Similar looking but no these are not VW spec. Only a few manufacturers make the smaller dampers and the housings look similar. I think we've checked them all. The output shaft of ours does not have a direct OEM application. I can't speak to the valving or anything else on the VW units, however.

 

The installation is now complete. I have added another link to a tool that was invaluable and some final thoughts about the installation. If I find anything once the wheels are back on the car and it is on the ground, of course I will share.

As soon as the rain quits, I will drive it.

 

Were you able to measure the distance(s) from the sway bar brackets on either side to the outer edge of the damper bracket? I put my ZR-1 on a lift today and took several pictures but the angles and lighting were terrible so it's hard to see much with clarity. I'm going to try again in the daylight tomorrow. Meanwhile if I had these distances I could mark them and see how they look. I do think that it will be a challenge with the massive power steering cooler in the way plus the external thermostat housing on the passenger side.

I agree that getting creative may yield a solution. I spent some time on McMaster Carr's website and I think that with a simple U clamp and some strip aluminium I could fab up a bracket that had the fasteners in a more friendly orientation. But I still would like to assess the location of the inner brackets before committing to buy the kit.

 

Sorry, I forgot. I went back and readjusted the passenger side, tightened it all up and came into the house. I will try and do this today. If I forget again (doesn't mean I am purposely ignoring you) please hit me with a PM as a reminder.

Not only was I dealing with this the last few days, last Thursday my wife put MY boots on to walk the dogs and one of the laces caught a speed lace hook. She ripped her own feet out from
under her, fell and got a concussion. The staff nurse at the hospital where she is medical staff at picked up a heart Arrhythmia, so Monday I got her an appointment at the docs. He ran an EKG, saw the little blip (it has smoothed out) and said this type is nothing to be concerned about. It is most likely stress, the concussion, etc related, not an underlying issue with the heart.

I have had a busy last few days.

 

What's more important, this thread or your wife????

(Hope all goes well with her. This is a tough time to have to go to any hospital)

 

4 3/4" on one side, a heavy 4 7/8's on the other. Keep in mind this is subject to where they end up on the tie rod end and how exact you are in setting them to the middle of the travel. You can affect that just by installing them and having them move. If you really want them to be exactly 3" you will need to put a small hose clamp on the rod to hold them exactly at 3".

For a real quick and dirty, measure 5" from the edge of the sway bar mount to the closest edge of the edge of the bracket. The farthest edge will be 2" if IRC with the stud centered of course. That will give you an idea where it will be at.

 

Here is another tool I want to share with you. I bought them off Amazon for cheap. These are invaluable when finding different places to put a jack stand under a Corvette. They encapsulate the pinch welds. Of course that is the bar that goes in the jack stand.

 

Additionally, when I was jacking the assembly up to simulate ride height, I have a set of 3/4" drive sockets. One of them is big enough around to go around the domed cover of the lower ball joint without touching it. The other side will (usually) fit in the cup of a jack. This is a secure, easy way to jack them up there.

 

DRIVE THAT SUCKER!!!! We want an initial report. Dan

 

It is not going to rain tomorrow. I am one of those Corvette people that doesn't drive their car in the rain. I have an errand to run tomorrow that will take in x-ways, country roads, etc. The forecast changed here in Ohio since the project was started.

At least we are not in Iowa or Minnesota

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weath...neapolis-snow/

https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2020/...oss-minnesota/

As a final check, get a couple pieces of cardboard and some scrap carpet squares. Turn the carpet over so the pile is against the cardboard and put the front wheels on it. This will allow your assistant to turn the wheels easily lock to lock while you watch for any interference before you drive it.

 

Hope all is well with you and your wife.

 

Wife is far more important than this thread. We can wait, so hurry up.. Just kidding. Wife first, Product test drive not even close to second of importance.

 

Thanks for all of your concern regarding MK. She is back to work, tired, and still a residual headache but all appears ok at this point.

Here is the Lawyer speak. Your mileage may vary. I do not know how you have changed your car from stock. How wore out it is, etc. I cannot recommend it for YOUR particular car. I am solely relaying how it feels on MY car. My car is stock ride height. I have no way to say whether or not these will work on a car that is lowered as that will change the geometrical relationship the parts have to each other. As always and as the big time vendors say, if you have modified your car from stock and something doesn't work, that is on you. There is no way folks can design a product for an unknown variable outside of their control.

