Hey everyone, as alot of you have seen over this winter im upgrading and moding my v6 and wanted to get some responses. A few talked about upgrading the suspension and I just wanted to start a thread about upgrading It. What ACTUALLY goes into changing the suspension, what parts do you generally need, whats the best parts in people opinions? shocks, springs? prices? also lets hear the advantages and what people saw out of changing their suspension? Thanks everyone.

 

Wider rims with Z-rated tires improves the handling a lot as well as the looks, in my experience. As for the suspension, I would get bigger sway bars or get a set of nice high performance shocks if your car needs it.

 

The only mods done to my car (suspension-wise) as of now have made 100% improvement in performance. She's lowered about 2" (done by the previous owner, so I don't know what's in there) and have a BMR strut tower brace and some nice Kumhos. Never forget how important a good set of tires are. Lowering the car lowers the center of gravity, making you able to take turns faster and tighter. A lowered 4th gen looks far better than stock ride height, too. Plus it gives a cornering advantage. The strut tower brace was the best thing I've done to her suspension-wise so far. She used to lean and flex more in turns and I would get planted against the door. With that brace, she wants to lean, but then corrects herself right away so I don't get thrown against the door anymore. The brace is only about $100, I got mine off Summit and takes like 5 minutes to install. Suspension work is my next project after I get everything else engine-wise squared away, so other than that, I don't have anything else to offer from experience.

 

Z rated tires on a sixer? Really? That's actually a compliment. Z rated tires are for cars that go up to 149 mph+. They're not necessary for sixers. Plus they're expensive. H or V rated is more like it. My Kumhos are V rated. My set ran me $600. Modding a sixer is not the same as modding a v8, so you really need to let the experienced and sixers take care of the advice.

 

Haha, my advice is from my experience. Z rated tires are sticky as hell. Way stickier than my old V rated tires at any speed. It greatly improved my car's cornering abilities. I'm running on Nitto 555 Extreme ZR's and I recommend these to everybody. My tires were around $700 for 275-35-ZR 18's.

 

You keep referencing YOUR car. Your car is a V8. Mine and his are V6s. What works on your car is not going to work on our cars. These are two absolutely completely different vehicles. We have Buick engines and completely different set ups.

 

Speed rating has absolutely no bearing on traction. It is simply the tires ability to withstand high load, friction, and heat caused be speed. The higher the rating, the higher load and temperature it can handle before separating or bursting. The traction comes from the tread wear rating as well as the traction and temperature rating. I'm betting those nitto's are rated at 200 and probably AA for traction and A for temp. A rating like that means it will be sticky as hell, but will last only 15k miles if driven conservatively. As for a car that is governed to under 120mph, V rated tires are even a bit of overkill, but its nice to know that they can handle that. Any normal tire is rated from 380 to 500, which means it wont be as sticky but will last a while longer. I recomend to you Buffalo02Z28, that you know what youre talking about before typing any sort of repsonse. Thanks

 

Wow, I was just making suggestions to this guy because I've replied to a lot of his posts about his car. You guys don't have to try to start something with me every time I run into you in a thread, my prime example is Darling. Whatever, though. Anyways, I can't think of any name brand tire company that makes a Z-rated tire without a AA traction rating. Darling, the Z28 and some V6 Camaro models got very similar suspensions, depending on what suspension option that was selected by the buyer. The Z28 and V6 models even have the same brakes. The Z28 does have a little more weight in the nose because of the slightly heavier engine. So the two are similar in some ways.

 

So tell me, what experience do you have working on, rebuilding, and driving a 3.8 everyday?

 

I like how you say that you hate drama and arguments, but yet you try to create it. But if you really want to know what my experience with a V6 Camaro is, a friend mine used to own one. Then he traded it in for a 2006 LS2 GTO, very nice car BTW. He let me drive it like once. Haha, it was a white '00 year model with the hubcaps, very basic and plain looking. A cousin of mine owns a '00 Malibu with a V6. I don't know if its the same V6 as the ones in the 4th gen Camaro, but I think it uses the same architecture. This is all the experience that I have with GM V6's. I do know the 3.8 liter came out back in the 1960's and it was originally a Buick engine. By the time that it was put in the 4th gen Camaro, it was a corporate engine.