club.liberty.asn.au

Hey All,

Been thinking of upgrading the suspension of my spec B wagon, but dollars are tight so am thinking of gradually upgrading it bit by bit over time. The plan is to eventually replace the stock Billies and Kings Springs with coil overs, eg. Shock Works or MCA's (which I also understand do not need uprated sway bars), but as the car has travelled in excess of 230K kilometres I'm thinking other parts such as bushing etc will likely need upgrading too. I'll also be running stock post FL spec B wheels until such time as I'm happy with the suspension mods and then look at nice wheels to suit...

My questions are:
1. In which order should I pursue these upgrades? Should I look at replacing all the relevant bushings, end links etc first and then pull the trigger on coilovers OR should I buy the coilovers first and then do the bushings etc?
2. Is it better to do all the front bushings etc first and then the rear, vice versa or does it even matter?
3. Any recommendations on which bushings to go for? Are there any brands that are better than another? Whiteline, AVO for example? Any ones to avoid?

I'm happy to put up with the current set up until I can get coils so I'm not interested in replacing the springs with something else as a stop gap either.

I want to take a holistic approach to this (my OCD kicking in ) but am also happy to take my time to get it all done properly.

Thanks in advance.

My suggestion is

Get a set of shockworks from owen first

Enjoy them for a bit and decide if you still need to sharpen things up by doing bushings, RCA etc etc.

At 230k plus bushes will have certainly seen better days. I'd be looking at replacing/upgrading and worn or damaged bushes first. Install caster bushes in the LCAs and maybe even upgrade the steering rack bushes/mounts. There's generally no need for the front LCA bushes but check them anyway. Get the car back to square one before making improvements.

Once the car is up to spec then you can add a strut brace/lower brace, coilovers, and roll centre adjusting ball joints depending on how much low you want. If you aren't going lower than 25-30mm then stockers will be fine providing they are in good nick. Bracing is important as by running stiffer springs you are asking more of the mount points in your car as the stiffer springs will transfer more force to the body. Bracing the right places will force the spring to deal with the forces rather than flexing the body and give you a better ride.

I'm assuming that bushes in car are in good order, if not do at once.

Upgrade LCA's and Shockworks.
I use avo caster offset LCA's ...
See my profile for all the other schizz