Impala SS AutoX

iTrader: (21)

With the GENEROUS help of Chris Warner today, the JIC FLT A2s are now in my car!

Install wasn't bad, other than ONE bolt in back. Broke a Craftsman socket on it . Fished out the impact sockets, and managed to get it off of there. The $10 1/2" drive breaker bar (about 2 ft long) that I bought a couple weeks ago from Harbor Freight just paid for itself.

Initial impressions : they're stiff , but not too bad. Definitely will work on my "daily driver", even with the 8 kg springs (F) and 6 kg springs (R) that come with them.

We set the ride height down probably (and these are guesses) 1" in back and 1.5" in front from stock height. Car looks a lot "meaner" now, a good thing . No rubbing whatsoever on stock RE92s, but the real test will be my 17x7.5" Rotas with 215s (which should still clear)......need to swap back soon!

As for handling : I haven't pushed it much yet (still needs an alignment, we have it set for now with basically zero camber, max front caster, and didn't touch the Toe.....which APPEARS to be OK in front!) but the little I have pushed it was VERY grin inducing . Just point the car and it GOES! Amazingly, even with the "eyeballed" alignment the car tracks perfectly straight and does NOT pull!

One place we deviated from the "regular" way to install was on the camber plates in front. Basically, we swapped them (L one on the right side and vice versa.....note that JIC accidently shipped them assembled this way but we left it on purpose). Reason for doing this was that we could then put it to "max camber" which resulted in a "real world" setting of only about 0 camber (with camber bolts on the strut bottoms at full positive) however ALSO adding positive CASTER. I should be able to get back to about -1.5° camber in front with the bolts aligned right, and the extra caster definitely helps in powering out of corners (can tell that already!).

Only bummer is that I found my right front wheel bearings are starting to get a little loose . Nothing drastic yet, but I do need to get it into the dealer before too long and let the warranty work it's magic .

So, the real proof of their improvement will be at AutoX in a couple weeks. But so far I like them!

chrisw

iTrader: (1)

Ed, glad yo like them....

you know I was thinking, did we tighten the spring perches in front? I don't recall.

It will be interesting to see how the car handles when the struts are tuned with a decent alignment.

Impala SS AutoX

iTrader: (21)

Front spring perches are tight, but I think the "wheel bearing" might be the front alignment bolts not being torqued down (as there is a TINY bit of play in the front left as well).

I'll yank the wheels back off tomorrow night after work and check it all again.

I also want to try stiffer shock settings, as it is only at 5 (out of 16) right now. It's gonna be tough to remember that clockwise is STIFFER on my Impala SS shock adjustment (HAL QA1 shocks.....they make coilovers for lotsa stuff, but no WRX's yet....great quality and reasonably priced so lets hope they do move into the WRX game!), but SOFTER on these coilovers!

ravent

DON'T forget the corner weighting...that is the ONLY reason to get coil-overs. That must be done with the alignment or do the alignment again, when it is done. Once it is corner weighted there will be a permanent

stratos

iTrader: (4)

Ed, glad to hear you like em! See you on the 26th.

Impala SS AutoX

iTrader: (21)

Update : crawled back under there tonight, my "wheel bearing" was the strut bottom alignment bolts not being torqued enough to the spindle. Torqued 'em up, problem disappeared....whew .

Car goes in for alignment and corner weight on Thursday.

I should be at UCKK on 1/14 if anyone wants to see them.