Strut, Spring, SWay

[nhartwell]

Was looking at suspension mods at PFYC and was wondering about a few if any have a review for me.

Speedbuilt Strut Tower Braces
Eibach Pro Kit Lowering Springs
Speedbuilt Sway Bars

Let me know if there are better deals or performing items in these areas. These will be the first of performance mods along with my WAI and Exhaust System.

[alerored04]

I have a Front stb, not sure if its speedbuilt, i like it, made a difference in the ride, not sure if its worth $100 though, try to find one used.
I have intrax springs and love them, great ride height and handleing, i have heard lots of good things about eibach.
I have the speedbuilt rear sway bar. Great mod, one of the better handling mods after struts and springs. The front one though requires alot of work to install, such as dropping much of the subframe off the car, its too much work when most of the gains will be seen with a rear sway bar.

Imo get the front stb, the rear sway bar, get the springs, and take the money you saved from only going halfs on the other stuff and get a nice set of kyb struts, gr2's are what i have and am happy with them but they have agx's out now which are super nice, but kinda pricey. Check tirerack.com for the struts.

[nhartwell]

cool. I'm just not sure how i want to lower it. Putting aas kit on.. any info on that for me would be great.. thanks..

with that kit, what springs would work best.

[alerored04]

im not much into kits so i cant help with that very well but ill try. Eibach has the lowest drop and best handling characteristics. Eibach is like a 1.3 to 1.5 inch drop iirc. Intrax is next, not super stiff but stiff enough to give a nice responsive ride with pretty good handleing. Drops 1.7 to 2 inches. Sprint springs and the worst ride i have heard, i have no experience with these so i could be wrong. They drop the lowest at 2 inches or more. So if your roads are crappy and ur getting a kit i would say go with eibach, if the roads are decent you could get away with intrax, just remeber to approach all inclines at an angle and you should be fine.

[nhartwell]

yea, i am thinking about going eibach... would it be in my best interest to try and install these things myself, or have them professionally done... How does the install rate, and how much work is involved. I've never done these mods before

[yoslvr442]

i would go with the eibach, i dont personally have them on anything but they are a good reliable product. installing is fairly easy. i installed coilovers on a couple different cars and the main thing is getting the struts off. should take half a day to do all 4 at the most.

[nhartwell]

cool, even though it is time consuming, is it real complicated, or do u think i should be able to accomplish this?

[yoslvr442]

unless you are completely useless with a wrench (highly doubt you are) you should be able to handle it. the only special tool youll need is a spring compressor. you can probably rent one from any automotive chain.

[nhartwell]

hmm, more than likely yes... i guess this might be where my haynes manual will be handy?

[yoslvr442]

i guess if you want to you can. its pretty straight forward. unbolt the steering joint, the stabilizer and if the brake lines are attched to the strut. take the bolt out that clamps the hub around the strut. unbolt the hub from the lower a arm. the toughest part is getting the hub off the pivot on the a arm. undo the top bolts too from under the hood. and your set. use the spring compressor on the spring. reverse for installation. see its not that hard ;) :coolio:

[Oldsman]

swapping springs is a piece of cake with spring compressor and a impact gun. i done all four in like 2 hours once.

[nhartwell]

so should that be a good setup.. eibach springs & the strut braces and sway bars. With aas kit on wisconsin roads lol

[Redog]

I don't have the sways, but I have the Eibachs and the Speedbuilt tower braces, and I love them

The rear brace saved the car from being totalled by a dumbass NJ driver :p

[DaRockwilder]

If the N-body strut mount pattern hasn't changed from '92, I had a strut tower bar on my Achieva that I pulled from a Cavalier. I can't remember if its supposed to be a pre-'92 cav or a post '92 cav, but you'll spend 5 bucks on a bar rather than $100. Might be worth looking into.

I should have pulled the bar before I junked the car, but I forgot.

[alerored04]

it is post 92 i think. I did that a while ago but the one i had was angled too much so i had to run it upside down and it scraped on the alt on my v6. Worked well otherwise.

[DaRockwilder]

Yeah, my Achieva was a Quad-4 so it fit nicely. just had to push a wiring harness out of the way I think.