Rebuilt front end concerns

Good morning all,
With the corona scare I have had time to change control arm bushings(poly pst kit), box lowers and install 103 torsion bars and adj. strut rods. I cut the lower bump stops in half because I'm trying to get the front of the car down a little, it was way high. When I reassembled I had was able to get non binding movement without the upper control arm hooked up. It was binding some when on the upper when I hooked it up. I finished the job. Should I put some miles on and things will settle and then have it aligned? I did put the uppers back together exactly how they came apart.

Also I reused my KYB shocks that are way to stiff, I don't think my sway bar even comes into play with them on. It really felt nice in the garage with the shocks not installed. I was thinking of just installing standard oil shocks instead of spending up again on shocks.
Thoughts?

Thanks in advance guys! Have a great holiday!

Keep the KYBs on or upgrade to Bilsteins, Hotchkis, etc. Your going to want a shock that can control those heavier bars.

On the upper A Arm bushings, did you grease them really good? Poly is different than rubber in that the rubber idolators are are torqued at ride height and flex/deflect with suspension movement. Poly Bushings pivot like a bushing or bearing and need lube. They will be stiff to move but you should be able to pivot the assembly with the bar unloaded depending how strong you are, I did mine with no brakes installed on the spindle though. A bottle jack might help.

I'm not an expert, so hopefully someone can chime in here, but I wouldn't think cutting the bump stops would lower your ride height. All they do is provide a rubber "stop" for when the suspension is at full flex, so that the control arm doesn't smash against the frame.

If you are using polygraphite upper control arm bushing you should not have bind I would definitely look into that. As for driving prior to alignment, you should not have to, you should be able to get the car aligned with no ill affects. Shock wise I would go with what the other poster said and save up for a set of bilsteins. They will great improve the ride quality and handling overall.

Thanks
James From
PST

Righty Tighty said:

I'm not an expert, so hopefully someone can chime in here, but I wouldn't think cutting the bump stops would lower your ride height. All they do is provide a rubber "stop" for when the suspension is at full flex, so that the control arm doesn't smash against the frame.

Click to expand...

Correct, cutting the bump stop will not lower the car.

BUT, if you have lowered the car, the tall lower bump stop will contact the frame with very little suspension travel. So, if you lower the car enough you essentially end up sitting on the bump stops, which is bad.

The larger torsion bars like the 1.03's will deflect less than the originals, but you still need to have a good 1" between the bump stop and the frame at your chosen ride height to keep from constantly hitting the bump stops. Cutting the lower bump stop down may be necessary with a lowered car. There's a flip side to that as well, the larger torsion bars deflect less. Depending on how the ride height is set, the torsion bar adjusters may not be loaded when the suspension is allowed to fully extend and hit the upper bump stop. That's also bad, so, if the car is lowered enough and the bars are large enough you may also need to use taller upper bump stops.

Essentially you're recentering the suspensions range of travel around the new ride height. A little lower than stock doesn't require that, but if you lower the car substantially and use larger torsion bars you may also need to substantially shrink the lower bump stop and correspondingly raise the upper bump stop.

Black Girl said:

Good morning all,
With the corona scare I have had time to change control arm bushings(poly pst kit), box lowers and install 103 torsion bars and adj. strut rods. I cut the lower bump stops in half because I'm trying to get the front of the car down a little, it was way high. When I reassembled I had was able to get non binding movement without the upper control arm hooked up. It was binding some when on the upper when I hooked it up. I finished the job. Should I put some miles on and things will settle and then have it aligned? I did put the uppers back together exactly how they came apart.

Also I reused my KYB shocks that are way to stiff, I don't think my sway bar even comes into play with them on. It really felt nice in the garage with the shocks not installed. I was thinking of just installing standard oil shocks instead of spending up again on shocks.
Thoughts?

Thanks in advance guys! Have a great holiday!

Click to expand...

KYB's are terrible. They are more obviously terrible with torsion bars larger than 1" in diameter. And they don't even control the larger bars all that well, they just transmit a heck of a lot of chatter and will rattle your eyeballs loose. Lots of people associate that with larger bars, but it actually comes down to having the wrong shocks. With Bilsteins or Hotchkis Fox shocks even really larger torsion bars do not give a harsh ride. The shock has to be paired with the torsion bar, cheap shocks like KYB's don't work for crap on larger bars.

As for the UCA's, you may need to readjust the length of the strut rods. Check for the binding at the UCA's by themselves first. But it could be that the UCA's are pulling/pushing the LCA because of how the alignment is set, which can introduce bind that was not there when you just used the LCA to adjust the strut rod length. You added an additional "arc" by attaching the UCA's, so, your strut rod length may no longer be matched up with how the whole suspension is moving.

The suspension should reach is normal ride height after a couple revolutions of the tires. No need to drive miles before the alignment. But you should find the source of your binding first.