need to loosen the spring back up with spring compressors.(you dont have to take the spring off). Just enough to be able to turn the top bracket so everything will line up. Line up the bottom of the shock where it bolts on the control arm and them just spin the top bracket on the top of the shock (once you have the springs compressed, so you can turn it) and then just decompress the spring and bolt in it. Make sure that the adjuster for the shock still points out and that the coils on the spring arent in the way. Ijust put some konis on my car a couple of months ago and a set on my buddy 2 weeks ago. if you have any questions shoot me a pm.

 

I think we got it sorted.

I didn't have a camera handy to take a pic, and we were a little short on time. (I had to make something of an emergency call to get the day off today to try to wrap this up)

We went ahead and broke the balljoint on the UCAs, double checked the lower mount/upper cup rotation-alignment, then slid the now free, UCA and upper shock into position, loosely threaded the nuts on, then worked the lower mount into position as good as we could, got the jack under it, lifted until it just started to hold the weight of the car, and with a little pry help from a screw driver, got the bolts as far in as we could. The tips just barely protruded from the top of the lower shock mount. Once it was that far, we put a rachet on it and threaded it in. I was worried about hosing the threads, but they held up ok.

Once the air rachet was put on it, everything cinched down into position.

This is the first time I've done this, and nobody mentioned having similar trouble, so I was a bit nervous about possibly having a faulty product, or having messed up somewhere and didn't want to risk breaking anything.

But, everything seems fine. It feels a little more responsive, and the brakes are 10,000 times better now (I replaced the stock warped rotors with blank replacements from Strano, new PBR pads, a new rod ended PHB, and the already mentioned Koni SAs all around).

I did the front lower perch/rear heater hose mod. I can't really see much difference, but I know it's there.

The thing that bugs me is it seems to ride a bit stiffer/harsher now. It clunks and thuds more than I remember it doing. Of course, I've never driven around with the radio off in super critical mode examining every little noise before either. Gonna try to live with it for a while and see what I think of it. Try some dynamat too I guess.

It's just that people here had more or less led me to beleive that the koni's would be a super smooth ride and more or less silence all the clunks and thuds that the decarbons transmitted to the cabin. I have no doubt they are a better performing shock, but I think the added stiffness firmed up the ride and exacerbated that problem rather than eliminating it.

 

Congrats on getting that fixed up. I have 1LE springs/Koni SA's up front with STB and Strano 35mm bar. It's tight and smooth. Really nice feel. Not harsh at all but very controlled and a pleasure to drive.

Out back, I'm running stock springs ('01 SS), 3rd gen bilsteins, heater hose mod, 21mm 1LE bar (with 1LE bushings) and poly/rod LCA's and PHR. It's clunky and makes a racket over uneven ground and sharp bumps. I removed my interior and deadened any live panels when I installed my stereo. The noise is still bothersome. BTW, the rod ends are all decent - QA1 XM series.

I think I'll soon be running the Aadland style Rubber/Heim LCA's in an attempt to mitigate the noise. I've heard, however, that a larger rear bar can be the source of a significant amount of noise/harshness in back. I wonder, though, if the heater hose mod contributes a significant amount of additional shock to the cabin. What are your thoughts?

 

That's what I was thinking too.

I still have the stock springs and sway bar and LCAs in back. The only things I did there were the PHB, rotors, shocks, and heater hose mod.

Everyone I talked to here said that rod ends on the PHB don't really transmit much noise to the cabin, that it was the rod ended LCAs that did that. So I thought I would be ok there.

If we assume that to be true, then it must be the heater hose mod.

But nobody's ever said anything about that either.

At this point I'm wondering if people view these cars purely as either race cars (of one sort or another), or show cars, and nothing in between.

I'm seeking the best of both worlds. Something you would expect from BMW or Mercedes-Benz. A car that will happily rip your face off and run stunning times on a road course, and give huge doses of adrenaline on the back roads, all while handling rougher surfaces with decorum, and being comfortable, quiet cruisers. Something you could relax in for a leisurely drive, or drive like your hair was on fire.

It's not too much to ask of a car. Many do it. But people have different thresholds for what's tolerable. For me, I don't mind a stiff ride, really. What I hate is the clunking and thudding, that sounds like I'm running into curbs when all I did was run over a manhole cover that was recessed about an inch below the road (fairly common style), or hit a small bump.

I noticed some rattles I've never heard before. I don't know if it's because I never paid attention or from the stiffer ride. Given the nature of the rattle, I'm suspecting the latter.

Gonna have to try to lock down all the interior panels and add dynamat over the gas tank and behind the sail panels. That'll at least cut down on the road noise and fuel pump noise, if nothing else, but I'm hoping it quiets the thunking too.

btw - I set the fronts to 4 sweeps off of full hard and the rears to full soft, per Sam's recommendation.


One thing I've been considering now, is getting his springs and going back to the upper perch and re-installing the rear isolator. Wonder if that would quiet it down.

Kinda wish I had ordered the PHB separately and had that on the car by itself earlier to try to isolate the cause better.

 

I did the heater hose mod. It definitely dropped the car noticeably, and there was zero increase in noise, vibration, and harshness. I would start by setting the Konis to full soft - at which point they'd probably ride like my Bilstein HD's, which sounds like the kind of ride you're looking for.

 

...yea. I'm all about the compromise. It is true that many contributors on these boards favor all out performance and can tolerate side effects that would get on my nerves.

People are calibrated differently in these regards especially where topics like exhaust note, drone, smell and suspension noise are discussed. It's often difficult to translate contributors' written accounts of modification results into something that you know fits your goals or, on the other hand, would just **** you off.

