Just wondering if anyone knows of upgrades to make the car feel more stuck to the road and the steering to feel a bit heavier without going with coilovers or anything too involved like that. All steering and suspension components in my 03 Z are stock except for Bilstein sport shocks. I have new tires and the alignment is spot on. I have tried at least two alignment shops and two different sets of tires with no difference. I know it’s a light car with wide tires and there is going to be a degree of “wandering” especially on an uneven road, but I have always felt like the car isn’t as “glued to the road” as it should be. Just cruising down the interstate the car feels kind of “floaty”. There is no play at all in the steering wheel. Is this common for our cars?

 

Really? How Many Miles on chassis?

My 02 ZO6 is rock solid BUT, I can feel the need for improvement.

Some things to look at:

- Steering Rack: The rubber mount bushing on the passengers side of the steering rack can be changed to a POLY mount bushing. Better steering feel!!
Check the rack mounting bolts for proper torque/tightness.

- Control Arm Bushings: The bushings wear and get SOFT. Deflection is a handling killer. You can install some poly Control Arm bushings and better mounting shafts. INSPECT all of the control arm frame mounting brackets for cracks and weld failures. A known issue!

- Wheel HUB Bearing Wear. Do the wheel PUSH/PULL test on ALl four wheel HUB bearings. A good wheel bearing SHOULD NOT have any excessive slop.

My 02 Z started to have handling issues when I tried to take high speed high sweeping turns. Around 36,000 miles. If there was ANYTHING on the road (BUMPS) that upset the wheel,, the car would try to SKIDDER across the turn. A REAL BUTT PUCKER EXPIREENCE! Changing to C6 ZO6 shocks RESOLVED that issue 100% ARE YOUR CURRENT SHOCKS STILL GOOD?

ALIGNMENT, ALIGNMENT, ALIGNMENT, ALIGNMENT,. If your car is wandering down the road, your alignment could very well be suspect. Are the caster/camber adjustment eccentric bolts HOLDING YOUR ALIGNMENT?
I've seen some that were tightened but failed to stay properly aligned and slipped out of alignment WHAT alignment specs did the shop use and did they do a FOUR WHEEL ALIGNMENT? Are the settings for LEFT and RIGHT SIDE and front and rear just close to being the same or did the alignment guy try to get them nats *** on?????

Inspect EVERY strut joint, and suspension bolt for slop, looseness and or failure.

- Check your chassis TUNNEL PLATE bolts!!
90% of the cars that I have check, ALL have very loose tunnel plate fasteners! If you can install a 1/4" aluminum plate or at least get a C6 thicker plate.

Let me know what you find!

Bill

 

I have 69k miles on the car with about 5k on the Bilsteins. As far as the bushings on the steering rack and control arm I will have to get it up in the air to inspect I haven't really noticed anything yet other than one of the steering rack boots was discolored like it had some sort of leak.. I will post a pic. I'm sure the bushings are stock and wouldn't hurt to be changed out for new. I will have to do the test on the wheel bearing hub to make sure it's good also. As far as I can tell the shocks are still in like new working condition and I have had two maybe three 4-wheel alignments done and no improvement after any of them. As far as I know the guy that did the alignment got it as close as possible, he is a friend and a Corvette owner himself so I'm pretty confident he put the time and effort into it.

 

IF, you can get and post up the installed alignment specs.

 

Okay. I will have to ask my mechanic if he can pull that up for me. I assume he used the specs that his machine was programmed for. I don't know much about that.

 

Check all the moving parts in the suspension and steering for play. At 15+ years and ~70,000 miles, I would expect that a lot of parts are worn. Maybe none are completely worn out (out of spec), but the combined effect of worn parts can make everything feel "loose".

Check at least:

• Control arm bushings. Poly bushings are available for this application
• Ball joints, upper and lower. I believe that Moog "problem solver" units are available for this application.
• Stabilizer bar mounting bushings (poly bushings are availabe)
• Stabilizer bar end links.
• Tie rod ends
• Steering rack and pinion, check for excessive play. If there's excessive play, a rebuild is recommended. There is an adjustment, but usually if it's loose, there's other internal items that need to be refreshed, and seals and other "wear items" should be replaced.
• Wheel bearings (I forgot these before)

Don't forget the rear suspension. If it's loose, the thing will still not feel as well settled.

In my experience, on any vehicle, replacing all the loose/worn parts at the same time results in "like new" handling and tight, responsive steering. Replacing things piecemeal just wears out parts. Whatever the next loosest part is, that part will allow excessive movement/slop/vibration, and the movement/slop/vibration will quickly wear out the new parts.

