Hello, I am new to the forum and have owned my 71 for over ten years.

I finally have to face the music, that all those moving bits in the front end need a makeover. steering joints, A arm bushings, sway bar, springs, ball joints........

I am on here to learn, so if you can point me in the right direction it would be much appreciated.

I have heard of rack and pinion conversions, coil over rears, etc. etc. dont know if I want to go that extreme or not, but it never hurts to know what is out there.

Anyway, I will be lurking about here trying to learn.

Thank you,

John

 

Welcome aboard ! You found the BEST Corvette site there is !

 

VBP, they got everything you need. Great support and handy how to videos.

http://www.vbandp.com/

 

Welcome & have fun with the restoration.

 

How and where you plan on driving have much to do with how close to the OEM menu you should stay.

Oh, and welcome to the CF shark tank.

 

Welcome to the forum.

If you are looking for an upgraded suspension you should look into VBandP.

 

Thanks guys for all the feedback. I also got a lead from a friend on a coil over option for the rear from Speedirect.

The rack and pinion kits look pretty slick as well.

I gotta say, that intrigues me. The only limiting factor would seem to be ones budget.

It is important to me to go with parts where I can get some feedback from folks that have used their stuff. The product itself, how it is documented and supported is important to me.

I see with the fabricated A arms and such they make claims about "improved roll centers" maintains camber better....

I guess I wonder what exactly they do to the geometry and is there a basically understood improvement to the C3 front ends ?

As to what I am doing with the car. it's my fair weather driver during the summer. I did a autocross with it at Blackhawk farms years ago, 2 mile road course. I cannot say it wont see a track again some day.

So, if it's tight and correct, a stiffer ride would not kill me, I dont commute in the car, but it does get driven on the lovely Illinois roads.

I figure to start with fixing the front, keeping in mind what I want to do to the rear. Thats where adjustable coil overs look pretty cool to me.

Keep those cards and letters coming, it's free for me to research.

j.

 

41,
Welome to the forum, I too am relatively new. I am doing a 68 "restomod", I am using the steeroids rack and pinion and the rear coilover "sharkbite" from SD as well. So far so good. All parts fit as advertised, installation to this point has been 99.5% and no surprises. I won't be driving for at least another year so can't comment on performance.

Look at my photos of installed components to give you an idea of what you may be in for.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c3-t...ete-photo.html

Misery loves company!!

Steve

 

You should find among CF'ers feedback on just about every suspension bit out there, including a full range of opinions. Bear in mind you'll occasionally have to divine between the useful and mis- information. The search feature takes some manipulation, but you might find it useful for finding threads on specific items.

Highly recommend you add the Chevy Power book Corvette Chassis Section and John Greenwood's VIP articles to your reading list (links below). Dated, but still lots of good advice in both. FWIW current views on the use of poly vary widely.

http://www.corvettefaq.com/c3/ChevyPower.pdf
http://www.corvettefaq.com/c3/vip.pdf

Since you brought it up, some A-arms have different geometry than OEM, but the easiest way to lower your roll centers is to lower your ride heights, which also lowers CG. I'd give more consideration to an aftermarket A-arm's stiffness, light weight and/or modification to accept coil-overs. And, if you have manual steering (improves feel) IMCO you really don't need more than 2-3* caster.

FWIW, some of us hard runners have found springing more stiffly than many believe tolerable offers a couple of advantages over running soft springs with huge bars, especially when it comes to anti-dive and anti-squat. Ultimately, selecting the right shocks and bar(s) depends a lot on what springs your backside can stand. In any event, I'd set a budget first so you can best prioritize improvements, especially before dropping bucks on big ticket items. Hope some of that might help.


TSW

BTW, I've tested at Blackhawk a couple of times. Can be a very interesting course in a turbocharged formula car.