I did the rear end yesterday and got the front done today. Some parts of it were a royal pita, but once I got the hang of removing the old bushings, it went smoothly. I ended up using an air drill to drill the rubber by the sleeves, the pressing the sleeves out with a large bench vise. Getting the rubber out was a matter of alternating between drilling, cutting, and pressing, sometimes with a press and sometimes with the vise.

I haven't taken the car out too much, but the ride is a bit harsher, although the car doesn't feel like there's any slop. The ride is very close to what my '86 Z51 felt like. I haven't really played with her yet, so I'm not sure what the difference is like there.

All in all it was worth it, especially since I got to use my brother's $50 Summit gift certificate on the set, so it was only $130, plus about $35 in bay fees for the auto crafts center on base. Oh, I wouldn't do this without a lift. I did the rear in a flat bay, with a floor jack and a couple jack stands without any problem, but getting the lower control arms off without a lift would have been a pain. At least it was when I did it on my '86 on jackstands. Way too much laying on your back like that.

I'm going to get the swaybar bushings as soon as I figure out what swaybars I want to get. I have the 24mm solid rear bar from my '86(the bar came from an '85 Z51) but I don't have a different front bar yet so I'm going to hold off on those for now.

Chris

 

I think you'll notice a big difference when you do the sway bars. It's equivalent to installing bigger sway bars with rubber bushings.

 

I was thinking of just keeping the bushings on the sway bars I have, being that most of my competitive time is spent at the dragstrip and the solid bigger bars are much, much heavier than the hollow ones. I haven't auto-x'd in a long time and I don't really plan on starting back up again. I don't road race, so I figure I'll keep the mods to what's best for the street/strip.

I can probably buy the new bushings for what I sell the z51 bar for.

Chris

 

In that case, the sway bars can go into the garage. Especially, the front. I left my front bar off after changing my rack and pinion. I don't feel ANY difference in normal driving, and it gave me a couple of hundredths in the 60'. Good luck, and...

RACE ON!!!

 

I don't know if I want to go that far. Maybe I'll disconnect the bar and see how it handles on the street before I go and yank the whole thing off the car. I'm not quite at the point that I'm scrounging for a few hundredths quite yet.

Chris