Hey guys, I know this is an older post, with a lot of good info. I need some help getting my new SS down a little in stance.




As you can see, it looks like a log truck with stock suspension. I am looking for good ride quality and about a 2/3 drop. The car has 245/45-17's on it and from what I have gathered, I have come up with this plan.

Looking at Moog 5560 or 5562 front springs with 1/2 coil cut and the Classic Performance RCS6034-2 2" drop springs out back. I also aill have poly spring isolators on hand if I need to pick it back up a little bit, and using ZQ8 front bump stops on the rear. Will Monroe Sensa-Tracs, KYB GR-2's or Bilstiens work with this spring setup or will I need to use drop shocks like Nitro 2's? I plan on putting all new bushings and U-joints in the rear to eliminate the G-Body shuffle and hopefully not have any vibration.

Once I get this sorted out, will come the 98> Blazer front Disc swap and rear discs. My goal is to have a good handling road car that sticks and brakes well.

For the front, I would use 5660's and trim them as necessary.

For the rear, good question. I'm still researching that myself.

The way I am reading the spring chart is that the 5660 is very close at compressed height of the stock HDSS spring. But am curious of the ride quality of the 5660 vs 5662. Don't want any roll or leaning...

I guess I want my Monte to handle like an IROC....lol

Your car is going to roll or lean no matter what spring you put under it. Some just less than with others. If you don't want it to roll, you need to go with a stiffer sway bar setup.

I've ran the 5660 before (uncut) and it was very much the same ride as with the stock springs.

I think a better setup for you would be the Detroit Speed 2" drop springs. They are a 575# spring up front and 125# spring out back and lower both the front and the back approx 2".

Here's what my car looked like with them installed.

What size tire are you running Lance? What sway bars are you running? F-Body front bar help?

Well, I've kinda been all over the board with both of those questions... Should I answer as it sits now or as it sat in those pics from 2 years ago?

The 36mm F-body sway bar is a fine upgrade and works well. I raced with one most of this year in fact. I'm now running a much stiffer Ridetech musclebar...and my car still leans a bit too much on the autocross course.

In that pic above I had 245/40/17s up front and 275/40/17s out back. I've always ran a tire around 25.5" tall which is close to a stock height tire.

I ran the DSE springs for a year or so and they work VERY well. Eric (406monte) bought them from me and has them on his car and I'm sure he'll vouch for them as well.

Lance, I really like the pics with the DSE 2" drop, but I think I am going to try to achieve it using the 5562 springs trimmed accordingly and the Classic Perf 2" drop springs. and use the F-Body 36mm sway bar. What is your current setup or the setup shown in the pic at speed in your sig?

I'm running Ridetech triple adjustable coil over shocks now so I can adjust any corner of the car to basically any height I want.

I've actually raised it back up some from the height it was at with the DSE springs in order to get more suspension travel for racing.

Took this last week



Front fender lip is at about 25.75" at the center of the spindle and the rear fender lip is at 26.75" with me sitting in the driver seat.

I'm curious, has anyone else tried the full belltech setup? It seems so much simpler and designed for the actual vehicle than to start piecing together parts from different vehicles.

I understand as a form from when there was n't much aftermarket suspension stuff for the G body, or in a specific racing application that you would fabricate and piece together a system.

Why does it seem most people stay away from the Bell tech gear all around?

Thanks!

- Brandon

People piece together their own kits to get different ride feel and levels of drop.

The Belltech springs might not be stiff enough for someones liking, and etc.

I understand that as well. Maybe the better question is "Are there any reasons to avoid the Belltech equipment?"

My monte was given to me for graduation from my mother who bought it off my grandfather. I don't really beat the piss out of it, and probably will never track this car. She's more of a garage queen.

But switching from my BMW to the monte when spring showed its face, the car turns deathy scary doesn't handle for garbage. I'd consider this a daily driver for the summer. Maybe will see a drag track once in a while after i install a new engine later down the road.

So my mindset is pretty simple when it comes to the suspension. I would like it to perform more modern and handle better, while dropping it a little lower to the ground.

I believe from what all I've read is with the 3" drop all the way around i wont have any clearancing issues either?

Sorry if my previous post came off high nosed, thats far from the case.

- Brandon

I thought I would comment incase anyone was curious what the 3" drop spring does

this is stock spindles, cut stock spring in the front and 3" a-body drop spring rear, rears are VERY SHORT about 8 or 9" at rest, not sure how they are going to work at the track but I love the stance of the car now.

that's a 275/60/15 in the rear and a 215/60/15 iirc in the front

also it has a bigblock so that probably can attribute to some of the drop up front

Anyone got and part numbers for rear springs that will drop the ss? I just ordered moog 5658 (s10) front springs which should give a 0.5 inch drop without and cutting and i intend to try and then cut as necessary to get the nose of my ss down a bit. Want to fit drop spindles at some point so might not take more than 1-2 coils off unless i opt to change springs whenever i get around to drop spindles.

I need to find something for the rear to drop it enough but not so much i run into problems with vibration in the rear. Would that be about 2.5 inches roughly or can i go 3?

My car (88', 45k miles) is all factory arms, bushings, sway bars, etc.... And is lowered 3" F/R and it has zero vibrations at 80mph

I lowered mine with 1" Belltech front springs, 2" Belltech spindles and a rear coilover kit from QA1 (the shocks and springs are spec'd by qa1 for 3" of the rear drop)

So wanted to contribute to this thread as it had useful information.

I started my journey with UMI 2" lowering springs all around and despite Ramey being awesome, I was very not pleased with the rear lowering. It was maybe 1" on my monte (from stock) and it hasn't been tweaked from factory.

And ultimately I wanted a 3" drop.
I cut the front 2" UMI lowering springs (2 full free height inches / coils) down a ton and got my 3.1 inch drop on the front.

I put the A body Chevelle 2" lowering springs into the rear of my monte and, before any settling, they have dropped it 3".
That's with subwoofers and an amp in the back.
The A Body springs are not quite as stiff as the UMI springs and are around 1" shorter.
This is on a Monte Carlo 86 CL, not SS. With a 350 V8.
So I can wholeheartedly recommend the rear CL A body springs (customer service guy is awesome as well), and I can recommend the UMI front springs but you'll likely have to cut them.

Here's a picture of the stance with 28.1 tires all around.