One of our new sponsors, Performance Suspension Technology (www.p-s-t.com), wanted to get a little exposure for their products. They offered to trade a Polygraphite® Super Front End Kit for a write-up, I volunteered. My 70 Chevelle is a daily driver, complete with dirt, old grease, dented headers, etc. I did a complete frontend rebuild back in '89 when I added the big 1 5/16" bar and disc brakes. It had about 130K on it then, I've put
another 160K on the car since then, for some reason some of the parts installed in '89 seemed to be a little worn.
On this build I'll point out a couple pitfalls a guy might run across and a couple differences between my car and others.
Upshot is that my car now handles like about like a good Gen 2 Camaro/Firebird which is pretty good. Responsive, stable, sticks like glue. It has that solid feeling I've been looking for. I did a DIY alignment, it has about 1° negative camber, 4-5° caster, 1/16" toe-in. Yeah, I realize it still has a below ground level roll center because I didn't change to a tall spindle setup, but I'm mostly concerned about how it drives, not what it pulls on a 200ft circle.
For the purposes of this write-up I rounded up another set of A-arms since my originals had the oval bushings in the lowers and I wanted to get rid of them. We installed the upper and lower ball joints, upper and lower bushings, upper A-arm crosshafts, inner and outer tie rods and adjusting sleeves, idler arm, center or drag link, stabilizer bar mount bushings and end links. The car already has a fresh steering box.
I'm glad to report that there no problems with any of the PST parts, everything just fit. This is a link to the kit: http://www.p-s-t.com/p-3786-chevrolet-chevelle-malibu-el-camino-1964-88.aspx along with the centerlink http://www.p-s-t.com/p-523-chevrolet-chevellemonte-carlo-1968-72.aspx
Here's the car: (green cars live forever)
![Image]()
Jacked up and on heavy duty stands
![Image]()
Here's the stock worn out front suspension:
![Image]()
Stabilizer bar dropped:
![Image]()
another 160K on the car since then, for some reason some of the parts installed in '89 seemed to be a little worn.
On this build I'll point out a couple pitfalls a guy might run across and a couple differences between my car and others.
Upshot is that my car now handles like about like a good Gen 2 Camaro/Firebird which is pretty good. Responsive, stable, sticks like glue. It has that solid feeling I've been looking for. I did a DIY alignment, it has about 1° negative camber, 4-5° caster, 1/16" toe-in. Yeah, I realize it still has a below ground level roll center because I didn't change to a tall spindle setup, but I'm mostly concerned about how it drives, not what it pulls on a 200ft circle.
For the purposes of this write-up I rounded up another set of A-arms since my originals had the oval bushings in the lowers and I wanted to get rid of them. We installed the upper and lower ball joints, upper and lower bushings, upper A-arm crosshafts, inner and outer tie rods and adjusting sleeves, idler arm, center or drag link, stabilizer bar mount bushings and end links. The car already has a fresh steering box.
I'm glad to report that there no problems with any of the PST parts, everything just fit. This is a link to the kit: http://www.p-s-t.com/p-3786-chevrolet-chevelle-malibu-el-camino-1964-88.aspx along with the centerlink http://www.p-s-t.com/p-523-chevrolet-chevellemonte-carlo-1968-72.aspx
Here's the car: (green cars live forever)
Jacked up and on heavy duty stands
Here's the stock worn out front suspension:
Stabilizer bar dropped:
