LoTu5

Looking around some of the parts magazines ive noticed Rose jointed "strut rods" and "toe in bars."
Has anyone rose jointed their ZR1 suspensionand did it make a difference,downfalls and improvements.
While my car is locked away in the garage for the winter ive started an underbelly clean up as well as restoring the suspension and was looking to improve any way i can.

A26B

Here is a good discussion on the use of spherical joints/Heim joints or Rose joints, as well as polyurethane and graphite bushings.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show...highlight=heim

Jeffvette

Where?

Be careful of using them on the trailing arms and and camber rods as they can be noisy. I'm running the heim joints on the sway bar mounts to clear the coilover setup.

ZR1991

I am by no means an expert, but I have read a lot about the subject, and agree with Jeffvette completely. The trade off is some enhanced positioning accuracy, depending on the applicaation, but a possibly large increase in noise and harshness.

consider carefully for a street car.

Reagards,

wdo-mkr

<JMHO>
Well, I can atest to the slight increase in harshness in the ride with poly. Its not bad and if the shocks are in tip top shape and your tires are fresh you won't notice it much.

Personally I think this question should be answered by owners in three parts.
1) What do you think of poly vs heim joined suspension?
2) Do you have a stock suspension or coil overs?
3) What part of the country do you live in and how are the roads?

I am in the wonderful white out State of Minnesota where we feed just about every expansion join as you drive. Lots of pot holes that have been patched several times as well. With a stock suspension its not too bad.

Add poly with stock springs and you begin to notice as the car jerks around a bit over road patches and other disruptions in the roadbed. At the same time, the car is much more crisp in the corners and very predictable on smooth roads and curves.

Add coil overs and the car goes back to being a nice stable predictable ride even the the poly.

Add in some heim and you get a bit more noise, but this can be offset with some of the 95-96 rubber backed carpet packages along with some of the sound dampening products. (Dynamat).

Lastly adding in a 4 point roll back to the rear of the car really tightens things up and a lot of the creaks and other noises you tend to hear after adding poly go away again.

I would highly recommend the Global West del-a-lum bushing for the front of the car along with the rd racing cross brace. Don't let the horrible first page on the global west website bother you too much. Great company, great products, bad website designer is all. The last time I looked, the GW Del-a-lum bushing for the vettes from 89-96 aren't even on the website but they do have them.

The rear can go to heim, but if you plan on keeping things as a touring car or daily driver then I would rethink this a bit without adding additional noise reduction options. You ARE going to hear a bit more noise come up though the car. Skip replacing the bat wing bushings on either end as well where they connect to the body. This will really increase the noise level.

If you do want to order the heim kits, I can recommend Gulstrand engineering. DRM seems to resell Vette brake parts and the quality on the Vette brakes is not as nice as the Gulstrand parts. Personal opinion here folks. If you call Gulstrand, ask for Randy. He is going to be the one making your parts and he will be more than happy to answer any questions for you.
</JMHO>

ZR1 MK

[QUOTE=Uk422]Looking around some of the parts magazines ive noticed Rose jointed "strut rods" and "toe in bars."
Has anyone rose jointed their ZR1 suspensionand did it make a difference,downfalls and improvements.
While my car is locked away in the garage for the winter ive started an underbelly clean up as well as restoring the suspension and was looking to improve any way i can.

What is your current and future type of use with the car?

LoTu5

Thanks for the feedback guys,thats given me alot of food for thought ,i was thinking along using stock bushings for the axle housing to body mounts to absorb some of the shock caused by the rose joints ,would this be an idea or would the polyurathane take the shock as well?.
ZR1MK how could i forget your car,looking at the photo's i see you have used a X brace,did this give much clearance over speed bumps?,i see you turned the bolts on the spiggot rods to hub "back to front" to give you clearance on the shocks,good idea i will be doing that.
What shocks do you use and do they have adjustment?
By the way i will be useing the car for fast road and some track,the quality of the roads in the UK are quite reasonable.

ZR1 MK

X brace with lowered car leaves about 3.5" clearance and no room for most speed bumps. I drive roads that dont use them, so its fine for me.
30 mm front and 26 mm rear solid bars with urethane bushings, Global West A arm bushings and shock controller with A207 chip is best choice for outstanding results. Additional urethane bushings and revalved shocks give more results, but heim joints are for hard core use/guys only. You will have to be driving your car really hard to take any significant benifit from their use. They are expensive for the additional results and do make some noise. Track tires and a large brake package at the front should more of a concern.
I use stock and revalved Bilsteins depending on which set Im using. I can leave my track coilovers on the front for street driving, but the rears must be changed, as they are too stiff to enjoy the car on the street. Most of the comfort level is felt from changes at the rear suspension. Hope this helps.

LoTu5

Can the standard suspension be uprated without using coilovers and is it as good,i sometimes wonder about all the stress on the front shock tower mounts with the coilover set up.
Also i am renewing the Wheel bearings and half shaft UJ's as they have been on the car for 14 years and 70,000 miles now ,are the AC Delco bearings the one to go for?

A26B

The same could be said for the rear shocks too, with all the body weight being sprung by the shock mounts. There is a thread on here with pictures that had some very nice looking, improved lower shock bolts. I gotta find it for my coil over job.

I've heard of only one coil over mount failure. Not to say there haven't been others, but it is a very popular suspension improvement and I would say that if it were even 10% problematic, there would be a lot of discussion about it.

Considering what you are planning on doing with the car, and even if not, I wouldn't go with anything but the ACDelco units. It's been the subject of extensive discussion and that is the general concensus. There have been new unit failures of other brands, but none reported for ACDelco.

LoTu5

Ive seen the adjustable coil overs on "TKO Perfomance" for 84-96 cars that do look good but has anyone on here tried these shocks out?,my friend has fitted a front "camber Brace" to his 91 ZR1 and it looks as though it could help strengthen the top mounts for the coilovers.
Ive run "Mov-it" coilovers for the last 4 years and have not encountered any problems in the mounting areas,but to be honest i do not rate the "Mov-it" set up as there is no adjustment in the shock,which surely you must have when altering the the ride height/spring tension.
The ones i am interested in at TKO performance say they have 12 adjustment settings.

ZR1 MK

The standard suspension can be "upgraded" for more performance regardless of coilover type springs. The Z07 springs rates are close to my track springs. The coils make corner weight easier and have a variety of spring rates avaiable that you wont be able to find in the leafs. If thats not a priority, use the leafs.
There isnt any problem with failure of the front towers or rear bolt in the coilover set-up unless you hit curbs or huge holes.
Pete at DRM told me he only saw one tower bend in all his years. The car had hit a curb very hard at the track. No failure, just bent and in need of a repair.
You can weld gussets at the front tower if you want to strengthen it. I have had this on my to do list for years, but havent gotten to it yet. I use a grade 8 bolt at the rear. The knuckle ear would be the weak point, but I cant see that breaking, unless you do some real crazy stunts.

LoTu5

Hmm ,reading all these threads on Suspension sure opens up many cans of worms but i guess its a case of "Trial & Error" and what ever suits you best,i think the best way to start is to go to basics and fit new Wheel bearings ,bushings and Knuckle joints.
Then once i know the suspension is fresh as it was from the factory (other than the coilovers)add x-brace and rose jointed camber arms etc to see the best results.
From some of these posts i get the impression that stiffening up the inside of he cabin is a huge benefit to the suspension but i dont want to cut the car about installing a roll cage ,does the seat belt bar frame really make that much of a difference?