“Lyssa” gets her suspension!

[urr2slo]

Hotchkis is the winner! After going over all the different manufacturers, options, and set ups, Exflirt decided to go with the Hotchkis Race Pack. When you weigh out what it offers it is the best value, with the best bang for your buck. You can go out and spend almost 3 times as much for a coil over setup, but you would gain maybe a tenth of a second on autocross track or road course for all that extra money. You would also have to make daily sacrifices, such as ride quality and comfort. With the money saved, she can put towards power adders or upgrading the brakes to make up that time. One of the other advantages is that it provides the perfect stance along with that extremely good day-to-day ride quality. Exflirt wanted something she could drive daily with the occasional track day thrown in, so Hotchkis was the perfect fit.

Once the suspension decision was made, I delivered Lyssa to Greg Foster at Industrial Motoring in Anaheim for the installation. I have worked with Industrial Motoring many times over the last 10 years for numerous builds and have found Greg and his team to do some of the best work out there. Greg and his team fully believe there is nothing more important than customer service. In 10 years, I have yet to hear of an unhappy customer. Greg once told me, “If I don’t take care of my clients, I won’t have clients to take care of.”

One of the comments Exflirt made to me as we were deciding on the details of her build was that in stock form, the car felt too vanilla. It was comfortable and stable but lacked the edge her 4th gen SS had. She felt her 4th gen could easily out handle her new 5th gen and it inspired more confidence when driven aggressively. Let’s just say that has changed now. In less than a day, Industrial Motoring recreated Lyssa from a cushy cruiser to the canyon carving Camaro she should have been from the factory. Thanks to the products Hotchkis builds and supplies as well as the talent Greg and his team at Industrial Motoring provided, Lyssa has been transformed. She now has an incredible ride and a great stance, with awesome handling to match.

As the build coordinator for Lyssa, I have been designing, researching, and choosing the best products plus utilizing the best installers and shops to build Exflirt’s tribute Camaro. Each step has been thoroughly researched to assemble her ultimate Camaro. I am attaching some before and after pics, so stay tuned and search for more threads in the future as the build progresses. Additionally, check out and follow the build in her post in the member’s journals.

[caverman]

Cool.....Hotchkis is a great choice.

However, I know that your statement is an opinion but I'm going to have to disagree with with my own opinion.

Originally Posted by urr2slo

Exflirt decided to go with the Hotchkis Race Pack. When you weigh out what it offers it is the best value, with the best bang for your buck. You can go out and spend almost 3 times as much for a coil over setup, but you would gain maybe a tenth of a second on autocross track or road course for all that extra money. You would also have to make daily sacrifices, such as ride quality and comfort.

So...I'll go off the basic price of the Track Pack being $1,500.

I guess you could spend 3x that but I only spent $1,000 for my BC Coilovers, less than $300 on my sway bars, and about $300 for my Pedders Stage 1 kit. All of that is basically the same as what you get in the Track Pack. So...my setup was about the same price.

As far as comfort...I can speak from someone who had Hotchkis springs for about 7k miles.....my BC Coilovers are by far a more comfortable ride. I do have them set soft for daily driving but the cool thing is that it takes about a min to stiffen them up for track use. Then back to street use when I'm done. That is all in addtion to my car being lowered even more than with just the Hotchkis springs.

I'm not knocking Hotchkis by any means. I had no issues what so ever with their springs and I still have the chassis brace on my car even though I have craddle and rear diff bushings. I'm just don't agree with your statment that coilovers are 3x the price and have a less comfortable ride than just springs because that is just not true. I have first hand knowledge with using both so I speak from real life experience.

[urr2slo]

Originally Posted by caverman

Cool.....Hotchkis is a great choice.

However, I know that your statement is an opinion but I'm going to have to disagree with with my own opinion.



So...I'll go off the basic price of the Track Pack being $1,500.

I guess you could spend 3x that but I only spent $1,000 for my BC Coilovers, less than $300 on my sway bars, and about $300 for my Pedders Stage 1 kit. All of that is basically the same as what you get in the Track Pack. So...my setup was about the same price.

As far as comfort...I can speak from someone who had Hotchkis springs for about 7k miles.....my BC Coilovers are by far a more comfortable ride. I do have them set soft for daily driving but the cool thing is that it takes about a min to stiffen them up for track use. Then back to street use when I'm done. That is all in addtion to my car being lowered even more than with just the Hotchkis springs.

I'm not knocking Hotchkis by any means. I had no issues what so ever with their springs and I still have the chassis brace on my car even though I have craddle and rear diff bushings. I'm just don't agree with your statment that coilovers are 3x the price and have a less comfortable ride than just springs because that is just not true. I have first hand knowledge with using both so I speak from real life experience.

