- Joined
- Jun 18, 2001
- Messages
- 2,146
Go tell that to the Mustang and Camaro road race guys.
There was a huge thread over on the MonteSS forums a while back. A guy went in and measured all the front suspension geometry, and he's working on a C5 front spindle conversion to fix most of the geometry problems.
The suspension just isn't designed right. Roll Center height is five inches underground (ideally the RCH would be at the same point as the center of gravity, which is several inches ABOVE ground). The stock arms can't be set up to give you a lot of static camber, and the camber curve for the stock arms goes positive as the suspension compresses. It should go negative.
All of this is fixable. The B body spindles help, but they introduce some bumpsteer. Chevy truck upper ball joints with the stock spindles will raise the roll center height to ground level or a little above, depending on how your springs sit. Adjustable upper A arms can fix the camber issues. You can get 1200 lb/in springs that will fit from a stock car parts catalog. You can dump spherical bearings in place of the rear control arm bushings to eliminate the bind. Make a good spring descision and get some good shocks and set it all up right, and it'll handle.
However, all of that still won't change the fact that the car weighs the better part of two tons. I've autocrossed my GN. On the stock suspension, it would just push or spin, depending on throttle input. I've redone the whole suspension, and now it sticks great, but it MELTS the front tires because the damn thing is so farking heavy. Changing the direction of that much mass generates a lot of heat.
And for the record, it will NEVER be able to compete with a Z06. If anybody tells you, "Just bolt some stuff on and you can take a Z06 with your G-body," slap them.
I own a 1970 Datsun 240Z. it has all of 150 horsepower. On a course the fastest corvette runs 30 seconds on, I'd do 35 seconds in the Z, and about 38 in the Buick. That's same driver, same course, I can beat myself with a car that has 1/3rd the hosepower, 1/2 the tires, but it weighs 2100 pounds instead of 3600.
You get them on a road course and the Buick's power is going to start closing the gap... until you have to stop. Then the G-body's brakes boil over and you hit a wall.
