I have a friend that has a 1998 pontiac firebird, He has a 3800 series engine, 5 speed trany. He has had a bad time with wheel hop. He has changed lower control arms, panhard rod because he was told that would stop the wheel hop. We went to the track last sunday and he had wheel hop to the point of breaking something. This made for a bad day. Could anyone shed any light on this problem? Thanks for any help..

 

im not sure if they make one for the V6s but an aftermarket torque arm would probably do the job.

 

Ok thanks, I know he wants to get that next but I wanted to see id anyone had the same problem. He has already spent almost $1,000.00 trying to get rid of it. Thank you very much.

 

He needs to get some nice sticky tires that'll grip as well as a torque arm -- but heres a question for you. wtf does he have done to his car performance-wise?

 

you say he changed the LCA's... did he just get another set of stock ones???


pretty much any aftermarket LCA's should stop most of the wheel hop from a bolt on V6

 

good point i didnt think of that....yea if he replaced the LCAs with stockers, a set of tubulars or even boxing the stock ones (weld a strip on to make the stock stamped ones into boxed) will cure most wheelhop.

if he does have aftermarket LCAs, i'll revert to the torque arm thing.

 

You shouldn't need a Torque arm at all for a V6 car. The power levels at which one becomes necessary is not an easily accomplished level with these cars. Get some LCAs (make sure they're greaseable!!), and get a panhard rod too. That's what i have on my car, and it solved my wheel hop problems completely.

 

i'll agree with the statement that a torque arm isnt needed, if this guy is making enough power to need an aftermarket torque arm with a V6 he should allready know how to fix wheel hop...

and personally i havnt seen much of a diff in a few of the V8 cars that ive ridden in before and after a new panhard rod (as far as wheel hop is concerned) (great for the twisties... however for the straight line.. im still kinda wishy washy)

 

i would get a torque arm..... i shattered mine litterally..... got an edlbrock one from Jegs for $180......

 

My car had a horrible wheel hop problem and i put on some boxed lower control arms and i still had it... shook my whole car.... I replaced my stock shocks.... and im good to go.... it worked for me it might be worth a shot

 

The lower ca's were (bmr) as well as the panhard rod (bmr). He has not put in relocation brackets yet. He put in new shocks, thinking about a rear trany mount. I guess they are hydraulic mounts. How can we tell if it is bad or not. They run $71.00 yuk!
As far as what he has done to the car he put ram air, new flowmaster exhaust, new cooper zeion tires. He has the stock 5 speed manual trany. Also a locker in the rearend. He wants to nos it but needs to fix the wheel hop first.
Thanks for the help sorry took so long to get back, had email issues..