F-Body Europe

So, now the suspension upgrade is completed, after 6 months hassle.
The result is not all sunshine, but I will come to this later.

After numerous attempts by email or fax to persuade companies in US to sell and ship parts to me (I wasted the time from March to May), I called Thunderracing, precisely Angie.
She was very helpful, but I had to transfer money in advance. No credit card accepted from foreigners!!
It took more than one months to get all parts stocked at Thunderracing. The parts from Global West were not in stock. BMR parts they have all in stock.
The shipment was worth 3000USD.

A German shipping agengy (Schenker in Dortmund) shipped the parts (approx 80kg) within one week to Germany. Price was about 480USD.

Off course there were the inevitable 16% tax.

My mechanic Roland installed the parts within one week:
Kenny Brown SFCs, BMR STB,
Front upper and lower A-arms (Global West and PA Racing)
BMR front and rear sway bars
Bilstein dampers
Global West LCAs, Panhard Rod (all with spherical rod ends)
LCA relocation brackets (welded)
Random Technology torque arm

All together I paid 4500EUR, approx 5400USD! Wow, I never expected that much!
And now the crucial question: Was it worth it??
Well..., I am not sure. Today on a small curvy road it was definetely an improvement (up to 90 mls/hr), but on the Autobahn the picture is different. Beyond 90mls there is an annoying vibration (shaking) in the steering wheel.
I am not sure, what to blame: The car is only marginal louder, maybe because of the spherical rod ends. But the reason for the shaking must be some unbalance.
The first thing I will do is balancing the wheels. The mechanics from three different garages told me that beyond 90 mls for any vibrations the rear axle was to blame.

With that vibrations in the steering wheel it is no real pleasure to drive the Autobahn
Surely, the front wheels were re-aligned and the rear axle was centred.

Does anyone have an idea, where those vibrations could come from??
John Silas, you have spherical rod ends too, right?

Gunnar

PS: The urethane letters CAMARO look really nice (almost worth 4000USD ). This weekend I will install the SLP flow pack (K&N filter, new lid, smooth bellow and cold air scoop). The Camaro definetely needs some more HPs.

that was f****** expensive! I guess I will think twice before doing all that stuff. This F-Body is really hungry for buck$

To your problem.... maybe the reason are the harder Bilsteins and you're just not used to them or just your tires have too much air? I would drive first a couple of hundreds km before I make myself headaches.

With out looking at it . I would say rebalancing the wheels would be the first option.

On the Torque arm , Is it adjustable ? If it is check the pinion angle ?

Of note the GW LCA's with double rodends will probably be short lived here in Germany. So don't throw your stockers away .

Hi Roy,
today I drove to a tire shop (Vergölst). They took off one wheel, to find that the center rings on the inside of the wheels do not fit. They are too big and cannot center the wheel on the hub. Funny enough that now, after three years somebody gets aware of this.
The visible effect of this is: When you jack up the car and loosen the wheels nuts, the wheel falls down by three Millimeter to sit on the bolts. To much play there.
Now they are trying to order center rings with 76mm outer dia and 70mm inner dia. The current plastic rings are 76/73mm in dia.

Question 1) How must the pinion angle of the torque arm look like? Do you know some website in the net, where it is explained? The Random Technology torque arm is adjustable. My mechanic told me, that he adjusted it like the OE torque arm was. IMHO I think the driveshaft and the rear axle just should be aligned.

Question 2) Global west LCA (spherical rod ends both sides). Why the low life expectation? SRZ recommended double rod ends. (Well, to be fair, he always recommend L2).
Global West promised the longest life expectation compared to PU bushes. Is it because there is no maintenance required, ie no greasing – higher wear?

There is one big advantage with the F-Body. It gets never boring. Always something to do!!

Question 2) Global west LCA (spherical rod ends both sides). Why the low life expectation? SRZ recommended double rod ends. (Well, to be fair, he always recommend L2).
Global West promised the longest life expectation compared to PU bushes. Is it because there is no maintenance required, ie no greasing – higher wear?

Rod ends are High maintenace items when compared to rubber or PU bushings. Fo that high maintenance price you get superb handling. But what you don't get is any type of weather seals to keep out the micron size dust partticles and water that inevitably make there way in. Graeat for dry weather . They may transmit some more noise, but as they wear the noise level will increase darmatically .

4500 US Dollars for all said parts?! Shipping must've got you because the euro to dolllar rate is in your favor. Gawd damn!

