brandons94lt1

So I've been having tons of issues with my car from previous work done to it. One of the many problems has been handling. The car would steer, corner, rebound and just flat out handle poorly. Felt as if the right front suspension was shot, and it's all new, down to the the hardware. So I used a weighted end on a string, center hung with a point on the end, and was able to establish that the panhard was not adjusted properly when they installed it and the springs, and many other parts, that's where I cringe, all of that to look forward to redoing. So I got a measurement 2 in to the left, so after 2 attempts I got it dead center. So I was checkin other parts and I found that the jam nuts on the outer tierod ends were not only loose, but about an inch from the end of the tierod ends. I took it back to the place, they weren't happy, after seeing that neither was I. They realigned the car and now they have the toe all out of whack, u couldn't tell them u can't align a lowered car to factory specs. So after the so called alignment, the car feels better now that the rearend is canteredbut the car still has a loose feeling. I have adjustable race lca's on the car, very loud, make a lot of clunking from the spherical links, they're metal to metal. So I've chacked the lca's the panhard rod, the torque arm has a brandnew bushing on it, idk what else this could be. But if everything is new, and not worn out, the what else should I look for. Oh the ta mounts the same way a stock piece does, but is adjustable and tubular. Bushings on the sway bars have all been replaced, body bushings are good according to the shop I had checkout the car for any damage or evidence of a wreck,they found none and everything is straight and in good shape. I'm checkn brackets, anywhere u might see damage that is easily overlooked but idk that I'll find anything. Big change in behavior of chassis after the phr adjustment, any ideas? All would be appreciated.

Injuneer

Did the alignment shop check the rear wheels for thrust angle? If the adjustable LCA'a aren't the the same length, the axle isn't going to be perpendicular to the central axis of the chassis. Many shops don't bother to check solid rear axles.

Has the pinion angle been adjusted correctly, using the adjustable torque arm?

Since your car has been lowered, do you have LCA relocation brackets?

What shocks are you running with the Eibach springs?

Are the front A-arm bushings new?

Has the rag joint been replaced?

The advantage of installing your own parts is that you know its done right.

brandons94lt1

"The advantage of installing your own part is you know it's done right", the truth has never been spoken louder. Let's see, they did use the sensor modules on the back, said it was fine, I asked them to do a torque thrust, remembered u said to have it checked. As far as the shocks, supposed to be bilsteins, no on the rag joint, the brackets are a no, where should I get some from? The pinion angle is supposed to hav e been set, I think it's supposed to be 3 degrees? The a arm bushings are also supposed to have been changed, but I highly doubt that he did. It feels like something is able to move, like a bad bushing, but I can't seem to find a bad bushing. These are things I'll get checking into, any other ideas? Let me know please

Injuneer

If the shocks aren't carefully matched to the springs, it can cause issues with damping. I ran the Eibach Pro-Kit springs with the QA1 adjustable shocks, and the rear end bounced and "chopped" like a slammed S10 pickup riding on the axle.

There is a "solid" replacement for the rag joint. Not sure who makes it. Might find it with a "search" on "rag joint".

-3deg seems a bit extreme for the pinion angle, particularly if you have the solid rod end on the torque arm. I'm running -1.8deg with the solid rod end in a Spohn torque arm, and Steve Spohn set it that way. I think for a poly bushing, you might get away with a bit more negative angle at the track, but Spohn does not recommend anything more than -2deg on the street. If you need more angle at the track, he recommends resetting it each time.

The stock upper and lower front A-arm bushings could be worn out after 16 years. I redid mine with ES polyurethane, when I did one of my spring/shock revisions about 10 years ago, and it still seems nice and tight. You have to pull the entire front end apart for the bushings, and either have them pressed out or melt them out with a torch.

Another thing that can go wrong.... the top of the shock is supported in a metal ferrule, that is molded into the upper spring/shock mount. Eventually, the rubber supporting the top of the shock can tear, and the top of the shock is no longer supported. Another part that's hard to check without pulling everything apart.