 

Thanks for the input. I believe I am going to just go ahead and get all new poly bushings for the control arms and stabalizer bar. Probably new stab bar end links and both inner/outter tie rod ends. For a z06 should I try to get factory replacements (ac delco I assume), Moog, or what? I have noticed on the pass side steering rack boot there is obviously something leaking. I will inspect this weekend.

 

Floaty but straight sounds like shocks. I was never much of a fan of the GM shocks even the '04s. However, seeing as you have done shocks, swaybars is the next step, Pfadt, T1 or C6 Z51s.

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...r-upgrade.html

The cars are a decade plus old so leaky shocks would not be a surprise. How long have they been on the car? I also believe it is a good idea to re torque cradle and a arms bolts.

http://www.eliteengineeringusa.com/t...que_Values.pdf

I agree with checking everything out as posted above. Poly does come with some noise down side, especially in the A arms IMO. I would go with new sway bars and hold off on a full poly conversion. DRM does sell a delrin steering rack bushing which I would do. I also think it is more likely that the car would need wheel bearings than new bushings. SKF x trackers are what the HPDE guys and racers go with. Froggy did have some a arms with the t1 bushing in them for sale which is a step between stock and full poly, don't know if they ever sold, check the autox classifieds.

 

The Bilsteins have been on the car for maybe 5k miles. I may look into a new sway bar, definately going to do new sway bar end links and poly bushings for the control arms and sway bar. Most likely outer tie rod ends also. There is no play in the steering and it is actually very responsive just the floaty feeling and front end wants to wander around the road.

 

I edited my post, as someone who has a full poly conversion, I would very much recommend holding off on the poly a arm bushings until after the sway bars if this is a street car.

 

Is the poly conversion not what you thought it would be. Or is there something else that would keep you from recommending it. What bushing set did you use cause I am seriously considering doing mine, cause I feel I may have some play. In my front end.

 

A prior owner did the poly conversion on my car, it does squeak. It isn't a big deal to me but many would find it annoying.

 

Interesting... Is there a specific place in the set up that squeaks? I have pol bushing on my new sway bars without an squeaks... I was looking to replace the rest of the suspension bushings with poly...

 

I was looking at some poly bushings and noticed there is a red set and a black set (26mm vs 23) I believe... what is the difference and what did you guys use?

 

A-arms
Sounds like the 26 vs 23 is for the size of the sway bar.

 

Leaks are not good. If fluid(s) are leaking out, you also have to worry that dirt and grit might be leaking in.

For the tie rod ends, I'm not seeing any difference between Z06 and the other (lesser) models. On RockAuto.com, I'm only seeing AC-Delco "professional", not the original equipment grade parts, and I'm seeing Moog "Problem solver" parts as well. Generally, when I see "problem solver" line parts, they resolve some issues with the original equipment and I go with those. I haven't had a "problem solver" one yet that caused more issues than it fixed, or that didn't last at least as long as the original. YMMV.
I can't believe I left wheel bearings off my list. I've gone back and added that now. You are correct that wheel bearings at 15+ years/70K miles could be an issue. Even thought both the front and rears on the C5 appear to be sealed "wheel bearing/hub units", and those tend to last a long time, I'd check them closely and replace them in axle sets if I found any issues with worn/loose wheel bearings.

Oh, and I didn't quote it, but the 23mm/26mm thing for poly bushings is the size of the stabilizer bar the bushings fit. You need to match the stabilizer bar you'll be using with the bushings. If you're upgrading the bar at the same time, buy the bushings to match the new, upgraded bar.

 

So for the stock Z06 stabalizer bar do you know if it would be 23 or 26? And looking on Rock Auto at control arm bushings they have a red set and black set for the Energy Suspension poly bushings, do you know the difference? I will def check wheel bearings also, as far as the tie rod ends I think I will give the Moog brand a try.

 

Something to add to this that I should have mentioned before. When turning right on a rough road there is definately some movement/vibration in the front end that shouldnt be there.

 

If you do have a bearing or something chewed up your alignment guy should have caught it before ever putting a wrench on the car.

 

Stock new up to 45K miles the car should be rock solid on the road up to 150 mph. Been there and done that many times with a stock 03 set at stock ride height. The only stability issue on the car was the hood flopped around some when speeds got into the triple digit range. Light car and wide tires has nothing to do with the situation.

Describe what the car is doing while driving down the road. Is it pulling from one side to the other as the road surface changes? If so adding a little bit of front toe in can settle down the wander. Is the car lowered? If lowered too far you can get some unusual handling on bumps if you hit the bump stops inside the shocks. Some of the Bilsteins were built to avoid that situation.

Really need alignment settings. Your friend may be a Corvette guy but is he a C5/C6 Corvette guy? Is the car aligned for street tire mileage or aligned for the track?

What tires have you been putting on the car?

Bill