Bought this Base model 06 ZX3 back in 08 for a cheap daily driver. Drove it a few years, crashed it, let it sit for 5-6 years, got it back together and been driving it the last few years. Only has 88k miles on it.
Not going to be a Racecar. I'm still going to use it for a daily driver, just want to have a little more fun with it. Always liked the rally look and I tend to put some miles on the Gravel and back roads.
Going to be an ongoing project as I collect parts and work on it in stages so I can keep it on the road as much as possible. I'll put everything I do in this one thread to keep it consolidated.
Plan is to do The Norm's suspension setup.
SVT brakes and Sway Bars.
New Wheels and Tires
All new Suspension Bushings
Sound deadening the interior
Might get into some exhaust and a Tune eventually
I love my energy suspension bushings! I've replaced the bar end links and rear sway bar bushings along with the rear lower motor mount bushings. Replacing the crapola rubber with the polyurethane in that rear lower motor mount I noticed the biggest difference. Shifts were better, felt quicker, I think it's the best bang for the buck.
Hate to bump an old thread, but these spacers are exactly what I need and I'm not allowed to PM since I just joined. Do you have any more of these left, Dave?
Front end is back together and feels good. New SVT Struts, ZX3 Springs with Pre-Load Spacers, SVT Swaybar with Poly bushings, and Poly Control Arm Bushings.
So for the front-you are running SVT struts,stock zx3 springs-plus your spacer?
How thick is the spacer-as far as lift?
I ask because I ran the old discontinued ST spacers pictured here:
These look to be quite a bit less lift than your spacers.
I ran them on the shorter SVT front springs as that is what I had on the car, I wanted the increased rate over zx3 springs ,and was concerned about droop travel.
My Tokico struts had confirmed travel same length as stock zx3 struts.
I forget the exact droop travel-but it was good.
I can't find SVT strut extended to collapsed measurements but it certainly isn't going to be any longer than stock-most likely the same or less.
I would guess the same as a zx3 stocker.
If you are running stock travel front struts with the tall ZX3 stock springs plus your tall spacers-I'll bet you have almost no droop.
Topping out your suspension all the time or even over regular size bumps sucks and seriously affects traction and handling-plus the car rides like crap.
You might want to check that.
When I dumped my svt spring/spacer combo for a custom spring I factored that in and jacked the car up and measured my droop.
It was a hair less than calculated but close enough and worked well.
Yes, droop was on my mind before you mentioned it. I just haven't gotten that far. This is my daily driver so I just put it together and got it back on the road.
Will be tweaking some things for sure.
I've done a lot of suspension work in my Desert Racing Days. Grew up in the Desert racing Bikes/Trucks/Buggies.
This is dealing with much less wheel travel though.
Has about 1-1/2" of droop which is not enough. With about 6" total travel I'd like to have a minimum of 2" droop. 2.5" might be better.
(stock ZX3 droop should be around 2-5/8")
I got it to top out over some bigger bumps yesterday. Definitely clunks hard when it tops out.
I'm also seeing the toe change you mentioned. Exiting a corner hard definitely feel the bind/release/bind/release as you described it. I didn't make any alignment adjustments after adding the new struts and spacers. I'll check Toe this weekend. Also look like I have more positive camber at this ride height. Might need some Camber Plates. Also I think the suspension is topping out on hard cornering on the inside wheel and contributing to this.
I found some SVT front Springs to try. Thinking I'll make a thinner spacer (like the thickness of the plastic ones you posted).
Will make some spacers for the top of the strut mount as well to get the ride height back where I like it. This will give me more droop, but not more total travel. Will just be moving where it sits in the travel. Might be a good thing with bigger tires to move the whole strut down to give a little more tire clearance on bottom out.
Actually the suspension techniques black coated spacers I had(.80)were aluminum.
Since svt springs drop the car 1/2-3/4" ,adding the .80 spacers put the car pretty close to stock height but with the better svt rate.
I was super happy with that set-up and ran 4 events with good results.
Only reason I ordered up custom front springs(taller/stiffer) was because when the course got rutted up I was bottoming pretty badly.
I forgot the height/rate I ordered but just looked it up on my old posts-copy and paste from my rallyx post:
"The new set-up(taller front springs@175 Lbs/inch,disconnected front sway bar,rear H&R 24mm sway bar) is awesome!
Slightly more tail-happy than before-but very controllable.
No more bottoming in front!
Measured front droop at 2.25" before race-don't know if anything settled more during race-I'll check again tomorrow.
I was worried that the droop wasn't enough-but that's close enough to the 30% droop I was after and I don't notice any topping out over anything.
I've got quite a bit of uptravel now(for a standard stroke strut anyway) so ruts don't bother me and better ground clearance too.
I was worried the 1" taller than ZX3 front springs would upset the handling and make the car lean,but upping the front spring rate to 175 seems to have taken care of that."
Since I was running adjustable Tokico HTS-I did play with the settings.
On the street I would turn them down a bit.
I listened to others saying don't go too stiff on dirt,so initially went a little stiffer on the front and kinda stiff on the rear.
But back of the car was jumping all over the place/banging around so I went full stiff on the back and it was better.
But I was bottoming out pretty hard in front when the course got chewed up so eventually went full stiff on all 4 corners and left it there for the remainder of the season while racing.
When I got the new front springs I did the same-but I noticed with the new springs when I dialed down the fronts back to cushy street setting that the struts were indeed topping out coming out of driveways or going over speed bumps,so I had to stiffen them up a couple turns and that took care of it.
Hopefully your svt dampers will have enough compression/rebound to control your suspension once you get your ride height/droop set the way you want.
I'm really thinking I don't want to over spring it by going any stiffer than an SVT spring on the SVT strut.
Did your shocks have separate adjustment for Comp/Reb? Or did it adjust both with 1 knob?
I also have to keep reminding myself I'm not building a racecar. Its my Daily Driver LOL. But also if things are not right, it will bug me......
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