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Beginning | Welding Trailing Arms | Bushing Installs | Impressions/Summary

IMPRESSIONS/SUMMARY/CREDITS:


Impressions:

Coming soon - with all this winter weather, I haven't had a chance to align or flog the car yet!

Past experience from folks seems to indiciate that it makes the car much more tailhappy, even a bit too much. I have a 22mm front swaybar by Whiteline from Mofugas that I will put on the car if it turns out to be a bit too twitchy.

Update: 2002.12.17:
I autocrossed the car finally. It was a completely different animal! There was a ton of front-end grip, and the car's dominant behavior was definitely understeer. For my complete writeup, see the racing section.

Update: 2002.11.05:
I went to get the car aligned yesterday. With my car at ~14.5"/14.5" ride height, I installed the rear bushings facing inboard, for maximum camber gain. That turned out to be just about right - the factory camber adjustment is about 2* off of full-negative, and I run -2* rear camber for my autocross car.

I will be racing the car at an autocross soon, but I'll make some other statements. The rear of the car is definitely a bit more, ah, liveley than before. When slaloming it aggressively on street tires, the first end to get unstuck is the rear. While a very subjective statement, the car feels much more 'solid' in the rear - you can feel more of what's going on back there. The car may finally not push like a pig!

Ride quality is definitely reduced - without that rubber to soak up little bumps, you feel much more of what's going on in the road. This is especially true of the front bushings.

Credits/Thanks:

A few notable ones here:

Erron Spalsbury - for welding the control arms
Erik Arentzen - for driving those bushings up to Ft. Collins for me
Mofugas Motorsports - for all around amazing service and support. Rob Schwenke does a great job.

Final Pricelist

This is what I spent on the project, not knowing what you should know now:
Item Cost From
Energy Suspension Rear Bushings $38 RRE
Whiteline Bushings $44 Mofugas
6 Washers $5 CD Fasteners (Ft. Collins)
2 Balljoints (upper link) $50 Autozone
Press 6 Bushings (take 1) $50 Automotive Machine Shop Service (Ft. Collins)
2 upper control arms (junkyard) $5 Junkyard
press metal bushings *back* in $20 Automotive Machine Shop Service (Ft. Collins)
4-wheel alignment $55 M&O Tire
TOTAL: $257  


My Ingalls adjustable arms are now for sale.

Any questions/comments/flames/love letters to: mrjones@holly.colostate.edu