I'm in the process of re planning the build of my '72 stage 1. I am going to replace the front/rear upper/lower control arms, sway bars etc. I would like to hear from others who have upgraded their suspension with parts from Global West/Hotchkis/Savitske or other manufacturers. Any input on the brand/components you used and how well you like the upgrade would be appreciated. Thanks
Input that I have gotten is that Global West stuff is the best in terms of engineering and performance. Not cheap.
In the rear, I have to highly recommend the HR Parts N Stuff components. All top-notch stuff. And, they are active members in the Buick community, and keep making more parts specifically for our Buicks. -Bob Cunningham
I have also installed the GW front control arms but am in restoration mode here.. I wont be ready to roll for another year or two.. whats the biggest difference over stock that you noticed Paul ...??
i have global west control arms with the delrin bushings tall b body spindle and baer brakes baer adjustable spherical tie rod ends hochtkis spings and blitstein shocks in the front. In the rear i have global west arms with spherical rod ends and stock uppers boxed you want the rear to articulate.All the parts were top notch car handles good. I also have a good 600 steering box frome dse.Theres some new stuff out spindles and such im not shure how they compare
Car is a 1970 GSX as shown in my AVART I have global west negative roll system on my car including upper and lower control arms with Del-a-Lum bushings, 580 lb springs (medium), koni adjustable shocks on all 4's, 13" wilwood brakes, Hotckis 1 3/8" hollow sway bar in the front. Stock rear brakes. I also have Metco Motorsports upper adjustable and lower billet rear control arms on the car. No rear sway bar. 17" x 8" American Racing Wheels with 245/45/17 tires. The stuff works as advertised and I have autocrossed the car on a couple occations with full stiffness in the front and half stiffness in the rear on the shocks. The car has very little body roll in comparision to the stock setting. The only issue I have with the system is I have placed it on two different cars and with both cars I could not adjust the camber and caster to the suggested settings. In both cases I have all the adjustment shims out of the car on one side and I am still slightly out of spec on caster. It will ultimately wear the tires more quickly than if it was correct but I do not drive the car a lot so it has not been a serious problem. I really like the Del-A-Lum because it give the support with out the squeek. Really good stuff and even if you do not due the arms I would replace your bushings with Del-A-Lum bushings instead of polyeurothan. The hollow sway bar is really nice because it weighs a lot less then the stock one or the 1 3/8" trans am sway bar. I really like the Metco stuff because it it one solid billet piece. Even though the are a little heavier than some of the other brands I think they have better rigidity and they also have grease zerks. The brakes are a night and day difference. The car stops extremely well given the weight and technology. As stated - This stuff is not cheap but I was completely satified with how it performs. To me it was money well spent. I have posted my setup with cost in the past and I have done an artcile for the BPG newsletter if you are intersted. 1. quick ratio rebuild on the steering box 2. rear sway bar setup from H&R Parts and Stuff. 3. New body bushings. 4. Wider wheels and tires If I did it over Why? The car is a real pig when you are trying to slolum with the stock steering box. The responsiveness is too slow even for higher speed cornering. It would be a huge bonus to have the camaro ratio in the car. It cost less than $300.00 to get it to. If you go big brakes you will have to go up in wheel size to have clearance for the calipers. The H&R Parts and stuff is really nice because it connects directly to the frame and is adjsutable. I have seen the results if give at the drag strip and I think it would be very nice for cornering. Global West instructed me to go with no sway bar in the back to allow for articlulation but I serioulsy wonder if having an adjustable sway bar would not be the better setup. Body bushings are essential to increase the rigidity between the frame and the body so the car has better structural connections and the body does not move as much on the frame. Wider tires such as 17" x 9.5" in the front and 17" x 11" in the rear with 275/45/17 minimum to get the maximum patch possible on the car. I orginally picked 8" wide becuase I was not sure of size and did not do enough research. I also wanted to have wheels I could rotate so I went with same front and back. If I were to do it again I would not go the same way. Ultimately with the GM A body it is front heavy. To make it really perform well on the track you will need to go with extremely stiff springs in the front that are not very street friendly. It really depends on what you plan to use it for. Either way if you do not find a way to lighten the car you will not be competative with it. You need to get down to 3000 lbs to be competative. Possible but several stragies need to be implemented to make it happen. If you are going to road race or even autocross give serious consideration to the oiling system in your car. It is common in higher G cornering to starve the motor of oil from having the oil crawl up the sides of the block wall. This means a blown motor if not dealt with. There are some dry sump systems out there and no commonly sold oil pans. SRE indicated they could make a special pan if you are so inclined to spend the money. One of the problems is that he headers or in particular the manifolds get close to the block and it is harder to put wings on the pan or so I am told. I noticed there are several other places out there now makeing GM A Body control arms and parts. I have not used any of them. The most intesting parts I have seen lately is by a company that used to be called Pole Position. They bake an adjustable upper front control arm. The really nice feature with this system is that you can adjust the camber and caster of the wheels easily. Mark
In general I agree with Mark on most of the mods. I do disagree about the rear end. The problem I have is with poly bushings. The design of our rear suspensions requires bushing deflection. The material that allows that is rubber. If you do a lot of research on poly you will find that it is not a material well suited to suspension isolation. I have never worked on a race car that goes around corners that uses poly bushings. If allowed by the rules they use full spherical, if not allowed they used rubber. If you want to stay stock looking and improve the rear suspension, box the control arms and put in the Camaro/Firebird 1LE suspension bushings. These are rubber but much stiffer than stock. I got a full set off of ebay for $40 to put on my GN. On my x I use spherical bushings at the frame (Currie Interprises makes these.)
there is very little gained in using after market lower rear arms. I actually did some computer modeling of the lower arm. if you tight on cash and are ok using poly or rubber bushings.
Thanks for the informative replies. I have been leaning toward the global west stuff for a few years but I'm looking into the adjustable front upper/lower control arms from other manufacturers. I'm not planning to auto cross or race the car. It will be a full weight car. I just want the car to perform real well on the street. Since my car is a #'s stage 1 all the mods have to be bolt on in case I ever decide to bring it back to original. I'm just trying to get a plan together for the build before I start back up on the frame off. Thanks again for the replies!
on the front the scandc is the best by far with the howe ball joints and oem lowers blows the global stuff away. and cheaper read the pro touring forums :Comp:
Can you please post a link to something specific? I am not familar with scandc. I would be very intrested in this. Has someone done a straight up comparison? Why does it blow the global west stuff away? One of the concerns with the stock control arms is camber and caster of the wheels in heavy cornering. Thanks, Mark
http://www.scandc.com/ the guys at www.chevelles.com and www.pro-touring.com use his stuff for there pt race cars they actually are not fond of global west at all cause of the increase in bumpsteer it causes.
I do not notice any bumpsteer problem. May be more of a problem if you run very wide low profile tires. The ability to run 5 to 6 degrees of caster makes a big difference on the street. If you are racing then I would consider different options. We are very familiar with Howe racing here in Michigan. We raced against them for years when I was doing circle track. Actually I like AFCO ball joints better.
Thanks, That is some seriuosly sweet stuff. When I tried to find stuff like this 5 years ago global west was all I could find. I would put this setup under my car. Very nice. Mark
yeah 5 years ago options were limited but seems to be good stuff and the guy that owns it is pretty good to talk to if you have any questions
the afco ball joints dont move the spindal up like the howes though which decresses bumpsteer. which is a big issue when your auto cross racing a abody
