Team,

I have a 96 Collector's Edition. The suspension on this thing is incredibly harsh... Not exaggeration! Expansion joints are especially scary as it feels the car is going to lose all its wheels.

By the way, this is an FE1 suspension.

I can see the car has Bilstein/Delco shocks on it.
My priority for this car is NOT superb handling capabilities, but rather comfort and decent handling.

How do I improve the ride on my car?
- New bushings all the way around? Energy suspension?
- New socks?
- Coilvers?
- A combination of parts?

Thank you all for your input.
Ric

 

If you have run flat tires they are very harsh over cracks and bumps.

 

Standard tires... No run flats.

 

Age of tires? If over 7-10 years old they will become hard.

 

Check date codes on your tires.

 

Does it have the performance suspension package? If so you may need new shocks but they ride pretty hard anyway

 

Thanks for bringing the tire age to my attention.

Are these tires really from 2006 and 2007?
I can't even get a date on two of them.






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Bingo. Don't do *anything* else. Buy new tires and buy them now!

If you want an affordable alternative, Riken Raptors are inexpensive but are great! You can be all in/installed for ~$500 and they will be significantly better and safer than what you have. I have this setup on mine.

I went with 275/40R17 for my rears and 245/45R17 for the front... if you have an "all square" 9.5" rim setup, it would be the 275s all around.

 

Thanks a lot for the suggestions.

The current tires are Goodyear Eagle F1 and are practically new.... Wear wise.🙄

I guess new is relative.

Ric

 

No matter how high quality the tires were nor how many miles are on them, unfortunately they degrade over time and become "hard". This can also be a dangerous situation where it will break loose on you unexpectedly, or you can "blow" a tire. They also heat up more when they are like this. Part of the reputation of torquey rear wheel drive sports cars (Viper ::cough:: ) are due to driving on old rubber because there was "plenty of tread left" but they were > 10 years old.

Get some new rubber on there and I bet you will be pleasantly surprised by the change.

 

Yes you definitely need new tires before one of them blows out and takes out a quarter panel. Decide how you will drive the car to determine which tires to buy. If you are only going to drive the car a couple of thousand miles a year even the new tires will age out before they wear out. There are plenty of threads on this forum regarding tires choices. Inexpensive may not always be the best option considering tires are the only contact point the car actually has to the road.

 

Dang, this is scary. I've had that car in excess of 100MPH.

You guys are awesome... Thanks as million.

 

Don't feel bad, you're good, just be a bit more careful with it until you get the new tires on it... I misread the date code when I purchased mine in 2020... I thought the date code was saying 2009 so was planning to replace immediately anyway but wasn't overly worried about the 3 hour drive back from where I bought it etc...well turns out the date code, ending in 9, was a *pre-2000* date code...so 1999... EEK! I lived and so did the car ! You bet the car felt a LOT smoother/better with the new rubber!

 

I work in aviation and will 100% agree with what everyone is saying about tires. Once exposed to UV and heat cycles, automotive tires lose their effectiveness. Once on a car, 5 years should be the max of their lifespan. Hope this helps.

 

Team,

Update: I installed new Continental Extreme Contact Sport tires all the way around. You guys were right... The ride quality has improved significantly! The tires absorb road imperfections much more than the old Good Year F1 tires. It is definitely more enjoyable to drive the car now.

Of course, we are still talking about a C4 Corvette... It ain't no Cadillac. Also, I really hate the fact that the lack of a real independent suspension makes the car jittery over bumps.

I'm considering coil overs for down road.

Thoughts?

 

Glad to hear it is better with the new tires!

The suspension setup with the transverse springs is not why it is jittery. Coil overs introduce a whole new set of variables/issues you will have to solve.

There are softer springs (assuming you don’t have these already) and different shocks you can go for…but at the end of the day it is a sports car.

 

So what makes the car hop then? It does the same as my 18 Silverado's rear end.

Thanks

 

Cheap and easy improvement in harshness is removing the rear sway bar… I’ve done this on the C4 rear but some people need a stiff bar to reduce lateral weight transfer… and another move is softening the rear bump stops (such as making it narrower, shorter, cone shaped so it’s soft on initial contact). Coil overs however increase harshness and noise, if everything else stays the same. Also check the health of the shocks, bushings, toe rod, bearings, half shaft u-joint, etc

 

A C4 does have a fully independent rear suspension. The monoleafs front and rear are not what most people think they are, and they don't do anything different than a coil spring. Please read this article for a full explanation: Transverse Leaf Springs. The mistaken notions that a C4's (or C5/6/7's) transverse leaf springs take away independence or are worse in some way(s) than coil springs has been foisted on us from many supposedly knowledgeable sources for decades. It's all bullshit.

A C4 does have lots of rattles and poor torsional stiffness compared to modern cars. Those things make the ride feel and sound worse. Also, you sit almost on top of the rear axle line, which makes the ride feel worse than it would otherwise be. Other than that, the 96 is the softest C4 they made, so you won't find any relief from softer springs. However, shock rates have more influence on ride quality than spring rates. You can replace those. In my limited experience, Bilstein shocks tend to have more compression damping than they might need. Two good options for better ride quality are Koni Sport shocks and Ridetech HQ. You can adjust the rebound damping on either of those to also help ride quality or bump up stiffness when you want to sharpen handling and response. Also, I generally agree with what AZSP33D wrote.

 

What he said! When I stated “not the source” what I meant is exactly this, the transverse springs are not like “leaf springs” on a truck. They, for this discussion’s purpose, are analogous to regular IRS coil springs. Therefore ignore them and look for other ways to get the ride to be more to your liking.

Then of course you could consider coilovers but I’d only do that for performance reasons and not cheap out!

My suggestion is drive it for a while to get used to it then make some selective adjustments and see how it does if you are unhappy.

Also check your tire pressure, running it a little lower can help too.

And if this is a coupe drive with the top on, that does make a difference including over bumps.