Suspension Phase 1: RestorationThe suspension on this car was shot. I think it was the full forty years old. The first thing I did was replace the rear springs, bushing and shocks. Good thing, too, as one of my springs had several broken leafs. It only took a few hours and made a huge difference in driving confidence. I used stock springs and bushings, but upgraded the shocks to KYB Gas-Adjust, a decent performance shock at a great price.
The entire front suspension and the outer tie-rod ends had to go, too. I installed a complete rebuild kit, again using rubber bushings for comfort rather than polyurethane. I'm not a big fan of squeaky poly bushing and for a daily driver the rubber seemed fine. I also ordered a 1" front swaybar to replace the scrawny factory bar, and KYB shocks to match the rear. This rebuild alone would have been an exceptional improvement over my existing suspension, but for a modern car running radial tires the so-called Shelby mod is essential.
My conclusion: Much better! Responsiveness, cornering traction, straight line stability, all improved. Still not great, but much better.
Phase 2: Tuning and Tweaking.
Over time I got used to the improved suspension and began to find its shortcomings. The front end was bit floaty with too much body roll and tended to wander under heavy braking. The body roll had a peculiar rocking feeling that I associate with the center of gravity being too high above the roll center. I experimented with chopping my springs and found that to be a great improvement in handling, but the springs where too soft and occasionally I'd hit the bumpstops. A set of #480 springs from NPD stiffened up and lowered the front end just the right amount, reducing roll dramatically and actually giving me a better ride than the stock springs. How can that be? you ask. I think it's because I installed them with a set of roller spring perches from Opentracker Racing Products. These gave the car a much more supple ride and I highly recommend them. Plus, they make spring installation and removal much easier.
To solve my wander I replaced the stock strut rods with a set of TCP spherical bearing strut rods. These are awesome and everyone should have them.
At the rear I was having a couple of handling problems. The first was that the rear would wander noticeably when going around curves and corners. The second was a bit of skittering and losing traction when cornering on uneven surfaces. I thought about Panhard bars and such, but decided to test a set of heavy duty shackles, first. They did the trick with the wandering, but the skittering persisted. I theorized that the shocks where too stiff and tried a set of KYB GR-2 shocks, which are softer than the KYB Gas-A-Just that I had in there. This solved the problem entirely.
Finally, I wasn't completely pleased with the balance as the car tended to understeer more than I like. A rear swaybar seemed like the obvious solution, but I was concerned that the only bars I could find where 3/4" and that seemed too stiff and likely to induce excessive understeer. I finally found the Stam-Bar 5/8" adjustable swaybar which solved my problems quite nicely.
Now that the handling was dialed in nicely I noticed just how slow my steering conversion really was, and how flexible my chassis modifications was.
