Some questions on suspension components

[EM1/SS]

I have a 2SS, M6 convertible that is for the most part stock. I do have a Vararam cold air intake and may get a ported TB this spring, but don't plan on LT headers or a tune for a few years.
I'm thinking of doing some suspension mods when I get my car out in the spring. I've pretty much settled on BMR components as the best bang for the buck.
I have the factory Gfx on my car and wonder if doing a 1" drop will cause me to scrape bottom? I'm also thinking of getting a bushing kit. I don't plan on taking my car to the track (they don't let convertibles without a roll hoop) so this would just be for the street. Should I stick with the inserts or the total poly bushings? Are they about the same to install? I've seen pictures of the rear suspension totally out of the car, is this necessary to install the bushings? I would probably be doing this in my garage on jack stands. Do I need to remove the exhaust system to do this, or would it just make it easier? If I have to remove the exhaust I might as well look at a cat back and just do it at the same time.

Also What order should I get the stuff, if I can't afford it all at once. Would the rear end bushings be the first thing to do, or sway bars, or toe rods and trailing arms?

[mhog]

full cradle bushings. Then you want to think about tower strut brace and subframe connector since you have a convertible.

[caverman]

Full bushings would probably be overkill. I would just do the inserts. Personally I like the Pedders Stage 1 street kit (cradle inserts + radius rod inserts). I originally used the Energy Suspension/BMR style cradle inserts and ended up switching to the Pedders style. They are a little more money but well worth it for those parts. I have a thread out there on the differences. Pedders inserts should be good up to around 500 hp. Even with headers/tune you should still be good with them.

1" drop springs should be okay. Even though I don't have the GFX kit I think there are plenty others out there that do without any real issues. Obviously you are going to have to be a little carefull about how you pull up to crubs. In general though you shouldn't have any issues.

Since you have an M6 I would suggest looking at Trailing Arms as well. Relatively cheap and easy to install. No alignment required and they'll help alot with wheel hop you'll get from your manual trans.

If you have curves in your area then a set of swaybars would be good. If no curves then it's probably nothing you need to worry about. Save up your money for headers/tune/exhaust. All in all that'll be your biggest bang for the buck if you want good power and sound.

Just my two cents....

[The Stig]

You'll be fine, I've got a 1.4" drop and I don't have any issues with my splitter.

[mhog]

Originally Posted by caverman

Full bushings would probably be overkill. I would just do the inserts. Personally I like the Pedders Stage 1 street kit (cradle inserts + radius rod inserts). I originally used the Energy Suspension/BMR style cradle inserts and ended up switching to the Pedders style. They are a little more money but well worth it for those parts. I have a thread out there on the differences. Pedders inserts should be good up to around 500 hp. Even with headers/tune you should still be good with them.

1" drop springs should be okay. Even though I don't have the GFX kit I think there are plenty others out there that do without any real issues. Obviously you are going to have to be a little carefull about how you pull up to crubs. In general though you shouldn't have any issues.

Since you have an M6 I would suggest looking at Trailing Arms as well. Relatively cheap and easy to install. No alignment required and they'll help alot with wheel hop you'll get from your manual trans.

If you have curves in your area then a set of swaybars would be good. If no curves then it's probably nothing you need to worry about. Save up your money for headers/tune/exhaust. All in all that'll be your biggest bang for the buck if you want good power and sound.

Just my two cents....

I would still go full cradle bushings. I have pedders inserts and the inserts hold water inside the bushings. When I loosened the bolts rusty water came pouring out. It may rust out the bolts. I am going to have to switch to full bushings.

[Synner]

I did full bushings (energy suspension) without dropping the exhaust or removing the cradle completely. They fit great and removed any wheel hop; I did a writeup in this section with a bunch of install tips. I did do it on a lift though as trying to cut out those bushings on stands will be a serious pain. I know pedders has posted some instruction on how to make a press out of some pipe like for the diff and trailing arm bushings. Not sure if you can use the press with the cradle in though.

If it were me and didn't have any access to a lift I'd either do inserts or else do an exhaust and the full bushings at the same time. Dropping the cradle isn't as horrible as it sounds. If you have a tranny or motorcycle jack to lower it with it's fairly simple if you're comfortable working on cars. After you remove the exhaust it's basically a couple harnesses to unplug, the 2 lower shock bolts, and the 4 cradle bolts. Also when you have it out I'd do the trailing arms at the same time. For a road car driven aggressively on the street the only other thing I'd add is sway bars.

[Synner]

This is how I spent last weekend:

[BMR Sales]

Honestly you should be fine with using the 1" lowering springs even with ground effects. Since you are not planning on making abunch of power you could go with the rear cradle inserts and since you are planning on doing the install yourself this may be the way to go. Now I am not saying you wouldn't gain anything from using the full rear cradle busihng but they are definitely a bit more involved. With the inserts you just lower the cradle and slide the insert into the existing factory bushings and with the full cradle bushings you have to completely remove the factory bushings. There are a couple ways to install the bushings and there are a number of good quailty write-ups out here on this forum.

Like you stated trailing arms, toe rods, and sway bars would also help out considerably. All the parts are important and everyone will say do it in this order or do it in that order. Generally the first thing I recommend is trailing arms, they are very inexpensive and are easy to install. After that I would do the rear cradle bushings and toe rods because the labor overlaps between the two. After these two step you can pick up parts here and there as you can because you will have a nice solid base to work with.

