Hello, my '94Z is in need of some new suspension parts. Its been driven hard all its life and has over 100K miles now. When I hit bumps in the road, the front end makes loud banging sounds as if parts are loose or worn. What is best place to start? Thanks

Aaron

 

I'm in the same boat as you in terms of car age, milage, and noise... I started by trying to isolate when I hear the popping, clunking, groaning, etc... Once I had determined that I heard popping when I try to turn at slow speeds, especially when breaking or accelerating, I started checking the suspension components for wear...

I got the car up on ramps and with the car off but the key in the ignition so I could turn the steering wheel a little, I had a friend move the steering wheel a few degrees in each direction and got under the car to determine where the noise was coming from. I actually found out that there was noise coming from the rack and pinion. I also noticed that the steering linkage could be turned by hand several degrees without the tie rod ends moving at all. Sounds like a rebuilt rack is in my near future... I've also decided to go ahead and change out the ball joints and outer tie rod ends while I'm changing the rack... And if that isn't enough, I decided that since I'm in there I'm going to replace the shocks (haven't decided koni or bilstein) and doing the LS1 brake conversion while I'm at it...

$150 for the rack with inner tie rod ends...
$60 for outer tie rod ends
$80 for ball joints
$125 for LS1 brake setup including hubs, spindles, rotors, calipers, lines and pads...
$330 for Bilstein HD or $800 for Koni SA
80 for new control arm bushings...

Later
Front Sway bar and possibly subframe connectors...


Good luck... hopefully you'll just find something loose or something like that, but with the age and milage, there's a good chance something is worn out...