Does anyone know if there is a T1 upgrade for the engine cradle in my C5 Z06? Or are there only T1 control arms, shocks, rear leafs & and sway bars? My engine cradle is being replaced and I'd like to do an upgrade if there is one available. Also, how much can I expect to pay for T1 front control arms (a-arms)?

 

None that I know of.. Don't forget about the front springs.. And the A-arms are standard factory units, just with stiffer rubber bushings (so you could upgrade your stock items if you wish).

 

Thanks buddy,
Don't suppose you know where I might get these bushngs at, do you?

 

Vette Brakes & Products, Inc. sells a really nice kit. Their bushings are rock hard compared to the factory spongy rubber bushings. Their kit has all the hardware included, you reuse nothing except your control arm and bolts. It is well worth the extra money to buy a kit that has all the hardware included instead of trying to remove the old bushing from the old hardware and reuse the old hardware. It only take like 5 minutes per arm to replace the bushings if you have an arbor press. That is assuming the arm is already off the car of course. I made a neat simple tool that makes pressing easy, I can send you a photo if you like. No need to waste time sawing like the directions shows, just a quick press and be done. The only problems I seen with the kit was the rear upper a-arm bushings were kind of small, they didn't press into the arm at all, if you stuck them in there and turned the arm up sideways the bushing would fall right out. I'm a little worried that those bushings may try to spin in the arm not on the center piece. The other problem was the washers for the lower arms are too big and need to be turned down to the same size as the factory washer. If you use them as shipped you will loose some of you adjustment because when you bring the bottom of the arm in the washer will hit the edge of the cradle before it get to the end of the normal travel. It is easy to run down the washer if you have a lathe. The kit has awesome upper front bushing, very impressive billet aluminum center hardware. But those upper rear bushing worry me a bit.

 

Hey SpeedyZ, I just ordered the VB&P polyurethane bushings and I will need to press out the old ones, if you could send me the photo of your setup that would be great.

Thanks in advance,

- Max

 

Will do, it is a piece of cake! About 10 seconds to pop out a bushing! I will have to dig up the photos, will have to do that tomorrow, it is getting late and work come early! Remind me if I forget!

 

send me pics too!

dallas_wicker@countrywide.com

Thanks for all of your advice!

 

I finally got time to put together a little web page showing the tool I used to remove the C5 control arm bushings. With this simple tool and a press you can pop out those bushings in seconds. The web page can be found here:

http://corvetteforum.shelor.net/bushings

 

AWESOME WRITE UP AND PICS!!!!!

This should be in the Tech Section - great work!! Thanks!

EG

 

I will be swapping out my bushings this weekend and would appreciate a pic of your setup as well. Thanks in advance.

T

 

 

Great write up

 

Just follow the link above! Or here is it again.

http://corvetteforum.shelor.net/bushings