1979-1993 & 94 Conv [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
Here's my suspension saga:
I've learned that all three suspension components need to work together to create a good ride. Of course there are other suspension components too, but I'm focusing on tires, shocks, and springs.
I have an 85 turbo and a year ago I replaced the shocks with boge turbo shocks. These new shocks were a mild improvement over the worn out original shocks that came with the car when it was new. The car still rode extremely rough and every bump and pothole shook the car violently. Also, the car leaned excessively around turns. I added a rear swaybar and that helped curb some body roll, but there was still a lot of roll even with the bar.
Then I got some intrax springs from group9 and they dropped the car a bit. That made it look a lot better and got rid of the rear sag and huge gap inbetween the fender arc and the front tire. In addition to dropping the car, the car handles MUCH better around turns. An additional benefit is the COMFORTABLE ride. I had heard that these were harsh springs but they are really comfortable and the car is quieter going over bumps and the whole car doesn't shake. I guess my old springs were really shot.
The big problem I had is that my boge turbo shocks were too wimpy to effectively control the spring. Although the car rode great on totally flat roads and cornered great too, anytime the spring would absorb a road imperfection the spring recoil would cause the car to bounce a couple of times. It's the shock's job to prevent this from happening ie. damp the spring. My boges couldn't handle the stiffness of the intrax spring so I put in some Bilstein HD shocks.
These shocks do a much better job but I was still getting a little bit too much "bounce." Because these shocks have a reputation of being extremely stiff, I tried to think if any other component could be affecting my suspension. Someone suggested that this may be because my tire sidewalls are flexing too much. In the future I may seek out a tire with a very stiff sidewall, but yesterday I jacked up my tire pressure to 40 psi and that stiffened up my tires enough to the point that I'm finally happy with how the car is riding.
Make sure you get a spring/shock combo that is well matched.
Good luck, Chris
posted by 165.221.1...
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