If you have any questions I can answer don't hesitate to ask, I woud definitely be more than happy to help you out.

Kyle

[JamesNoBrakes]

There's no way my car would make it into driveways and such if I lowered it (with ground effects). Realize that there's an air-dam that hangs below the splitter. I supposed you could remove/cut this and gain back some clearance. I also suppose I could find a way to survive (park on side of the road, etc), but it wouldn't be worth it.

[PfadtRacing]

If you're looking for easy items to increase traction and performance drop springs and sway bars are a great first choice. To maximize traction and minimize wheel hop you may also want to look at our rear arm package which includes Trailing arms and Toe control rods are really pretty easy to install, can be easily accomplished in your driveway and will offer a nice improvement.

We've equipped our drop springs on several Camaros with the factory GFX kit. Depending on your driving style it can be a little difficult to get in and our of driveways without scraping, but just as with any other lowered car if you get into the habit of taking steep driveways at an angle you shouldn't have any problems with daily driving on a 1.25" drop.

Here is a photo showing the clearance with a GFX kit. Your driving habits may change a little bit, but the drop springs will still definitely leave your car easily driven!

[Ventmaster]

Alright here's one more opinion: GM addressed the soft rear subframe bushings on the 2012. They filled in the voids to some degree, so to see any real change i'd suggest the full rear bushes.

However, that will significantly firm up the rear suspension and combined with drop springs may be too firm (would be for me). Go one step at a time.

GM also already put subframe braces and a strut tower brace on the Verts.
So IMHO, you could go straight to a set of swaybars and achieve everything you're looking for.

BTW, full subframe bushes are a PIA to install- IMHO.

[Synner]

There was zero impact to ride quality with cradle bushings.

[JusticePete]

Originally Posted by Ventmaster

Alright here's one more opinion: GM addressed the soft rear subframe bushings on the 2012. They filled in the voids to some degree, so to see any real change i'd suggest the full rear bushes.

However, that will significantly firm up the rear suspension and combined with drop springs may be too firm (would be for me). Go one step at a time.

GM also already put subframe braces and a strut tower brace on the Verts.
So IMHO, you could go straight to a set of swaybars and achieve everything you're looking for.

BTW, full subframe bushes are a PIA to install- IMHO.

Better, but inserts will still make a huge difference. Take a look and let me know what you think.

UPDATE

When Chevrolet introduced the Convertible they also made a change to the sub-frame bushes to address rear-end-step-out. If your Camaro was built in 2011 chances are it has the revised sub-frame bushes. The revised OE bushes have a bit more rubber in them and less NVH void space. They are an improvement over the earlier versions, but we at Pedders still feel they could be better and advise the 5th Gen owner to start with the foundation, to start with the sub-frame bush inserts or full bushes. Pedders EP1200 inserts will require a trim to fit in the revised sub-frame bushes. In this photo you see the fingers on the inserts that fill very thin voids in 5th Gens built prior to late March.



To fit a Pedders EP1200 Insert Kit on a 5th Gen with the revised bushes, use a pair of side cutters to trim the very thin fingers off the inserts. In this photo, we have covered the fingers with white paper. As you can see, what remains in a lot of material to fill the voids that remain in the revised OE bushes.



Just by looking I would say that the 2012 uses more than 90% of the material in Pedders EP1200 sub-frame inserts. It all starts with the foundation and it still starts with the foundation in a 2012. Sub-frame and radius inserts are the lowest hanging fruit on the 5th Gen.

[JusticePete]

Originally Posted by EM1/SS

I have a 2SS, M6 convertible that is for the most part stock. I do have a Vararam cold air intake and may get a ported TB this spring, but don't plan on LT headers or a tune for a few years.
I'm thinking of doing some suspension mods when I get my car out in the spring. I've pretty much settled on BMR components as the best bang for the buck.
I have the factory Gfx on my car and wonder if doing a 1" drop will cause me to scrape bottom? I'm also thinking of getting a bushing kit. I don't plan on taking my car to the track (they don't let convertibles without a roll hoop) so this would just be for the street. Should I stick with the inserts or the total poly bushings? Are they about the same to install? I've seen pictures of the rear suspension totally out of the car, is this necessary to install the bushings? I would probably be doing this in my garage on jack stands. Do I need to remove the exhaust system to do this, or would it just make it easier? If I have to remove the exhaust I might as well look at a cat back and just do it at the same time.

Also What order should I get the stuff, if I can't afford it all at once. Would the rear end bushings be the first thing to do, or sway bars, or toe rods and trailing arms?

The inserts are cake to install as you don't have to remove the OEM bushes. The same is true with radius bush inserts. Unbolt the arm. Remove the OEM soft rubber snubber. Put in the Pedders insert. If you have extra hands you should be able to do the sub-frame inserts without dropping the exhaust. On the other hand, removing the exhaust is no big deal.



I would like to take credit for this idea, but I can't. A GM engineer came up with the idea. We were going to do validation work on the part with GM, but there was a matter of some budget cuts at that time.

We have tracked our Camaros hard and never had any issues with the OE arms. We recently ran the OPTIMA Challenge. It was our second run. The first time out we were faster than all other 5th Gens by 7 seconds. The second time out just a few weeks ago we were 8.5 seconds faster than all other 5th Gens. At SEMA Chevrolet showed 5 5th Gens. two were on MRC and the other three on Pedders. I have a deal with GM. I buy GM cars and GM buys Pedders parts. If Pedders is good enough for Chevrolet...