I took out for a drive today. I hit the x-way, some decent sideroads, some not so decent side roads (which I don't usually drive on), ie: I tried to get a variety of surfaces.

I drove it on a chipseal road, which isn't the smoothest and tends to have "ripples and currents" if you can understand

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipseal

1. The car felt pretty good on all types of roads at all speeds. I felt no twitchy ness nor any tendency to follow the ruts.

2. I have 1 caliper that tends to pull due to simply being 24 yrs old and needs a rebuild. I stood on the brakes at 35 with my hands off the wheel and it tracked straight.

I have to do some more testing and checking over the next few days but so far, I have a positive impression,

1. I want to put some clay on different parts and make sure nothing is touching. I have been as careful as I can possibly be and took my time doing these. In fact I had to redo them a couple times as I found that where I had them they touched or the bracket had moved and they weren't centered (that is when I started using a method to visually see if they moved).

I have checked them at full droop and turned lock to lock, but if you are driving and have a minor touch at full droop (ie: the tire is all the way off the surface) and the wheel is cocked all the way to one side or the other, you are getting ready for a catastrophic finale or out baja'ing your Corvette in which case the finale is still not going to be good.

2, It took some time to find the sweet spot where it wouldn't touch ON MY CAR. The LT1 A4 cars are going to be the worse to do the installation on but is doable. The sweet spot is there ! Sometimes working on your back on the floor in the garage is not as precise as standing under a lift and what you think is the right spot, turns out not to be once the weight is back on the car. Gravity is much more effective than trying to jack the control arm up, as it tends to try and lift the car somewhat.

3. You absolutely have to do your final check with weight on the wheels. It would be easier to do on a lift, but ramps will work.

4. Unless you have them, you have to make a set of poor man swivel pads with cardboard and carpet and check it lock to lock with the full weight on the tires. I WOULD NOT do this on the ramps :-) might have an undesirable outcome.

Per the vendors suggestion, now that I have the brackets located, I should do a back to back test with them on and then with them off. I will do this probably Sunday.
Then due to Ohio weather, I probably won't get the car out again until the end of next week.

I have tried to walk you through what I have had to do to install them. They are going to be easier to do on a stick car and on the earlier cars. I have tried to show you the tools that I came up with and used to do the job to speed it up for you.

Now keep in mind my hands don't work well due to the injuries in my life. The bottom line is if I can put these in, so can you.

The subjective part is whether or not folks will feel like they are worth the cost. I have a camber brace, some of you feel like it is too much effort and cost to put one in your car. I didn't.

After I get in a back to back (with and without) type test, I should be able to say for myself whether I feel they are cost effective for the benefits gained.

 

Drcook - thanks very much and indeed let me start by saying I hope your wife continues to improve.

Your measurements of the brackets relative to the sway bar brackets were very useful - I marked these on my ZR-1 and took a few pictures. I'm having trouble uploading these pictures (nothing to do with CF, my own issue!) and I plan to try again this evening. The Cliff Notes version is that there isn't any obvious no-go interference, but spacing will be TIGHT not only for the brackets but possibly the damper rods themselves.

I'm a little concerned with what I perceive to be a lukewarm impression on your part - paraphrasing, I take it as "yeah it didn't hurt anything but I'm not blown away either". I will await your back-to-back test with interest!

BTW my car has very low miles (~13600) and everything is original and with no discernable wear and no modifications. I am interested in this product mainly due to the crappy roads we have around here where the ripples and irregularities really make themselves felt at speed. So that's the main aspect I'm looking to take away from your test(s).

 

Not a lukewarm impression. Just holding my cards.

I did say

Some people feel that spending $50.00 on their cars is too much. Drive em till they drop type of mentality. Me I am not adverse on spending money, I have spent a LOT of money on it. More than I could ever get back. It is for MY enjoyment only. I cannot say at what level people feel that something is worthwhile, that is subjective.

