I believe I have narrowed down the list of needs/wants pretty well but I could still use some suggestions on the following:

Coilover LCA - strong and light

Adjustable hollow anti-roll bar

Full coilover, not a car specific fitment. Varishock, Afco, ????

I understand that with the stock sub the wheel and tire will be a little narrower than can be fitted with an aftermarket sub. What is generally considered to be the max size fitment?

:lateral: Rocks!

Sorry, my post alert is not working for this Lateral G so I missed all this. Hotchkis arms are now geometry corrected meaning the upper ball joint is moved back and the lower ball joint is moved forward for more caster without moving the wheel back in the fender well.

As for drilling new holes or using a tall ball joint. All you doing either way is changing the pivot point of the control arm shaft in relation to the ball joint. Weather you move the shaft down or ball joint up, you get the same basic effect. you simply want that upper arm pulling the top of the tire in as the arm moves up. Drilling the holes is free but only works with aftermarket arms without center bracing in the arms.

I spend all day talking to people about this very subject. People wanting the best, feeling pressured to HAVE to do a aftermarket subframe, or go to welding school modding their subframe. As someone mentioned earlier in the post. Once you change control arms and improve camber gain and caster and install a good steering box. You enter the land of diminishing returns.

For a street car that raises a little hell on the street, is casually autocrossed, goes to a couple track days and runs 8/10ths. The difference in performance of a Mildly modded (G mod, A arm, 600 Box, etc) VS Very heavily modded subframe (Coil over conversion, fully welded) or even high end aftermarket subframe, is at such a high 10 / 10ths edge, most uf us will never find that edge and find the performance advantage if any.

Most of us spend 100s of hours and THOUSANDS of dollars on paint and simply will not push the car 10 / 10ths, or worse, 11 / 10ths anyway. So we will never realize any performance difference even if there is one. the perfect example was at the midwest Muscle Car Challenge this past weekend. Over 40 cars were there and 5 were "racing" for the win. the others wewre all having fun pushing there car about 8 / 10ths. I know I was there with the Bull Run Racer and it has a 4000 mile Rally (Bull Run 2010) to do in 5 weeks, and I was not really interested in wading it up. So I ran 8 seconds off the winning pace and had a ball! 90% of the other guys felt the same way.

If you do...........

Upper and lower geomtry corrected arms, I would do 1 piece arms. (I do not like light weight anything on a street car)
A good coil spring and seprate shock
Good hollow sway bar
600 Steering box
Some tie rod sleeves and new tie rods / idler.
Redrill upper arms mounting holes

Your going to make a amazing difference you can really feel.

IF, Big I F, you can do your own cutting and welding and IF you enjoy the fabrication, the coil over conversion would be cool, but I promise the advantages are small if any. And it takes a experianced racer to be able to read the feedback to make the ajustments needed to make it better.

If you have to pay a shop to do the coil over conversion kit, your going to spend way more money then it is worth.

Hi Frank, I appreciate your input.

The maniac in me says I NEED ATS spindles, dbl adjustable coilovers, Z06 brakes, etc. but after reading through this thread and taking a good hard look at how I will ACTUALLY use the car. Your advice is sound. :hail: :lol:

I will say this because you asked, I can fabricate and I do enjoy doing so. My shop is pretty well equipped, I even have a mill and a 9" South Bend lathe :yes: Right now I have more time then money, and I'm in no hurry.

I will still run some struts because I think they will be help. My thought with the coilovers was to have two sets, one for street cruising and the other for track events - I could drive to the track, jack it up, unbolt a couple of bolts and swap them out. That way I wouldn't have to live with a 'race tuned' setup all the time. The reality is I don't think it will happen enough to justify the cost. I do enjoy the tuning aspect and getting it dialed in rates very high on fun-o-meter!

While I have no problem with Hotchkis parts (other then the weight?) and I see they have a pretty well thought out design they are not exactly inexpensive. Looks like around $1300 for the arms?

What are your thoughts on the Musclebar? I'm leaning towards a G-Bar for the rear.

I saw (and listened) your vid of the Camaro with Edelbrock LS swap & exhaust - I like!

Thanks for your help Frank, I really appreciate it!

Control Arms - SpeedTech high clearance (assuming from your final question that you looking for the largest possible front wheel/tire)

Anti-roll bar - Hellwig Products has some great adjustable hollow bars

Coilover - budget dependant but I would take a hard look at the new RideTech shocks.

On my stock subframe I am running 275/35-18s on a 9.5" rim. I think that there is room for a 285 with a little bit of work.

I think that the OneLapCamaro shows some of the potential of a stock subframe. While I can see advantages to an aftermarket sub (mostly wigh respect to tire size and weight) I don't think that a well built stock subframe is a major handicap.

