To mount all this stuff, I picked up a set of poly upper and lower control arm bushings, poly sway bar mounts for the front and rear, and poly lowering wedges for the front spring. The lower control arm bushings are offset, to allow more negative camber. After disassembling the front suspension (which was covered in 1/4" of grease and crap), I found all 4 ball joints had torn boots, and several of them had play. I managed to replace all the ball joints and bushings myself. In went the new springs, sway bar, and sway bar bushings.
Upper and lower control arms ready to be installed.
After getting the car together, I took it up to work and aligned it. With the new lower stance and offset lower control arm bushings, front camber was is now
at -2.7, caster 8.0, 1/8" toe out. In the rear, I went with -2.3 (which may prove to be too much). The car rides much firmer, with little to no body roll.
At TWS for the next work/drive, the car felt OK. Due to wet weather, most of the weekend the track was quite slick. In these slick conditions, the car was once again loose. Also, it felt very darty at speed, requiring a careful touch. I think the front of the car ended up a little too low, with too much front toe out and too much rear camber. On order are a set of front lower spring pads to replace my homemade Delrin ones, which should raise the front of the car. After that it will be back to the alignment machine to check and reset everything. I did take the car to Tamscc's OD102 Novice Auto-x school to help instruct some n00bs. Again, the day started wet, with little grip, but it got warmer and drier. By the end of the day, grip was normal. The darty feeling at TWS was welcomed on the auto-x course, where the car would change direction almost instantly. The car drove great, and put up some decent times on crappy tires.
