SIK02SS

iTrader: (11)

i love mine :yup: especially when i had to DD it

Tuffguy610

iTrader: (2)

I wish I could say I like mine. I got it aligned after the install, and the damn thing wants to go into trees now when I take my hand off the wheel (pulls to the right like a mother). I will say that the car handles the road a lot better. Sam definitely did his homework with the setup. The car takes bumps on the highway in a rough manner to the point where the dash can be seen physically shaking over those little "speed bump" things on the highway, but I suppose I can turn my front shocks down more for that. Its a race inspired suspension, so its going to take bumps harshly. The springs and shocks are a good match, there is no floating or anything of that nature. I just wish it would drive straight. I took it back to the alignment shop and they adjusted it more, but it won't go away. I even made sure that the springs were all facing the correct way, and that I lined up the isolators so that they weren't uneven or anything like that. Oh well, thats life.

Sam Strano

iTrader: (41)

Your experience is not at all in line with what others find.... including myself. You state what you don't like (which is needed to help figure out what's going on). But you don't state where you have anything set, like the shock settings, tire pressures. What size tires you are on, etc. Without that information it's not a fair assessment of how the car works.

The driving straight is a function of either tires and radial pull, or the alignment just being off (racks can be out of calibration, happens a lot--far too often in fact).

Can you fill me in on the things I asked about? Those things will matter (as do other "suspension" parts like certain types of LCA's, brackets and so on). If your tire pressure is much over 32 or so in front, and 30 in the rear, say 35 ish--that will WRECK the way the car deals with impacts and high pressures are a left over that folks band-aid the weak stock shocks with to crisp up the car.

I can live with it if you don't love your setup *if* we've done the best we can do make it work. Considering all the other review, and my own personal opinion (being a PA boy myself) the ride is anything but amazing for what the car does. In fact I've never not had anyone who's come for a ride not leave impressed (and having bought parts), which doesn't happen in a car that's a mess in the way it drives.

So, I think something is a miss here. What I'm not sure. It's not the springs, it might be the shock settings, or some combination of things.

The only sticky part: The support. I have to watch how I dole it out. I can't give all the free advice to those that bought the parts from other vendors. In that case I'm a wholesale supplier. I make less money and have no control over how the parts were picked and applied for the use. Which makes tech support tough....

Tuffguy610

iTrader: (2)

Sam,
To answer your question, I have the Koni 3/4 setup with the rears set on full soft and the fronts set on 3 sweeps from full soft. They were at 6 sweeps from full soft and but that was very stiff so I had to turn them down. I have a UMI single adjustable panhard bar in the rear, that is correctly centered as given by the instructions. Other than that, my car is stock in terms of suspension. I have 17" Z06 rims 9.5" wide all around with 275/45/17 out back and 255/45/17 in the front. Yes, I know the front tires are a little thin compared with the width of the rim, but the car drives the same (pulling to the right) with my factory GM 16" tires and rims. I tried both sets of wheels on to try to correct the problem. The tire pressures are around 26-28 psi for both sets as I have learned my lesson when over inflating (it quiclkly wears out the center of the tread). I apologize if my post seemed to talk badly about your suspension components that I purchased from you a month ago. To anybody reading this, that is not the case. This suspension setup really is the best you can buy for a fourth gen F body. The more that I think of it, it could be that the car has a problem elsewhere and your parts are so precise that they expose the problem to a much higher extent than the factory springs/decarbons did. All of my suspension components appear to be symmetrical. I will also point out that this is not the first time I have had the car aligned, either. The shop gave me a sheet that showed all of the specs of my alignment to be in spec within the certain tolerances given. Granted, they aren't probably what you would recommend, but I let them use their specs because I am using it on the street and I do not want an aggressive alignment that will wear on my tires more than needed or cause any instability in normal everyday driving. I do not have the spec sheet on me right now, but I have retained it for my records. It appears that it could be related to the steering rack. Unfortunately, I could be looking at a lot of money to fix this problem. To the OP, I apologize for my rant on here. I am glad you are happy with your setup. To Sam, thanks for your advice.

Sam Strano

iTrader: (41)

So the tire pressure doesn't help.... Did changing the shocks settings have an effect? There is something up here. The 255/45's should be shorter than the 275 40's the car comes with, so that's taking up some ability to deal with impact harshness.

Be careful you don't over shoot the mark on the shock settings. Just like the cars ride badly stock due to being underdamped, the same can happen here. Running 3 sweeps up from soft is only about 1/3 stiff, I generally like to see about 1/2 firm. I work from full stiff, so I can't say *exactly* where you were before, but I believe it to be firmer than I'd have recommended, and now I think you are softer than might be wise on the front shocks.

Does the ride quality change at all when you put you 16's on? It should. Also the alignment can slip, actively. That also is not unheard of, when the bolts just won't hold (or aren't tightended enough). When the car sits everything seems fine, but when it's being driven things can move. And you need to check the rear bushings in the front lower control arms. They are a major wear part and if they are done you get all sorts of dynamic toe and caster changes.