I've had my 05 S for about 4 months now, 113K miles on it. I have done a 15% pulley, and a Hobo style intake and a nice used Invidia cat back. I also fixed a few oil leaks the previous mechanic owner didn't get to. It's not quite oiltight, but its pretty good. I fixed the headliner, but in a way that I'll probably take a second swing at it at some point.

Since I bought the car I agonized over what to do for suspension. I have a thing for lowered vehicles, I have/had several, my daily driver at one point was a 5/7 dropped 93 chevy shortbed (I still have it 20+ years later). compounding the problem is that the car came with 15s, and I'm pretty set to keep them for now..

Every time I would add up the cost of quality struts (koni yellows, swift springs, ireland fixed tophats) I came to the conclusion that coilovers were just a little bit more. but I know I'd be dissapointed in the way the car sat. I always end up playing with this on a variety of cars and motorcycles. I don't want this to be a race car, just a fun commuter, Sundays with my wife in the mountains kinda car.

So in the last week I bought...

ST XTA coilover set, Lemdorfer inner and outer ball joints and tie rods, Powerflex control arm, sway bar, and steering rack bushings as well as powerflex R56 rear control arm bushings and the shock adapters to go with the control arms I got from the junkyard a couple months back. I also bought the WMW 25 mm hollow rear sway bar. I also bought some parts to make my own rear camber rods, because the cheap ones seemed cheap, and the nice ones seem too expensive for what they are... (I'm a machinist. they'll end up nice.)

I don't like doing stuff halfway, and I figure this setup will serve me for many years to come.

What am I missing?

 

All the supporting stuff like new nuts & bolts etc?

 

I took all the hardware with the R56 trailing arms. I will be reusing it.

 

Hopefully you got the lower Shock mount bolts. They are different. Also the upper control arm bolts are different too.

 

Yes, the suspension was all intact, and I took it all, including the sway bar links.

 

Front camber plates, tires, brake pad upgrade. 25mm on the rear bar is overkill once the other bits are sorted.

 

Camber plates are included with the STXs.

From what I’ve read the hollow bar is pretty nice. It actually came as a hotchkis (sp?) bar. And the price was not much more than a solid 19 or 22.

it’s hard to make a choice , so many different opinions. It probably is overkill, but I’ll set it up on the soft hole.

I didn’t realize the bushing carrier to body bolts were torque to yield, so I need to get a new set of them.

T

he front is all in.

 

I love my 25 MM rear sway bar for the track.

 

A little jealous. I've been putting mine off for months. Been too busy building a 97 Discovery.
Seeing this motivates me to do it. Finally finished gathering parts for my major overhaul. So no more excuses I suppose

Well done Sir

 

There are multiple online how tos. I followed the pelican one, kinda. It isn’t really difficult, just time consuming. I figure I have 13 hours to redo the front, and not busting my ***.

I did my power steering pump connections with the subframe dropped a couple inches. That’s the tightest job.

 

Looking good. Few things satisfy like cleaning & reinstalling a gunked-up subframe assembly.

 

All done. I’m pretty happy with the height. I’m still playing with the alignment some. Once I get everything what I think is close I’ll probably have it checked out by my local alignment guy.

I’m contemplating ways to shorten the rear sway bar end links, possibly by cutting and threading the stock ones.


I “made” my own adjustable lower links from Afco radius rods and bushed rod ends from speedway motors. After reading some complaints about the bushing material I bought a replacement urethane bushing by energy suspension. I wasn’t crazy about how most of the aftermarket rods put the adjuster in the center at the weakest spot when force is applied, and I thought the price was kinda high considering what the part actually was. I considered making my own fixed billet upper arm so I could use the same bushings on the upper arm but decided I was letting my OCD get to me a little

 

https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Speed...ted,25122.html

https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Speed...ted,25125.html

I replaced bushing with energy 9.9105 bushings.

https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Black...eim,53323.html

I used a 17” length, I’d probably go 17.5 if I were to buy again.

I used some hardened 1/2 washers on each side to set width.