That is why I cannot say they are the greatest thing since sliced bread, after all how many of you would buy these ?

https://www.banskimotorsports.com/sh...er-center.html

$279.00 for some shock bushings ? You are crazy. To me the difference was worth it, to you ?

BTW, I bought a set of the pin top shock mounts. I like them. I was way ahead of the curve by about 40 years. Back in the early 80's I was machining shock and sway bar mounts out of scrap teflon bars that I saved. The bar ends would have gone in the trash. I made them into bushings. My car handled so well and turned so quick, the very experienced Corvette guy I sold it to, almost wrecked it as the handling was way above a typical C2.

 

I took my wife for a ride in the car. She tends to pick up changes. She says she can feel less vibration coming through the floor to her feet. We drove on what a lot of you would consider country roads. We live on the edge of farm country, or what used to be farm country. It is now a mix of farms and big houses on multi-acre lots. The roads are the typical cap and chip, as I said. There are lots of places where the road would have imperfections that cause the car to dart to one way or another. We didn't experience any of the known places on the loop we just took. It was a mix of 35/45 and 55 mph roads.

 

Thnx for the write ups etc.
One thing you brought up is ride height. My car is lowered, 25.5 inches from ground to fenderwell on front. I understand bumpsteer happens more on lowered cars, so this may be something to looking into..

 

Following from my previous post, trying to upload pictures from a different platform...

First, a perspective of the underside of a ZR-1, showing the large power steering cooler and you can also get a glimpse of the external thermostat housing on the passenger side.




This view (below) of the passenger side first gave me pause about the clearance in front of the roll bar needed to install the damper bracket:




I measured 5” to 7” inboard of the roll bar brackets on either side and applied masking tape on the roll bar to show roughly where the damper brackets would end up.

First the passenger side, a wider perspective and then a closeup. Certainly tight of access but doable maybe with the right tools...






Access from the top (using the long extension method) is all but impossible on the passenger side due to how busy the engine bay is there:





The driver side is much easier of access to get the bracket on the roll bar, but also has a potentially significant wrinkle. There is a line leading to the PS cooler that is immediately aft of the roll bar and canted at an angle very similar to how the bracket is supposed to be oriented. My concern is that the damper rod, once installed, may rub against this line. Because it connects to rigid points on both sides (just out of view) that line is not very compliant at all and cannot be moved out of the way, as far as I can tell. As before, first the broad perspective and then the closeup...







Happy to get opinions on the doability of this kit on a C4 ZR-1!

 

And just to complete the story, this is (the rest of) my car! She’s a beautiful low-miles beast - rescued from storage in Michigan and now in Texas. I’ve had to do a few things to convert from years of disuse to “active weekend use” but as previously stated everything is stock and fine with the suspension. My interest in this kit is driven by the crappy roads around me and secondarily that the car can be returned to stock at any time.

 

Today I had the car up near the century mark. It felt very stable and composed. I have had it on a variety of roads and drove it then my wife's 2018 Equinox. It now feels as or more stable than the Equinox. You can feel the road, but it is definitely smoothed out. As I said, even the Cooper tires I have get a little flat spotting that smooths out with driving real quick. Not like the damn Nitto 555G2's I got rid of. I can pull right up on the x-way without having to warm them up, but you can still feel them. These take out the side to side motion (not the out or round) just the little bit of pitching till they round out.

I still need to do one or 2 more tests, but at this point I can say I would buy one of these.

As I said above, I cannot recommend it to you (the generic all of you), as your expectations of "what is worth it" is different than mine. At this point I can relate that it performs as described.

The only downsides that I can see are:

1. LT1 automatic cars will take a little longer to install due to additional equipment in the way (automatic trans coolant to radiator lines being the main one).

2. I cannot say if they will fit on lowered cars or ZR-1's. This is because I haven't tried to install them on such.

3. I cannot say about longevity, that is an unknown, but I did do some research and Mercedes have similar units in concept. If a Mercedes sports them, well ...........infer what you want.

Having gone through this, I have a couple suggestions that I am going to talk to the vendor about, nothing drastic, not a design change, just a small enhancement.

Please ask any questions at this point and I will try to answer as best I can.