Springs, Struts, Swaybars, Bushings, Tower Braces & more
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By BLaCkSiLo
#116622 Alright, so over the last week and a half or so, i got the energy master bushing kit (Black) along with some Brand New Sk2 Sport Shocks, a ghetto e-bay camber kit i bought off of craigslist and a new used Steering rack. So this was my project for the next however long.

i paired the Sk2 sport shocks with the sk2 springs/coilover setup, i got the energy trailing arm bushings along with the master kit. the steering rack was a junkyard special which looked really good.

so in short, i replaced the steering rack, the front and rear bushings, installed the sport shocks/springs and drove it to work. (with the shitty front camber kit installed)

got the car aligned on friday, but here is where its complicated to explain and very hard for me to understand: it seems like the car is sloppy, now yesterday, i re-tightened every bolt i touched in the process to spec, even the shock bolt. I ALSO took off the shitty ebay camber kit, put in the poly bushings in the upper arms and re-installed everything back to stock with some tighter feeling ball joints and didn't influence the camber hardly at all.

the car seems to wander even more now, i kind of have to hold on to the wheel. is this normal for the energy kit, it's really weird feeling like the right and left are moving independently of each other. it does track straight but i guess the feeling is like driving on grooved pavement on the freeway with bad bushings.... did i do something wrong, miss a step or just not get that memo?

to the people who have installed these, how does the car perform before and after? i mean its better in the corners for sure, but just driving in the ruts on the freeway, it's all over the place, i'm out of ideas so anything would help...sorry for long-winded post, i'm sure i skipped something but anything would help, *What would a bad ball joint feel like/act like? that's about the only thing i did not replace....

Thanks,
James
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By teal_dx
#117728 lowering your car is going to make it more likely to follow ruts and imperfections in the road. Especially with wider low profile tires. Sounds like the alignment wasn't perfect, the car may have settled more after the first alignment causing additional toe out.
Was it better after the 2nd alignment?
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By BLaCkSiLo
#117744
teal_dx wrote:lowering your car is going to make it more likely to follow ruts and imperfections in the road. Especially with wider low profile tires. Sounds like the alignment wasn't perfect, the car may have settled more after the first alignment causing additional toe out.
Was it better after the 2nd alignment?


oh man, it was like night and day after the second alignment. i had already lowered my car previously on some shitty e-bay coilover so i knew the pull of the roads and stuff on bad bushings...this thing felt unsafe as you were driving, like you could feel one side of the car move if you hit a pot hole and not the other. but she's all good now and let me tell you a cornering son of a gun hah :woot: