If your foundation under your house is cracked, do you fix the squeaking screen door on the porch expecting the crack to go away?
At Pedders we approach aftermarket suspension modifications in a philosophical way that is quite different from all other suspension companies. We examine a vehicle and look for the weakest links in the vehicle because addressing those will yield the greatest performance gain. We do not look at what people think is sexy and will line up to buy.
Sway bars are a great example. We could put 6' diameter sway bars on the rear of the Camaro and the rear end would still step out because the cause of rear end step out is not the sway bar diameter. It is the NVH voided sub-frame bushes.
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The OE NVH voids allow the sub-frame to move around. The foundation is not as stable as most enthusiast drivers would prefer. Instead of replacing the entire bush, we just fill the voids. As RWHP and driver demands raise the need for even greater stability we have more aggressive choices. The point is that when the rear IRS assembly moves of shifts under load from turning, acceleration or bumps in the road the sub-frame shifts and essentially steers the vehicle in a condition known as rear end step out.
The voids in the pictures are the reason this occurs. It occurs in a number of high priced Euro-vehicles as well as the Chrysler LX. Some companies choose to fix the screen door instead of addressing a foundational issue at the foundational level. Sway bars are not the answer. Braces are not the answer. The ONLY answer is to improve the stability of the four IRS mounting points.
You can see the IRS sub-frame assembly is no longer moving, twisting, or doing anything undesirable. It is now stable and allows the rest of the Camaro state-of-the-art IRS to function as designed. You could weld a brace to it. You could do a lot of things to it, but the correct way to resolve it is with w street civil set of EP1200 inserts for probably 85 or 90% of Camaro owners. As you performance demands increase, we offer a full bush replacement and then a Delryin like durometer EP1200HD.
Once the sub-frame bushes are in place and you Camaro foundation sound lowering springs and other suspension upgrades will work well because you have created a sound foundation to build on. In the Camaro community, especially for those who own or have owned earlier versions of the car selling sub-frame and other chassis braces is an easy sell. The older Camaros needed them. Your 5th Gen doesn't need chassis braces or triangulation unless you have installed a full race cage and intend to tie the additional braces to the cage.
Most Camaro owners never experience understeer and the OE Camaro does understeer when driven past 9/10s. Since this is true, we recommend only a front sway bar to reduce the lean and roll that some Camaro owners find objectionable. What we do recommend to ALL Camaro owners are radius and sub-frame bush inserts as the lowest hanging fruit to improve brake pedal feel, to remove that slight shudder in the steering wheel over bumps and sub-frame bush inserts to eliminate rear end step out. 90% of the people that own a Camaro will feel the difference and enjoy their cars more.
If you click on the 5th Gen Suspension book in my signature you can read a more detailed explanation of the 5th Gen suspension, brakes, wheels and tires. Bottom line, address the problem at the source and never put lipstick on a pig. It is still a pig and now looks silly with the lipstick.
www.PeddersUSA.com The Book on 5th Gen Suspension
