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starting mods

04lss

04lss

New member
Hi, so i just picked up my brothers old GTP. its 1997 and i love that car.
This isn't my first w-body, i had a montecarlo that i did an engine swap on. I love the engines in these cars by they handle like a barge.
I really want to make the GTP handle better. Im going to do it over time but i want to hear suggestions on starting mods.
Budget for my first set of mods is about $300

From what ive read it looks like the front/rear sway bars are the best start. But im not sure what to do from there. I cant decide between the trailing arms and the strut braces.
 


$300 will get you sways... But you're better off just saving up and do the entire suspension at once. You'll notice the biggest difference by doing so. A piece at a time is like, uuuugh! After sways, I'd go trailing arms, Arraunt Motorsports, formerly HT Motorsports.

Couple grand total will do ya, without coilovers. Unless you plan to slam low and get real aggressive...

I'd suggest:

Control Arms
Solid Front Sway
Adco Rear Sway
Rear Trailing Arms
GR2 Struts, if not quick struts then also new springs (Vogtlands), strut mounts, etc.
Energy Suspension Poly's all around
Strut Tower Bracing Front & Rear

this will tighten up you suspension to an acceptable level (IMO), obviously left out possible wear items such as tie rods, in/out, only as needed.

Save some extra beans and get some good rubber on the car too... Makes a world of difference!
not cheap, but you pay to play!
 
Strut tower braces and sways were by far the best suspension mods I did when I was starting out.. i really felt the difference when I did the struts braces... also rear trailing arms were a great noticeable diff for tighting up the rear end.. for $300 you could easily buy a set of strut braces and also some trailing arms and still have a little left over lol
 
go on ebay and get lower control arms, ball joints and sway arm linkage for $120 Detroit Axle unless you just want to buy high dollar names to impress your friends. I bought 2 frt quick install struts, 2 hubs with ABS, lower control arms. ball joints, and sway linkage for my 2000 SE for $300 and they work great. I like ebay because you have several suppliers competing for your business where locally you have maybe 3 parts stores and they are all gonna charge within a few dollars of one another.
 
I can get the GMPP sway bars for $100 for the pair and add 50 for the links etc. and then another 150 for the strut tower braces.
if i had to i could probably scrape together enough for the trailing arms.
im not expecting camaro or evo like handling, but i would like to keep up with the new family sedan sport trims.
 
I'm a suspension noob. What are the links? I was looking at the gmpp parts on eBay. I could only find the sway bars. Should I buy both the sway bars? I want better handling at corners but if I get racecar handling that's cool too. Where are those prices, brother?
 


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