I need new shocks on my 96 Z28 bad. I want to upgrade the handling at the same time. My car is a daily driver that sees the dragstrip a few days a year. I would like shocks that would handle better on the street and maybe even light autocross in the future but still be adjustable for the Dragstrip too. I'd like to keep the the stock springs also and will eventually upgrade the front swaybar. After alot of research and since I can't aford Konis I was thinking of running the HAL/QA1 shocks upfront and Bilstein HDs in the rears with the stock springs. This would let me have ride height adjustability in the front so I can drop it slightly like Sam Strano does with the Konis and replacing the rear spring Isolator with a peice of rubber hose. Plus I'd be able to adjust the front shocks for the strip and tighten them up for street or autoX driving. Now I know the Bilstein HDs are nice but how are the Hal/QA1s in the handling department. The ad says they do well in drag and roadrace applications but I haven't been able to find much info on the handling aspect of the Hals just the Drag stuff. So what do you guys think about this setup. Would it work well? Any help would be greatly apreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

Since you plan on keeping the stock springs it might not be too bad. I have the full QA1 kit with the drag springs in the front and the handling sucks. The springs are way to soft. With the front set at 9 out of 12 clicks there still is a ton of body roll when I take a highway on-ramp at anything more that 45 mph. The rear QA1 shocks don't work well with my WS6/1LE rear springs. I have them currently set at 5 because anything higher and the rear gets very bouncy. My car doesn't see the strip that often, so I am going to sell those and go back to stock for the time being.