What about the cost of the chassis brace, strut tower brace and the adjustable sway bar end links? Ohhhhhhh.......... I know you forgot about those

And it's the Race Pack, not the Track pack we installed.

The member I'm building this Camaro for wants something she can drive everyday, does not have to adjust when she wants to go carve the canyons on a weekend, or do an Auto-X event or track day. Not everybody wants to adjust on there car for different types of driving.

Not to get off the price track, think about it for a minute, your BC coil overs you stated are $1000. the Hotchkis springs are $350. thats a $650. difference, now the cost of your supporting cast for the rest of your suspension depends on the quality of the components you choose.
The coil overs replace the springs, now if you were to buy the Hotchkis comp bars, chassis brace, etc. to compare apple to apples, what comes in the race pack plus your coil overs your looking at $3450. vs. $2300. for the race pack.
Now you can go with less expensive, lower quality components to get closer to the race pack price but your giving up performance and quality which equals reliability, or you can also go with a high quality complete coilover suspension, kits offered by several of the vendors on here which can be almost 3 times as much.
I'm not knocking anyone's product, all the manufactures on here, Hotchkis, Pfadt, Pedder's and so on do a lot of research and engineering to assemble complete suspension packages to give us quality products that are dialed in. When you mix and match you dont get the benefit of that research and engineering they do.
I just stated on here, for the best bang for your buck, the Hotchkis Race Pack is it, it gives you the most for your money, it has been engineered and tested by Hotchkis to give us the consumer a complete package.

I have torture tested my personal Camaro with there products, raced with there products and won with there products. I did win the Baddest Camaro competition last year at Firebird during Super Chevy and I was up against a lot of good cars, with good drivers, as well as a lot of different suspension setups. I did it with a Hotchkis race pack on Pirelli P-Zero's. Nothing fancy, no mis-matched parts, just something affordable that works.

Now this is only my race proven, track tested opinion, which we are all entitled to.

[Whiteside Customs]

Originally Posted by urr2slo

What about the cost of the chassis brace, strut tower brace and the adjustable sway bar end links? Ohhhhhhh.......... I know you forgot about those

And it's the Race Pack, not the Track pack we installed.

The member I'm building this Camaro for wants something she can drive everyday, does not have to adjust when she wants to go carve the canyons on a weekend, or do an Auto-X event or track day. Not everybody wants to adjust on there car for different types of driving.

Not to get off the price track, think about it for a minute, your BC coil overs you stated are $1000. the Hotchkis springs are $350. thats a $650. difference, now the cost of your supporting cast for the rest of your suspension depends on the quality of the components you choose.
The coil overs replace the springs, now if you were to buy the Hotchkis comp bars, chassis brace, etc. to compare apple to apples, what comes in the race pack plus your coil overs your looking at $3450. vs. $2300. for the race pack.
Now you can go with less expensive, lower quality components to get closer to the race pack price but your giving up performance and quality which equals reliability, or you can also go with a high quality complete coilover suspension, kits offered by several of the vendors on here which can be almost 3 times as much.
I'm not knocking anyone's product, all the manufactures on here, Hotchkis, Pfadt, Pedder's and so on do a lot of research and engineering to assemble complete suspension packages to give us quality products that are dialed in. When you mix and match you dont get the benefit of that research and engineering they do.
I just stated on here, for the best bang for your buck, the Hotchkis Race Pack is it, it gives you the most for your money, it has been engineered and tested by Hotchkis to give us the consumer a complete package.

I have torture tested my personal Camaro with there products, raced with there products and won with there products. I did win the Baddest Camaro competition last year at Firebird during Super Chevy and I was up against a lot of good cars, with good drivers, as well as a lot of different suspension setups. I did it with a Hotchkis race pack on Pirelli P-Zero's. Nothing fancy, no mis-matched parts, just something affordable that works.

Now this is only my race proven, track tested opinion, which we are all entitled to.

I just have a couple of questions. I'm really not trying to knock hotchkis at all as I like some of the products they offer. However when you say that coilovers setups are 3x as much that's not really true. We have a SS2.5 package that is under 2100 bucks that comes with coilovers, sway bars, front radius rod bushings, full cradle bushings, and diff bushings.

The hotchkis race pack is more expensive and doesn't address the diff housing or the front radius bushings which are two of the biggest weakest links on the Camaro chassis.

I also notice that this car is a vert. The verts come with the GM factory strut tower brace and there is absolutely no reason to change it out unless you just like the Hotchkis STB better.

Now let me be clear in saying there is absolutely nothing wrong with the Hotchkis race pack. It is a VERY good option. Hotchkis takes a different approach to controlling the rear cradle than we do and there's nothing wrong with that. But to generically say that X products cost X amount more just shows that you need to do a bit more research as to what's available on the market.