Pinion angle on your TA shouldn't be more then -2 degrees's because then you start playing havor on the rear. -1.5 is what I'd shoot for and no more hopefully someone has a angle reader but if not you may have to go to the local US hobby shop to borrow one.

Rod ends are quiet IF they're high quality. My car doesn't make a single sound except the PHR over the weirdest bumps and it's only 1% of the time it makes any noise. Maintenance wise they're easy. Can't remeber the name of the can but Val knows it by name. Baby blue can that our hobby shops sell here locally. Spray that once every 3 months and you shouldn't have no problems. I do regular maintence faithfully on mine and I've got a pair of Baer tie rod ends w/ spherical ends that are going on 8 yrs and I have no slack/play etc in them and look literally brand new.

What springs do you have w/ the bilsteins? That plays a major role in your handling by far and lookin at what all you've got installed your car should handle slot car style. Springs and shock combo's are what make and break a cars handling charateristics sway bars being 2nd but shoudl match w/ spring and shock. If they put the stck camber settings in also will determine ALOT as well.

Where at in Germany are you located anyways? We'd have to meet and give you a ride in mine to compare.

@SRZ
I got H&R lowering springs: 2inch drop in front, approx. 1,5inch drop in the rear. Not sure whether this really fits to the Bilsteins. Someone said that the Bilsteins are for non-lowered cars.

I live near Soest, that is somewhere between Dortmund and Paderborn.
Meeting is a good idea, as the car now is almost ready for Nuerburgring.
I hope to solve the problem with the wrong wheel centre rings soon.
These vibrations are nasty!

It would be important that you find out, WHAT you are spraying on your rod ends. If I cannot get the same stuff, maybe something similar.
It was not hairspray, was it?

Gunnar

Nope. It's called Liquid Wrench. Have a can downstairs. How far are you from the Nurnburgring? I may be heading up there for Toyo Tuning on the 26th if my day isn't already accounted for by the AF.

I ran regular bilsteins w/ a 2" for yrs w/ no problems. But I did notice a big difference going to custom valved and new springs.

Gunnar
I ran the same setup you have now for about 4 years now . The only exception is that I had the front Bilsteins dampers revalved to match the front spring rate. They worked excellent at the Nuerburgring. Pick up a set of 3rd Gen rear dampers for car . They have more rebound damping than $thGen Bilsteins.

@SRZ

I live about 300km from the Nuerburgring away. If there would be nice weather next weekend I would come down. I could even come on Saturday, to get the torque arm aligned, if you could help me with that.

I would look for accommodation near the N-Ring and we could do a lap or two on Sunday.

Gunnar

@SRZ

Liquid wrench?
Is this some German stuff? Does it have a German name?
Who makes it?
Can I get it at ATU?

Gunnar:
I'll also be at the N'ring next Sunday unless it's raining then I'll be there on Saturday. Looking forward to finally meeting you.

Silas:
What about WD-40 which Gunnar can get more easily than the "liquid wrench" stuff?

Ben

Ben
Yeah that will work and so will Liqui Moly in a spray.

Today I spoke to Mr Berger. He is preparing Porsches for Racing. He recommended some Teflon spray to protect the spherical rod ends from dirt.

For my wheel problem he strongly recommended to get some center rings made on the turning machine.
But I think I can drive without them for a while, because the ones currently installed are three millimeter too big to center on the hub.

Still hope, I can buy the right ones somewhere. They are made of too thin plastic to be made on a turning machine.

Gunnar

I have just called Global west in California. They do not recommend anything to be put on their spherical rod ends.
They are afraid that this would make the Teflon coating deteriorate.
They said something about tight tolerances, no dirt can get inside bla bla.
Not so convincing!
The Liquid wrench must actually be something to get rusty bolts going. Umhh.. not sure about that.
But I found that Teflon spray is much used on outdoor sports vehicles (roller blades whatever) for any moving parts to prevent dirt ingress. Sounds good to me!

Today I applied the Teflon powder spray. Its not such a good idea.
First: most of the spherical rod ends are not easily accessible, covered by brackets and flanges. And the teflon does not crawl into the gaps like WD40 would do. Ones the joint moves some parts of the ball are exposed with no powder layer on it.

I called PA Racing (my lower A arms) and Random Technology (the torque arm): both said "Maintenance has never been an issue", but using Liquid wrench could be of benefit.

Maybe I will have luck to get proper wheel center rings from Rial this week, a German alloy wheel company.

Gunnar