1le springs 360lb/in linear
32mm solid front swaybar
BMR strut tower brace
Boxed double diamond subframe connectors
BMR torque arm
BMR tubular lca's w/ lca lowering brackets
21mm hollow rear sway bar (1le bar I think)
1le rear springs 130-170 lb/in progressive
billet aluminum rear panhard rod with QA1 rod ends
Bilstien HD all 4 corners
All related bushings poly urethane

I think that is pretty well matched up and what I plan on getting, most of which I already have. The only thing I might change is the front sway bar to a 35mm hollow but I was never sure if it was stronger than my 32mm solid bar which is strong bar but heavy too, dunno how differnt a 35mm hollow would be. I wanted a stock ride height since now its lowered and it is daily driven with longtubes and 3" duals with cats. Just would like opinions and suggestions on the setup... thanks

 

What do you want to do with the car?

Other than the fact that I don't care for BMR, I don't really see any issues with that setup. The 35mm hollow bar would save some weight over your 32mm solid, and give a little more performance, but unless you are autoxing or open tracking, you probably wouldn't notice the difference.

 

Agree on the "what do you want to do with the car?", and another note, since the 1LE springs are actually a bit taller than stock ride height, it could be that the LCA drop brackets are extraneous for you.

Dave

 

It'll be on the loose (oversteering) side, and also not greatly controlled damping wise. I sure you are wondering why, so I'll tell you.

First and foremost, NO 1LE ever came with the 360/32 bar and 130-180/21 bar combination. All of them had 360/32's, but only '93's had the 21mm rear bar and did in order to compensate for the regular rate (about 114) rear springs. In '94 when the stiffer progressive springs came to be, all the 1LE's then got a standard 19mm rear bar. The result is you are making the rear of the car stiffer in the rear relative to the front than any 1LE ever was.

Next, the poly bushings all around. Because urethane is not as flexible as rubber, using them in the rear LCA's does not allow the axle to articulate as freely, which acts very much like adding a bigger rear bar or springs. Add that to the fact you are already more rear biased with the proposed plan and it's only going to make the car more prone to oversteer.

Then we have shocks.... HD's are nice quality shocks, but lack damping. Not badly enough for most to care much on stock springs, but it gets worse with stiffer springs. HD's are valved to work best with stock rates (292/114 or so). 1LE springs are about 20-25% stiffer than those stock springs. Also lets remember that in places (not everywhere) HD's are actually softer than the stock DeCarbon's are. And the stock DeCarbon's are much softer than any of the 1LE specific shocks like the "special" 1LE DeCarbon's or the Koni's that came on the 96+ 1LE's.

On the swaybar..... A Hollow 35 is much stiffer than a solid 32 is. You figure a bar's stiffness by it's outside diameter to the 4th power. You do have to take a little away from the hollow bar because it is hollow, but because it's metal from nearest the center of the bar it's not as big a change as metal from the outside of the being removed. A bar twists. If you take some paper and roll it up then twist it you'll the see the very middle moves only a fraction of the outer part of the bar.

The SFC's, braces, TA, LCA's and the like are all things you can add, but will make a much smaller difference than a proper shock/spring/bar package. That's where the focus should be. If you have to not buy some of those less significant parts to make good shocks happen, that's exactly what you should do. IMHO

 

If you have 1LE springs great. They should be about 1 3/4" shorter than stock and .580 wire dia.

If you don't have them, you should try to find them before you buy anything else. Some people are selling springs that they claim are 1LE but they are not.

If you use 1LE springs you won't get negative camber easily.

The 32mm 1LE bar is hollow.

I wanted to build a 1LE, if that is not your goal, I would follow Sams advice.

He is correct on what he says about 1LE. Search for my post, "Will the real 1LE spring please stand up!!!"

 

I need new lca's just because they are so irratating, creek and squeek VERY badly and yeah I wont need the lca brackets. As for the being to loose in the rear end Im certainly coming to realize that from searches and your post, I may just stick to the stock rear spring and bar if it keeps ride height even with the front, how much does the 1le stuff raise the car anyways?. I already have the subframes the strut tower brace the poly bushings the front bar and the panhard rod so thats pretty much gonna stay as it is. As for what I do with the car I street drive it daily and have not yet gone autocrossing but I would like to at some point, when ever I get time anyways . I do hear you on the shocks but I dont know what to do about it since the konis are just so expensive, even from you its 600 bucks for the koni bilstein combo I believe. I mean for a mainly daily driven car that might get a chance to be autocrossed would the bilsteins suite me fine or would it really be worth the extra few hundred for the fronts to have koni's? Also in what cases are the bilsteins less dampened than the stock decarbons? BTW I found some new bilsteins for 295 which is why I said an extra few hundreds difference. Thanks for the opinions so far guys

 

Damping is damping whether it's on the street or on a track. I'm sure you've heard the term "you get what you pay for"? That's largely true. Let's examine what the differences are. Bilstein's are not adjustable. They are mono-tubes which use less parts than twin-tubes (which Koni's and most everything else are). Those extra parts cost money, which is part of the cost. But some of the cost is in recouping development costs as well, and it takes more to build and develop a good adjustable shock than a non-adjustable one or a adjustable shock that uses cheap parts and methods of getting adjustment. KYB AGX is a perfect example. You can get them for about the price of Bilstein's, but the AGX is adjustable. Just not a very good shock IMHO in the way it damps and the adjustments are coarse due to the way they chose to go cheap and put it on the shock's body and not on the piston which is more precise and velocity sensitive.

I'm not saying you need Koni's. I'm simply saying I'd recommend something more than HD's. You are trying to run more spring on the car, shocks are spring dampers, so you need more damping from the shocks. Most don't race, but you don't need to race to feel the differences in damping. BMW's feel the way they do by using excellent damping. Cadillac's feel the way they do by lacking damping....... I'd recommend a set of Revalved Bilstein's in your case, which are $500. As for the $295 price on HD's.. it's good, but they also can't give you Camaro specific tech help either.

I'll add you are willing to spend money on 1LE springs, 1LE bars, STB's and all that stuff that is much less important than really good shock damping is. This is not where I'd play the "gee it's a lot of money" game. I find most folks do that when they don't understand the parts they are looking at, understandably. All I can tell you is that on more than one occassion people with SFC's, and other goodies have driven my car and wanted to know what I had done to it since it felt "better, smaller, more controlled" (and those are just 3 descriptions than their cars.

 

I have never heard of a re-valved bilstein before, what is the diff between that and the HD? BTW I already have the STB and all the other crap because the guy that owned it before me just threw parts at it, I really wish I could have started from stock. I really just need new lca's, raise the car back up to stock height atleast without losing performance (hopefully gain a lot of it back) and obvisouly getting some better shocks on there other than the decarbons and replace the bent rear sway bar.

 

Revalves are Bilstein's that we tweak. We actually start with an HD, then I spec different damping rates for the springs, bars and use intened for the car, and have Bilstein's shop do the physical work on them. They are Bilstein's with damping matched to the parts on the car, and/or the specific use of the car. And we do different setups, not just one that we say is good enough for anybody (because it's not).