Upgrading a Fairly Stock Suspension

im actually going ford 8.8 with rear disc when i kill my 8.75 again.

on the suspension, i run something similar to autoxcudas old setup. works very well my my 255 width 17's.

on the poly bushings: i have them on my sway bars, strut rods, and leaf spings. thats it. i found some oddities in my car in the handling department with the poly LCA bushings, and ran the poly UCA bushings for years with no troubles. i gained better overall stability with rubber LCA bushings, and better alignemnt specs with the offset UCA bushings.

i also used hardened steel washers on my LBJ to spindle bolts to be able to adjust my camber and caster to where i wanted them both. after a bunch of street miles and beatings, it is still fine. i do check the bolt torque every now and then, and they have never loosened.

also, on my car, for my setup, im running the FMJ spindles with 11.75 brakes. i liked the negative camber gain addition, and it works for me. no noticible bumpsteer.

with regards to the rear suspension, once you get the leaves parallell and mostly flat, you can dial it in from there. ive looked at panhards and watts due to lateral movement (ive got enough grip that my pinion yoke moved enough to eat a hole throung the passengers side muffler). i, in my case with the 3 inch TTI exhaust and stock tank, cannot run one that is long enough to be benificial.

in summary, i would run the following, which is pretty much what i have now, with a couple of minor changes.
1. NEW moog steering linkage
2. NEW moog ball joints
3. NEW moog offset UCA bushings
4. NEW moog rubber LCA busgings
5. badart strut rods (just as cheap as all the adjustables, with better quality and less bind. on my short list of upgrades)
6. 6 leaf 340 rear leaves, 1 inch drop, espo springs manufacturer.
7. .89 or bigger t-bars (i run the .89 and think i have a cadillac ride, even on the 17's)
8. front and rear sway bars. (i run ADDCO 1 1/8 front, 7/8 rear. all that was availible at the time, but theres better out there for the same money now. hollow not important, adjustable rear is)
9. fMJ spindles for the BBP swao and caliper upgrade.
10. solid power steering box with the presure pump tweaked (i have a firm feel stage 3. noce box, but still too much assist)
11. 3 POINT SEATBELTS!! (i used wescott.)
12. all new brake huydraulics
13. borgeson or other coupler conversion to u-joint (wasnt availible when i built mine. will be on soon.)
14. good shocks. (i run 10 year old KYB's and hate them with a burning passion. i want spax or RCD bilsteins)
15. subframe connectors. (when i did mine, i did the 2X3 square tubing bigblockdart.com style)


my setup, which is listed above, was able to best a c6 corvette, factory 5 cobra,, and a few other serious pieces of hardware on the autocross course saturday. most of my trouble and poor performance came from tires and carb issues.


also, as a parting shot, just remember:
not running is an inconvienience. not stopping will kill you."

Michael