If you replace your springs and get positive results from putting the isolators back in, please let me know. I'm sure that if we had more time, we could do one mod at a time and have a much better grasp on what each incremental change does... but we already knew that.

 

I'm not sure about when I'd be doing that. But I'll certainly try to remember to let ya know, or even just start a thread about it when I do it. The work involved, and the expense, plus the cold weather and no garage big enough to work in means that I'm not likely to do it very soon, unfortunately.

I took it into work this morning, and was listening to the radio like normal, and it's definitely more "solid", which means it's clunkier because it's stiffer. I haven't yet had a chance to see the performance benefit though, I'm going to drive normally the rest of today (since I got done at nightfall yesterday) and then re-check the torque. After that, I figure I'll be good to go and can have a little fun and see how it is. That may make me accept the noise. lol I doubt it, but, I have to at least try to live with it for a bit before I jump to making anymore changes.

Along the way, I need to get some dynamat to do what I mentioned, and some foam for the rear swinging hatch flap. And check the spare area, and clean the car out to try to remove rattles and such. I'm really hoping it will go a long way toward what I'm looking for.

I'm wondering if maybe it is the rod ended PHB too though. I suppose I could replace the original and see. That's not too difficult. I may try that. But the trouble is, the purpose of that bar is such that you don't want any give, not in the bar itself, and not in the bushings. Kind of a catch 22. :/

 

Just so you know, those lower shock bolts are designed with a tapered end so you can hammer them into place. Once they are close to the right angle you can tap them in.

One thing I didn't see you mention was that you fully tightened the upper shock bolt. It's very common for first timers to not tighten it all the way which can cause all kinds of banging in the front suspension. Did you tighten them down until they stopped? Check pics below.

Also, 4 sweeps from hard on the fronts seems a bit much. That's what I'm running with my 550 lb springs. I would go full soft up front and see how that feels. If you want firmer, then go 2 sweeps more.

Keep in mind that the shock adjustors control the low speed rebound which is basically body motion control. This is the most useful adjustment. You can't control the shock damping on the bump/compression side. So hitting a bump at low speed or high speed will always be the same impact, but the low speed rebound can make the ride firmer or softer feeling in general. Luckily the Koni shocks are valved (fixed valving) about where they should be for high and low speed bump and high speed rebound.

Tires actually play a large role. You metioned to me that you have the stock tires. Do you have the stock 16" rims and GY GSC's or the stock 17" with GY F1's?

I had the 16's and no matter what I did they just have an incredibly stiff sidewall. With thje stock suspension they banged over the bumps badly. The factory chose those tires for their stability at speed and steering feel, but they pretty much suck. I haven't experienced the F1's but I have heard a lot of folks say they where quite rough and stiff as well.

When I switched tires to 17" Sumitomo's (don't ever buy them) the ride got much smoother. I different tire will take that harsh edge off the ride so that things won't bang and vibrate.

When it comes to the ride quality every single part from the road to your butt and even your ears comes into play. Yea, even your ears. Drive over a bumpy road real fast with the stereo turned up so high you can't hear the bumps and the ride will seem smoother. No joke, try it out. So there are a lot of factors.

 

Oh yea, the PHR and the hose mod are not the cause of your problems. I've trised the stock phr, poly ended phr and finally the rod ended phr. They don't effect the ride quality over bumps. I've also removed the stock rear upper spring spacers and ran bare springs on the car. No difference there as well. All it does it allow a tiny amount of vibration (humming noise) to get into the car, but it's so faint you can hardly hear it. You really don't even need the rubber hose, but it doesn't hurt only helps a little, so go ahead and run it.

Also, what bumpstops are you using?

 

Let me try and give my philosophy on these cars. Stock GY tires are going to make the stock suspension feel real harsh. Add stiffer springs and firmer shocks and it just gets harsher.

Switch to better tires and the suspension gets softer and smoother. Then adding better shocks will make the ride cadillac smooth. Too smooth for my tastes.
Now you actually need the stiffer springs to balance things out. So now you have the better tires, smoother shocks and stiffer springs so the ride quality is still better than stock because the harsh edge is removed. In addition, the car handles way better than before. It's consistant, reliable and inspires confidence. Much less brake dive, much less weight transfer under acceleration, much faster steering response (with good tires, air pressure, bigger front sway bar and good alignment with 0 toe). Overall it's great.

With 1* negative camber my tires grip the corners better and now wear evenly, plus a special toe setting to get rid of the dead spot in the center of the steering wheel. It responds lightnigh fast to the smallest input. (you really have to pay attention, though)

HPP, with the Konis and the stock springs rates you should have quite the smooth riding vehicle there. I detect something is quite amiss with your car. Set the front shocks to full soft and make sure the rears are full soft as well and not on full firm. How close is the axle to your rear bumpstops? Do they look like this?



Can you tell the difference between the front and the rear feeling harsh? The rear can ride rough if your hitting the bumpstop a lot, but there is actually more travel to be had in the rear and it can smooth out the ride back there. It can also be benificial to trim the rear springs some to increase their spring rate and then put the stock isolater back in to regain the height.

Also, make sure you have the 40mm Koni bumpstop and one white packer per side.

Still, I think I'm getting ahead of myself. You more than likely have a tire related issue.

 

I agree with all the above. The stiff sidewalls on my KDWS made bumps harsh. Softer sidewall tires made a big difference. With those, HD's, and stock springs, a buddy made the comment just like above - that my car rides like a (new model) Cadillac.

I've noticed the same thing - turn up the stereo and the ride doesn't seem so harsh. Chasing down rattles and fixing them really helps. This is why they call it NVH - noise vibration harshness. All your senses tie in together.

And lastly - as Jason said, zero increase in NVH from the heater hose mod.