The discount on the hotchkis bring them down to about $1100. Speedtech also are that price range, both are great.

I like Helwig or Hotchkis for sway bars

Go for the Chicane kit if you enjoy the fab, and one set of shocks / springs should be fine.

Thanks James, there is no question that your car is very capable!

So how do the SpeedTech's compare to the Hotchkis as far as tire clearance? I do like the adjustability you get with the Hotchkis but if I have to give up tire size it might be a deal breaker. What hits first, upper or lower?

How would these bars work (rate wise) with the G-bar rear setup - would I use the sliding link or the splined end bar?

I will take a look at the Ride Tech shocks, price looks good.

Thanks Gents!

Who in their right mind would put a 285 front tire on a stock subframe 1st gen? :lol:

Plans often change after the first "completion" and may effect your long-term outlook. I like reversible. It allows for new things down the road.

Don't worry about the stock wheel bearings. They are just fine for what we are doing.

Oh, I know, I know - no one! :lol:

Speedway motor's has some budget tubular a-arms for the 1st.gen's around 650.00 for upper's & lower's.They also have quick ratio steering boxes alot less than everybody else. they have springs, afco shocks,brackets.Alot of useable parts at lower prices.www.speedwaymotors.com or 1-800-979-0122.

Great info. Really helpful. For those of us upgrading our stock subframes.

James you want to elaborate on how that 9.5 inch wheel fits with the stock subframe?

Looking at speedtechs web site I do not see a seperate reference for high clearance arms other than with the complete subframe set up? are there two different ones or are they same?

And do the speedtech and hothckins arms have the corrected geometry built in, and the Gull mod is not needed? am I getting this right.

So many decisions, again thanks for helping us narrow them down.

Pricing? Is the complete Chicane kit 5-6K, Great kit as I was reading but close to a full subframe cost?

While I am learning too, I do believe that none of the arms will correct what the GS mod does. To bring the car up to modern geometry specs you need to do onlyONE of the following along with geometry corrected arms:

A: do the Gulstrand mod

B: use tall balljoints, although I have seen both upper and lower extended bj - and at differant lengths. Not sure what is 'ideal'.

C: use the ATS tall spindle

Is this correct guys?

Thanks Carl,

Good to know the stock spindles/bearings will hold up. Thanks also for your webpage, I appreciate the effort and will be using many of your DIY projects on my build :cheers:

Alright, what's the deal with the 285's :question:

Thanks for the tip! Don't know why but it seems circle track/Nascar parts are less expensive? I have one of there catalogs from years ago but forgot about them :cheers:

Essentially yes. UCAs have some caster built in already making it easier to get to a good performance alignment. A good aftermarket LCA will reduce if not eliminate tire rub caused by running lots of caster (which moves the wheel to the rear of the wheelwell) by moving the lower balljoint forward in the wheelwell. Other than that, after-market arms are pretty.

Pete; when you call speedway,ask for a street rod,muscle car & a race car catalog.They will have a lot of the parts you need.They have direct fit 1st gen a-arms w/nice poly bushings.Can save a ton of dough.And might even get the parts shipped so you get them the next day.I get mine the next day & the shipping charges are alot less than jegs or summit.Scott.

Great, Thanks Scott :cheers:

I second that! I saved a grand on my DSE stage 3 front end kit buying it "used". It too was only taken out of the box, if that. Most of it had not even been opened yet. I also just picked up a used Ricks stainless tank at Pomona last weekend. I wasn't planning on one, but the price was right. I've also saved on engine components I'll be using, too.

Tall ball joints or tall spindles achieve the same thing as the Guldstrand Mod.

The idea behind all of these is to get more negative camber as the wheel travels up through the suspension... this is done by increasing the downward angle of the UCA (in towards the subframe) relative to the LCA.

a) Tall ball joints move the ball joint end of the UCA up, steepening the UCA angle.

b) Tall spindle with stock-height ball joint also raises the ball joint end and steepens the UCA angle.

c) Guldstrand Mod lowers the cross-shaft mounting point on the UCA, thus steepening the UCA angle.

I think it'd generally be a BAD idea to combine any of a, b, or c because it would steepen the UCA angle far too much and make the handling twitchy and drastically reduce the tire contact patch, since the tire would tilt inwards (negative camber) so much.

But I'm not an expert, just what I've come to understand thru lots of reading.

I fully welded my stock subframe and have SpeedTech UCA/LCA as well as QA1 coilover conversion, Hotchkis hollow 1.125" swaybar, and Guldstrand Mod.

I also boxed in the very front cross member support, not sure if it'd do much but I could flex the c-channel by hand so any little bit could help torsional rigidity...

http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/11903865-post169.html
http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/11919822-post170.html
http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/11929393-post171.html

Cheers!
-Joe