Have you checked the front wheel bearings? They are integral to the hub cartridge, so its purely a "try and rock the wheel" sort of check.

Ball joints new?

brandons94lt1

Ok well since I'm not sure what the exact angle is I can tell u the the car while on the ground anyway, the rearend and the drive line r straight as far as pointing to the tranny, no difference for the u join to have to try to compensate for, if that means anything. As far as the a arms, I was going to ask, if I'm gonna pull everything off, shouldn't I invest in a kit from pst or energy and just replace everything? I just checked the shocks, that %&€¥£>». Ripped me off, what else is new, the shocks are autozone specials. I already had a upper shock mount replaced on the right front. The steering wheel is really tight, less than 1/4 inch of play if that means anything. Now the rag joint? Is that like a steering knuckle? Maybe I know it by a different name? Where is that located? Front end I'm sure but where? The bearings are supposed to be fine I've done the shake test with the tire in the air on both sides, that's how I discovered the upper and lower ball joints were bad and got em replaced by a decent shop, @ least I think it's a decent shop. Now is my knowledge, well misinformed again? Or is the front end on our cars only supposed to be toed out like a fraction of an inch? Like 1/16 or something? Cause mine r very noticeably toed out from firestone. And when going down the highway now I feel chatter, that's the best way I can describe it. I've. Been in a car that had a toe in problem. It pushed(pretty aggressively I might add) left to right, scarry as hell, my car is chattering now on the right front @ speeds around 75i know it's not drive train because I get the car up to and over that speed, and it gets really bad, and I put the car in neutral and it keeps happening until the speed comes down to about 75 again, then it starts to drop off, and I feel the car wanting to pull that way, since they don't have a camber fix kit for the firebird that's lowered I have negative camber from the prokit. Car corners like u wouldn't believe on account of it. Ut when the front end rebounds and the right front makes more contact on the road it really tries to take off. So many problems I'm really thinkn of selling the car, the thing is that it's not the poor cars fault, it's the idiot that worked on it, and I can't do anything about that, get a judgement against him, but u can't get blood out of a turnip. I'm putting in legwork now to find someone that is qualified to check out the front end and pinion angle, mechanic shops are a ripoff down here, no good ones and they all want to charge 100 per hour. Oh suggestions on the shock brand please, and for a front end kit, also alignment specs for a prokit lowered car? I'll let u know if I find anything out. But the shocks aren't what they were supposed to be, gabriel cheepies, I paid for bilsteins for a lowered car. Go figure, if I was a less civilized person!!! I swear!! But thanks for all the info so far, keep it comin please, I have a feeling I'm gonna need it.

95TA04GOAT

A competent alignment shop should be able to get the alignment within spec with your drop springs installed, assuming nothing is bent. I have BMR 1.25" drop springs and was able to get it perfect. As far as specs this is what i use:
Camber: -1*
Caster: As high as possible while maintaining camber and minimal cross caster
Toe: .04 Total

brandons94lt1

That's the key word, reputable. So if your runnin an inch and a quarter drop, did u find a caster corection kit? Or r u running a tubular k member? I was told by a few people that a k member would be the only thing to fix the neg camber issue. I know I can't find a kit for it, but your alignment specs according to eibach themselves shouldn't be set up like stock, they told me the geometry is different, the forces acting on the car are different, and the cars react differently, a stock alignment can make the car handle worse than it would ideally handle. Now remember all of this came from a guy @ eibach, I don't know personally, but I do know that he's correct in the forces acting on the car r definitely different, and it seems as thought the rack n pinion is under more pressure too. I'm trying to find a reputable shop to check everything suspension and alignment wise, any recommendation for shocks?

95TA04GOAT

Alignment specs vary based on what you want the car to do. If you're going drag racing you want as little rolling resistance in the front as possible so you'd set the toe to 0". If you're racing around a course you want the caster high and the you want some negative camber so the outer tire lays flat when cornering. You also want front toe a little toe'd out, to help with turn in. However on the street toe-out can make for a twitchy ride so that's why I suggested a little toe-in.

