For now, I'm going to keep the suspention pretty much
the same, with a few upgrades gradually coming into the picture.
Eventually
I will do a junkyard/homemade upgrade to the suspention. First is
installing a rear sway bar from the junkyard. Next will be taking the
rear control
arms and boxing them so they are stiffer. Then I might do something
similar
to the A-arms in front. I might upgrade to larger sway bars too (1.125
or
1.25 in front 1-1.25" in back). I will be buying new moog springs since
they are ~$45 a pair. Probably moog 5660's up front (639 lbs/in), and in the rear I will add airbags and moog cc635 f-body
cargo coils. I will be upgrading to good shocks, probably
Bilsteins. Hopefully I can find the right Gold paint to repaint
the wheels. I have 245/60-14 Cooper Cobra Radial GT tires. I might look
for a 2.73, 2.93 or 3.08 posi rear carrier after I get the OD trans in,
an 8.5 with those gears would be a plus but not
really needed. I will also do some frame stregnthening with Pontiac
Gran Prix braces, a custom rear seatback brace, and a custom rear
hitch. Someday I will bite the bullet and get Polygraphite bushings all
around and poly
body mounts in a few locations. Probably will get those parts from PST or PSC which were
reccommended from a few sites I visited.
The main thing is to make the suspention
balanced for the on the road, do well in a road race situation, yet
handle some good gravel roads fine, and pull trailers. I would like to
make some Mustangs look twice as they are being passed by DieselFumes,
even while pulling a 2000lb boat! I'd like to be able to pull a medium
sized travel trailer, say 5000-6000 lbs, if
needby .
I'd like to upgrade the brakes on it also. The
brakes
on it are good, but 4 wheel ABS would be cool. I might research and see
if
I can borrow parts from a 4 wheel disc camaro or an s-10 eXtreme (zq8)
and the ABS off of it. Wouldn't mind borrowing the smaller rear disc
for 10 bolt off of one of them and making it fit on my 81. I want to
keep the original 14" rims so I have to stick to smaller discs, 10.5" I
believe. I'd also like to get performance rotors and calipers, but the
rotors would have to be stock size and the calipers would have to work
with a custom flange. Someday I figure
out how it will work.
Last modified 1-10-03
