What is the advantage (disadvantage) of changing over to coilover adj. shocks? Also, changing over to a rack & pinion system?
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Re: C3 Front Suspension
The main advantage is giving you something to talk about on the CF website. Won't do you much good during Flight Judging though............ -
Re: C3 Front Suspension
You get to spent a ton of money and guys at car shows might go WOW, but chances are they won't even notice as those parts are tough to see.
"Coilover" units allow quick on-the-car ride height changes and usually also offer on-the-car adjustable damping - at least rebound or both jounce and rebound on high quality units used for serious purpose built race cars. Upon removal the springs can be changed quickly from a usually wide variety of available rates. That's why they are universally used on purpose built race cars. They are quickly and easily "tunable" to adjust to specific tracks and track conditions.
Do you need this on a street car? I guess everyone has to answer that for themselves, but anyone who wants to go down this path should have a basic background in chassis engineering such as knowning how to select a ride frequency for a given application and must know all the suspension geometry dimensions, so spring rate to achieve the target ride frequency can be selected.
The OE recirculating ball steering gear is very good, and yours has probably never been touched. Maybe it's time for a good blueprint overhaul. If you farm it out to a pro it's maybe about 150-200 bucks if there are no major internal problems like a bad ball nut or sector. If you do it yourself and no major replacement parts are required, new seals, a sector shim kit, and grease is about 20 bucks.
There was a detailed article in The Corvette Restorer on manual steering gear overhaul about 18 months ago.
The fact of the matter is that these cars had pretty good suspension geometry, tuning, and steering systems when new, but many of these components are worn and in need of a good overhaul. Rather than "reengineering" (and in many cases the "engineering" is dubious), consider restoring the chassis and steering components to as new condition and performance. It's a lot cheaper and if done properly can make an old canterkerous car feel virtually new.
That said the two most important, but overlooked suspension components are TIRES and shocks, so I spare no expense to install the highest speed rated and highest grip tires availalbe and ADJUSTABLE bolt-on replacement shocks.
DukeComment
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T.U. Duke, will keep the old Suspension *NM*
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