Aside from Bilstein HD shocks and the BMR drop springs my front suspension is stock. The factory camber / caster adjustments gave enough movement that I was able to get the alignment where i wanted it. Now if something is bent or excessively worn you may not be able to do so. I don't know of a kit that allows for added adjustability but if you can't adjust to specs within reason i would start looking for bent parts.

bluz28

IMO, check with local car clubs in your area and see if they can point you to a good alignment shop.

Unbalanced Engineering has the rag-joint elimination kits.
http://home.comcast.net/~nstama/ragjoint.htm

brandons94lt1

That's a good idea bluez, I don't know of one for fourth gen f bodies though. Maybe I'll start one, there ya go. Anybody think u want to make an all f body club down here in south east texas??? Hell I'd be the first member. Sorry people, school is kicn my a$$ lately. Found a shop, found my problem I think. The rear adj lca's are bearing @ one end and solid no bushing @ the other, but there is supposed to be fitment spacers, washers if u will, instakked in with them to keep it solid and no slop well when the rearend was way out of adjustment and everything was in a bound up state they didn't move, but now they can since the rear isn't bound up anymore. So without the washers it's slapin and able to move a little. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the forces that act upon the rear end are a lot stronger than u or I, so if I can move it 1/16 of an inch, how far can it move @ 80? So jeggs is sending out the spacer kit. That will quiet down the noise and locate the rerarend solidly. As per the alignment, I've found a couple of shops that I'm researching to find out about there service. The front bearings are good, the upper and lower ball joints are new, outter tierod ends as well. The camber issue isn't from bent parts, it's the lack of any more adjustment under the car to compensate for the lowering springs, no kit available, but a tubular k member should fix the issue, it's not that big of a deal, I like the way the car corners with that setup, yeah it's a bit hard on the front tires, but when my car is put to the floor and the rears go up in smoke Isn't that hard on tires too?? Lol, just my way of lookin @ it. The negative camber isn't to the point of being unsafe or causing handling issues in the front, but I'm looking @ options to fix it if I want to. Now the rag joint kit is a definite gotta get, the steering set up under my car is angled way differently than the pic that's on their website. So that's a bit of a concern. Any other tips and suggestions or ideas? Keep it comin please, with the things being posted here my car might actually stand a chance at not hitting the scrap heap(just kidding other than the green paint and the clear coat issues with the paint, and the problems from the idiot that worked on the poor car, I love it, wouldn't trade it for nothin) u guys have all been a great help, I'm glad I found this website when I did. Thanx

brandons94lt1

Oh forgot to mention, the camber adjustment on my car is maxed, and that has it @ just under -1 degree of camber, so that's a perfectly acceptable level, I thing that degrees are measured in 1mm increments. If that's wrong someone please correct me, but neg one is fine other than if u want a warranty on your tires, I'm just speculating on that. But the only issue that comes from the drop of the car is if u look @ it from underneath, the drop makes the arms of the r&p angle up slightly, I was cautioned about that putting more pressure on other front end components and causing premature wearing issues, my reply was, well when the car is running and handling well, the way I fly around everything is probably worse on it than that. Hehehe. So I'm anxious to get a few things handled with the car, then it's off to the body shop that I've found(very very good shop) for a candy true blue over galaxy dust silver paint job. She's gonna be a looker then!!!!!

bluz28

Running about -1* camber shouldn't cause any abnormal tire wear(I'm running -.8*), you just need to have the "toe"set correctly.
I never had any abnormal tire except when I ran -1.7* camber for a while, other then that I never had any issues with running some -camber on my car.

brandons94lt1

Kewl, then I should be good to go there, another question, one that's plagued us all after the install of headers. Anyone reccomend a good custom fit plugwire set? Now back to suspension, I'm looking for the kit from jeggs today or tomorrow, I'm anxious to get the parts under the car to stop the slop and get rid of the clanging noise that's being transmitted through the entire car when the lcs's move that little bit.