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1994-2002 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
The stock rubber/blubber bushings contribute to the steering geometry 'deflecting' from the loads imposed during a turn. So yes it would be a definate difference. Worth the money? That depends on what you want. To take advantage of such things, you need tires that stick to the pavement to challenge the suspension. You could get your indy to install these things. Yes the new arms come with bushings, but they have to be removed, and that is a descructive process. Ask your indi first. He will need a shop press and tools of destruction.
When I had the VRK installed on my 95SET, it made a huge difference. It felt like both tires were really hauling ass. It was like the inside front tire never did any work before and was just along for the ride. With the VRK the steering worked very hard and the outside tire would not bury itself and plow as before. The SAS sway bar then made it all more controllable. The VRK did include the rack brace and brace bar. I did not find that it made a major difference, but I did have the 'fat rack'(tm) :) I did not replace the later arm to SF bushing, not part of the VRK. The VRK SF brace was a single bar that was damaged twice then removed. I guess I did not notice its effects to a great extent. But I am probably not that good of a road driver to pick up on that. But there have been some very interesting posts by those who have put on other braces.
As for tower braces; the front has one already. The forces on the tops of the front towers from the struts have smallish lateral force components and a tower brace offers almost no resistance to vertical deflections. And a front tower brace also cannot reduce twisting distortion. Only defections that attempt to change the distance across the tops of the towers can be minimized. The front towers are close the firewall and do not have huge weaknesses. With equal lateral loads on the front tires, the tower tops would tend to move in unison and again the added brace would just go along for the ride. So such a thing would work mostly for differences in lateral or differential tire patch loads. So I don't know what to think about what this might do. The rest of the system might have to be quite refined to appreciate the effects. Uneven pavement might make the changes show up.
As for the rear, the loads imposed by the rear suspenstion on the towers are only the shock forces. Because of the simple bushing mounted shocks, there will be zero lateral loads imposed on the tower tops. The vehicle dead weight comes through the springs that do not transmit any forces through the shock towers. For a smooth road and smooth turns the shock loads would be very small and that would not twist the vehicle. A brace bar across the rear shock towers would not resist any twisting. The brace would need to be triangulated from the top to the bottom of the towers which would mess up the utility of the cargo area. A brace with triagles at the towers but with a straight tube alone going across will also not be effective. That tube will deflect. The triangles need to go from upper attachments to the lower attachments on the other side. A box with a big X in it, but the lower cross member might not be needed. And the rear shock towers are well integrated into the stiffness of the lower seat frame that is very close. So these areas are not structually weak. Also, with a SAS type rear sway bar, the chassis roll is greatly reduced and overall chassis twist will be reduced by that. But with a CV, the body twist will be relatively huge and resistance in this area will simply pile up deflections in the floor pan.
The front 6 point SF brace is affordable and seems to be best of whats is avialable. So it would help with any vehicle. But again, you need to challenge the system to get the benefit. But I suspect that when you find out what it can do, you will enjoy the way the vehicle can turn.
Remember to replace the upper mounts if doing the shocks, that is not an option. ARE YOU DOING THE SHOCKS? Weak shocks will not complement the other changes. But the amount of labor overlap of the swaybar/arm/bushings work with shock and upper mount is very small. Amounts to removal of the wheel and poping the ball joint taper. So you could to at a later time if need be.
With the sway bar, there is much less body roll, and that eliminates many steering geometry distortions that come with body roll. It makes a huge difference. Probably more important as a next step than a SF brace. With the poly bushings and rear sway bar, things will be very tight. I suggest living with that and putting tower braces on the back burner for future consideration.
I have not seen any power mods listed, done or wish list. One nice thing about going fast into a curve and out again is a fast exit. A MBC+A is very affordable and other compementry stuff is mostly DIY, except for the Saab Sports Exhaust which will set you back around $350. That is a DIY that many have done. And again you need good performance tires to get everything connected to the pavement. If you can't or will not buy performance tires, perhaps you should scale back to more modest suspension mods and stick to front bushings/shocks/mounts and rear swaybar for now. You can aways do things later. Or do the mods and get the better tires when the current ones are used up. All of this boils down to improving what you can get out of the tire contact patch, and the tire itself is a big part of that. However, suspension mods would make any tire work better.
posted by 68.95....
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