Is it possible that one of the z51 sway bars is just bent? The front sway bar bushings are only about 9 bucks each for OEM rubber. Did you get new ones with your z51 sway bar? I'm having a hard time finding rear bushings for the z51 (1inch) rear bar.

Having dark thoughts at 2AM on a saturday... I'm realizing that the bushings in the steering rack for the c6 are replaceable. Something I definitely missed. Guess I'll go for it when I eventually take off the timing cover for a cam swap.

Happy to be rid of the nasty noises (clunks/creaks), but I think there is still minor shake at high speeds OR im paranoid. It is a lot more tolerable when you know the entire front suspension is bullet proof cause you rebuilt it LOL.

 

Sure it’s possible that one of the bars is bent, but I highly doubt it. I bought them new from Cultrag Performance and they came with new bushings. These bars are thick and very rigid so if one is bent it would about have to be a factory flaw, but they look perfect. If one is slightly bent I would certainly think it wouldn’t be something that a good alignment wouldn’t take care of. The car does drive alot straighter with the stock bars but it still doesn’t feel right. On a nice flat road the car wheel drive straight but when the road is pitched, it seems to cause way too much pull to the right. Of course the car will want to pull right when the road is pitched that way but it’s just like the steering wheel loses stability too easily. (Hard to explain via text) I’m still sticking to my theory that where I drive the car for awhile with a missing passenger side mounting bolt that it has damaged something in the rack. I think the stiffer Z51 bars are just amplifying the issue. When I was driving it with the missing bolt, I kept hearing a lot of popping in the front end and eventually got under it and found that when you push in on the inner tie rod the whole pass side steering rack would move upward quite a bit and hit. The driver side bolt was on but wasn’t even torqued down tight. I was pretty pissed off when I discovered all of this. I’m thinking it could have stripped some of the gearing inside the rack or did something to mess up the valving.

But yeah I totally understand. It’s good to have all the noises gone but you still want to know that everything is good and be able to have confidence at high speeds. I certainly do not have confidence in mine right now enough to go fast and take curves at high speeds lol. I also have a small amount of vibration at higher speeds. Not sure if it’s my tires or just the crap roads we have around here.