Posted by Mavman (IP: 204.181.93.98) on February 13, 2000 at 17:05:33:
In Reply to: A bunch of Answers... posted by TBR on February 12, 2000 at 11:13:12:
: You will get a lot of responses here - this should be fun. Here are my ideas:
: : (question 1)
: I think switching to a coil setup in back would be a time-consuming & money consumer exercise in futility. At the end of the day you will still have a heavy live axle bouncing around in back. I am thinking of adapting an IRS to a custom sub-frame that would bolt into where the leaves mount. That is just a pipe dream right now.. Meanwhile, better to leave the leaves (sorry ‘bout the pun) in place. You can reverse wind the front eyes. That will lower the rear about 1.5” and eliminate the built-in roll-steer. Your car will be much more predictable during transient handling.
: : (question 2)
: The drag links work ok. You can replace the rubber bushings with polyurethabe, but I can’t comment on the effectiveness. It’s not the best design, but not much you can do to change it.
: : (question 3)
: Set up the car with 1/8” toe, ¼ deg negative camber & about ½ deg positive caster. The camber setting will compensate for the tendency for the wheels to lean out during full bump (read heavy body roll). The caster setting will cause the wheels to lean in to the turn, giving you a little better grip. Your steering will also be a little heavier, especially in parking lots. The stock negative caster setting causes the reverse – you get light steering but terrible cornering. Also look into bigger front sway bar & a rear bar. Those will give you the biggest improvement for the dollar spent.
: I look forward to replies from the others on the board;-)
What a difference. Of course, the rubber ones that were on there looked original. It intailed a little work, but my steering performance has tripled.
Also...I changed to the power steering gearbox on my manual steering. When I move the wheel 1/2-1 inch, I change lanes. Steering is much better. 7/8 front swaybar, added to all in steering. Drives like a '90s car. Corners well, although I do need a rear swaybar, and front discs. A dream to drive, even in the hill country!