One other note, if you wish to advertise the work you're doing you should become a forum sponsor. The C5 staff work very hard and need the support from vendors.

[urr2slo]

Originally Posted by Whiteside Customs

I just have a couple of questions. I'm really not trying to knock hotchkis at all as I like some of the products they offer. However when you say that coilovers setups are 3x as much that's not really true. We have a SS2.5 package that is under 2100 bucks that comes with coilovers, sway bars, front radius rod bushings, full cradle bushings, and diff bushings.

The hotchkis race pack is more expensive and doesn't address the diff housing or the front radius bushings which are two of the biggest weakest links on the Camaro chassis.

I also notice that this car is a vert. The verts come with the GM factory strut tower brace and there is absolutely no reason to change it out unless you just like the Hotchkis STB better.

Now let me be clear in saying there is absolutely nothing wrong with the Hotchkis race pack. It is a VERY good option. Hotchkis takes a different approach to controlling the rear cradle than we do and there's nothing wrong with that. But to generically say that X products cost X amount more just shows that you need to do a bit more research as to what's available on the market.

I stated that some of the high quality coil over kits can cost as almost 3 times as much, I did not state all coil over kits.
There are a lot of kits out there, price wise for a complete kit its hard to beat the Hotchkis stuff. They are out at the track every couple of months torture testing and developing new stuff.
I've been building custom cars and trucks for 27 years, I could go out and piece together a kit but that doesn't mean its going to perform.
I'm sure you have a good kit but where is your track data, media coverage, user reviews. I researched all the major players and what they had to offer.
The end user here wanted and all around package that performs without constantly having to adjust ride height, compression, rebound and constant alignment settings. With the Hotchkis race pack, you install it, balance it with the end links and set up the alignment for an aggressive street setup and you go have fun and you also have a comfortable daily driver.
There are very few suspension companies who test as much as Hotchkis.
Thats also how they found there strut tower brace offered my structural support than the factory unit. The factory piece was an after thought to help with some of the cowl shake the pre-production cars were having.
Over 27 years of building cars I have a good idea on what works on which cars, and I'm not saying they are the only suspension company, but as far as the Camaro goes, it works really well, I've been testing it on my personal car for just over 2 years.
I also totally agree with you on the diff bushings, I will be installing some Energy Suspension diff bushings in the next week.
There are many ways you can go suspension wise, and not everybody is going to agree with me, but I listen to what my end user wants, and what they expect out of the mods that are being performed. What I want a car to do may be different than what you want the car to do. For Exflirt's convertible it gives her the handling she's looking for, the ride quality she wants and the convenience of showing up to a track day and only having to check and set her tire pressures to be competitive.

[urr2slo]

One other note, if you wish to advertise the work you're doing you should become a forum sponsor. The C5 staff work very hard and need the support from vendors.[/QUOTE]



To address this last comment, I am a build coordinator, not a shop or a vendor. I work with individuals as well as manufactures to design and manage the build of there vehicles. I have not posted my companies name nor am a soliciting for any work. I am an active forum member as well and use many of the forum sponsors as my vendors and installers.
I appreciate all the hard work the C5 staff puts in, it is a great source of information for me. I belong to many forums because my work is not just limited to Camaros.
As you can see from my join date I've been an active member much longer than you.

I posted this thread for the members to see and read my thoughts of the reputable manufactures and quality install shops who support these manufactures as well as C5. As we all know, there are a lot of questionable products and even more installers that pop up over night and perform some poor quality sub standard Hack work.

This was meant to be an informative thread, do your research. Can anyone on here honestly say, Hotchkis does not build a quality product or that Industrial Motoring does not due great work and stand behind it?

Lets not turn this into a hate fest.

[caverman]

I agree....no need for a hate feast and I by no means ever said that Hotchkis sucks or there are better products or whatever. No issues about Hotchkis at at. I just don't agree with the statement that coilovers are 3x the price and give you a less comfortable ride.

We don't have to agree by any means and I wasn't looking for a fight but I have yet to see anyones coilovers cost anywhere near $6k (3 x $2k race pack). Last I saw BC are basically $1k, Pedders are $1,600, and Pfadt are about $2k. No where near 3x the price of even the track pack.

I'm not knocking what you had your customer install. The race pack is a very nice package. I just think it's a stretch to say it's basically 1/3 the cost of coilovers with less comfort/driveability.

I'll also say that I don't go out and adjust my coilovers every day (although I could because it takes about a minute to adjust all corners). I set mine for street and then a few times a year will I be making them stiffer for AutoX or Drag Racing. If your customer AutoX or races all the time then I guess the extra minute to make adjustments might get annoying but that's going to be up to the individual wanting that ability or not.

