rnail

I finished the install of the Steeda Sport Springs, Steeda Dampers, G-track Brace, Panhard Bar and Brace and Steeda Heavy Duty Strut Mount/Bearings. My impressions:

A fair amount of work, but very doable if you have worked on autos before or have reasonable mechanical skills. I worked on it in several shifts with my 13 yr old son (an extra set of hand which came in very handy at times). We really enjoyed it together.It took about 8 hours total with a few breaks and cleanup both days. I had to rent a spring compressor (easy), purchase a newtorquewrench and a new jack (myalmost 20 yr oldCraftsman would lift the car, but it would slowly start drifting down). I already have a 15 Gal air compressor and an impact wrench and sockets. Thanks to all on the sitefor answering questions and to TacoBill for hisillustrated how to's.

1) The Steeda Heavy Duty Strut Mount/Bearing is a real quality piece. Gives the car a very solid feel. No more loose feeling bearing chatter or popping over road imperfections, just smooth/solid feel. Also, it even hasallignment arrows that you can see through the sight holes in the strut tower to get it pretty close before bringing in for allignment. My car tracks real straight first attempt.

2) Steeda has done their homework with the Sport Springs and Proaction shocks. These are Tokicos that steeda spent 2 1/2 yrs perfecting the valving to work with their springs. I took my car out on a bad 2 lane blacktop road today, and was doing about 60 and the car was just sucking up all the bumps. Much more solid and controlled body motions, no more unnerving floaty feel. The ride isslightly more firm or rather solid feeling, but no increase in NVH, no jittering. The brake dive is moderately reduced and the car corners flat but supple. For those of you debating between the Ultralights and the Sports, I would choose the sports any day - a very good optimization IMHO.

3) The car dropped about 1 1/4" in the rear and not quite an inch in front.The center of the wheel wells sit at 28 1/4" above ground rear and 28" above in front -Perfect IMO.With the drop, my car body shift about 1/8 of an inch left, which is negligible. I have not adjusted the panhard bar to reset this yet. Nevertheless, this will be easy and the adj. panhard bar makes the rear feels so much more solid.

Whats next???? UCA's, LCA's, Sway Bars, .... Wipple ..... appearance mods? My son wants me to do a shaker hood.

ChiDiddy

sounds great! i'm about to start on my suspension as well as soon as the car comes in

some questions:
-Steeda Sports are 1" drop all around right? i'm going with Ultralites b/c its 1" front/1.25 rear.
-Are HD strut mounts really needed? i'm not familiar with adjusting it, so will the alignment shop be more familiar? Also, will it get in the way of adjustable shock's ****? (i'm goimg with D-specs)

Thanks!

I think you should get LCA's next. Most say that it is the first thing to replace suspension-wise and its the source of wheel hop and such. Perhaps the adjustable tierod/poly combo LCA? i'm going with BMR's.

ren274u

They advertise the same drop height, but the guys at steeda told me the ultralite is slightly lower, but handling is better with the sports. I have the heavy dutystrut mounts and dspecs, they work fine together.

rnail

ChiDiddy,

I did not take great measurements before/after but I believe mine dropped about just slight less than inch up front and 1 1/4 in rear. See above, but car has only about 1/4 inch rake back to front now.

From all impressions I have been able to garner the Sports are about 5% stiffer than Ultralights. That said, I could have gone firmer and probably not paid much of a ride penalty. I like what I have done.

As far asHD strut mounts go, you may or may not be able to get your car into proper alignment after the spring install. Also, you seem to want to be able to adjust your shocks for different driving, you may also want to adjust your camber as well. Youwould like to at least be able to getback to factory camber specs of-0.75 +/- 0.5. For good cornercarvingstreet driving without introducing inner tirewear most suggest (including Steeda) -1.25 as themax negative camber. For roadcoarse racing, some would go -2.0to -3.0. Some people have found that,after installing mild springs such as Steeda's, they can get back to factory settings.However, some cannot. One solution is Camber Bolts. Theseare somewhat of a suboptimal "band-aid" fix IMO.

Your going to need to get your car aligned anyway after the install. The HD strut mounts make this alot easier and there is no need for the "cluge" solution of camber bolts. The HD mounts are the "correct" solution. Its as simple as loosening the 4 strut mount bolts on top of the strut tower and sliding the strut to proper alignment and then tightening them back down. Once installed, then appear from the engine bay "OE" and wouldnotget in the way of the D-spec adjust ***. Also,thiseliminated my OE strutmount chatter that so many of us with 2005 - early 2007 GT's have with thevery cheap factory mounts.

Hope this helps.

ChiDiddy

that explanation definitely cleared up a lot! thanks a lot!

so with the HD strut mounts, the camber bolts will not be needed? Will the alignment shop be able to adjust it?

So Sports are favored over the Ultralites in handling? Care to share pics of your car now dropped? I'm also considering the Pro-kit.

ren274u

Yes sports offer slightly better handlingand with the strut mount you wont need cambe bolts.

rnail

Alignment shop will have a much easier time aligning with the adjustible HD strut mounts than with camber bolts. The camber bolts are behind the wheel where the spindle attaches to the strut. The HD mounts are simply adjusted by loosening the 4 strut tower bolts on top. Open the hood and see them on both sides, very easy.

I'll post pics as soon as I wash the car and figure out how to upload.

ChiDiddy

tinypic.com and use the IMG tags.

GotMunchies?

I'm currently in the process of installing my Tokico's, and I'm having qualms about the upper rear strut fasteners (in the trunk). It seems like I can't get to 30ft-lbs now matter how long I torque. I can tell that it gets more difficult over time, but it is taking forever. Did I do anything wrong? Have I screwed the pooch? Or does it just take a decade to tighten those fasteners down?

rnail

I couldn't do it either since at some point the force was enough to turn the shock piston (no more tightening at that point)and I had no way to hold the shock nipple and put my torque wrench on at the same time. I then turned to the old fashion way. I used one rachet to hold the nipple and a racheting box wrench on the upper bolt. I torqued the bolt down until the rubber bushing squished outward enough for the rubber to be approximately even with theoutside edge of theupper mounting washer.