As far as the chassis brace and strut tower brace....the cradle inserts that I mention do the same job as the chassis brace (stiffen the cradle) and the strut tower I haven't added but that's why I also posted the price of the Track Pack which is basically Springs, Sway bars, chassis brace. That is equivent to my coilovers, sway bars, and cradle inserts.

Again, I'm not trying to pick a fight and say you or your customer made the wrong choice. The Hotchkis track pack is a nice piece and they do plenty of R&D. I just think members should know that coilovers aren't 3x the price and/or make your car ride worse.

I'll completely take back and delete any of these posts if you can show me where any C5 vendor's coilovers cost anywhere near $6k or show me a few posts where people have regreted putting on coilovers because they have to give up driveability on the street.

[urr2slo]

Originally Posted by caverman

I agree....no need for a hate feast and I by no means ever said that Hotchkis sucks or there are better products or whatever. No issues about Hotchkis at at. I just don't agree with the statement that coilovers are 3x the price and give you a less comfortable ride.

We don't have to agree by any means and I wasn't looking for a fight but I have yet to see anyones coilovers cost anywhere near $6k (3 x $2k race pack). Last I saw BC are basically $1k, Pedders are $1,600, and Pfadt are about $2k. No where near 3x the price of even the track pack.

I'm not knocking what you had your customer install. The race pack is a very nice package. I just think it's a stretch to say it's basically 1/3 the cost of coilovers with less comfort/driveability.

I'll also say that I don't go out and adjust my coil overs every day (although I could because it takes about a minute to adjust all corners). I set mine for street and then a few times a year will I be making them stiffer for AutoX or Drag Racing. If your customer AutoX or races all the time then I guess the extra minute to make adjustments might get annoying but that's going to be up to the individual wanting that ability or not.

As far as the chassis brace and strut tower brace....the cradle inserts that I mention do the same job as the chassis brace (stiffen the cradle) and the strut tower I haven't added but that's why I also posted the price of the Track Pack which is basically Springs, Sway bars, chassis brace. That is equivent to my coilovers, sway bars, and cradle inserts.

Again, I'm not trying to pick a fight and say you or your customer made the wrong choice. The Hotchkis track pack is a nice piece and they do plenty of R&D. I just think members should know that coilovers aren't 3x the price and/or make your car ride worse.

I'll completely take back and delete any of these posts if you can show me where any C5 vendor's coilovers cost anywhere near $6k or show me a few posts where people have regreted putting on coilovers because they have to give up driveability on the street.

There are some posts up on the ride quality of some and if you search for complete coil over suspensions and not just the coil over shocks you will see what I'm talking about price wise, they are the real high end stuff, but I'm not on here to bash or hate on anyone. And the pricey stuff is really good stuff, I just cant justify the expense of it for a street car.
When it comes down to it, in my opinion, dollar for dollar, the Hotchkis Race Pack gives you the best handling and ride for the money.
I've won several events, set fastest lap times consistently at many track days in my personal Camaro running this set up. It just works. I'm sure several other members will chime in on there Hotchkis experience when they see this thread.
Again this was meant to be an informative post, I did the research before I posted, I've driven the competitions suspension before I posted, some are really good, some not. This was the best choice for this Camaro and I would say for what most the end users are looking for. It is a well designed, engineered product that delivers what 90% of the users are looking for at a great price point.

[MARINE1991]

[Hotchkis]

Urr2slo – We’re glad to hear that Exflirt likes the way Lyssa handles and rides with her new Hotchkis Race Pack! She’ll be able to carve the canyons and have fun driving her baby every day too. Thanks for the kind words about our products too. We look forward to seeing the car at more events in the future.

[ericedelman]

I have the Hotchkis Race Pack installed in my car as well, and am an advanced group driver with NASA NorthEast. I agree, the suspension package is a very good value for the money, and have enjoyed using it for many events in the last two seasons. I have surprised quite a few drivers with the the Camaro.

Perhaps the situation is different on the west coast, but I don't think the Camaro convertible will pass tech for a road course without installing a roll bar.

But otherwise, nice car and suspension choice.

Originally Posted by urr2slo

The member I'm building this Camaro for wants something she can drive everyday, does not have to adjust when she wants to go carve the canyons on a weekend, or do an Auto-X event or track day. Not everybody wants to adjust on there car for different types of driving.
Now this is only my race proven, track tested opinion, which we are all entitled to.

[ddunerider]

[urr2slo]

Originally Posted by ddunerider

Well Donnie, chime in on the drama. Tell us your suspension story.