[78 GHOST]

I'm going to jump in here and mention a couple of things I've picked up through various sources. Old shocks/struts will give the impresson of "bottoming out" as they no longer resist displacement. Change your shocks.

In my opinion, you are chasing two separate, but not completely unrelated problems. #1 Ride quality #2 Unbearable squeaks and rattles.

#1 When the chassis has an undesirable amount of movement from neutral, you have introduced a secondary element in the handling problem. The ideal would be to have a chassis that resisted torsional displacement perfectly, and then the suspension only had to react to the irregularities of the roadway. Not of the roadway and the chassis.

The problem we face with these F-Bodys is that from day one, they had undesirable amounts of chassis displacement. Therefore, I feel that the first step in solving any bad handling trait, is to tie the chassis together as much as possible. To me, this means subframe connectors and beefing up all structural areas subject to distortion. If you don't believe these cars flex, jack one front wheel up about 8-12" and then try to open a door, you get the idea. The suspension can only do so much! What you need to do is to allow the suspension to only react to the road, and not to chassis deflection.

Things to consider in tightening up the chassis: Subframe connectors, body bushings, firewall braces, and fender braces.

Once you have a tight chassis, you can actually run a softer rate spring that will give a more pleasing ride. Then, go with the biggest anti-swaybar you can find. Big swaybars and soft springs result in a good ride that handles excellent. At this point, you can pick your shocks to suit your tastes.

#2 Think about this for a minute, when you put higher rate springs, and really stiff shocks on the car in an effort to get it to handle, you will invariably develop more squeaks and rattles than before.. you're simply removing the "give" in the suspension. This will transmit all road irregularities to the body, resulting in squeaks and rattles in components that were borderline before you tightened the suspension up.

I'm not implying there is any solution to squeaks and rattles, other than simply getting into the car and tightening things up.

When Jaguar (not Ford) was developing the (first) 3.8S, they discovered that the chassis was stiffer than anticipated, and had to run soft rate springs to reduce the harshness. If you've ever driven one of these cars, you know they aren't a dog in the corners, and they ride quite nicely.

Hopefully this will be useful, -Matt

____________________________________
Much love out to my Peeps

[bobzdar]

It depends on what you are after handling wise. The best solution if you can't handle a roughish ride is to get soft springs and put large sway bars on. You will have close to the same if not more lateral grip, with the only real problem being a little slower response and nose diving under braking (which can be helped by firm shock damping). My car has ws6 springs in good shape and the ride honestly does not feel that harsh (and I have quite worn shocks). I get rattles on big bumps, but it comes almost exclusively from the damn exhaust which I have to re-hang. I don't have t-tops, though.

Tires are 255/60 Viper tr's on 15x8 snowflakes. My biggest complaint is the damn steering which has pretty much no feedback and is way overboosted.

My suggestion would be to put rubber body and suspension bushings on with poly sway bar bushings, soft springs and large sway bars with good shocks set to higher damping. The car should ride nice and still have a lot of cornering grip with the only sacrifice being you won't be able to slalom as quickly, and front end dive shouldn't be bad at all provided you have high bump damping.

[chucks79ta]

Don't forget these cars came with rubber bushings for a reason and when they where new they rode great. Thats because the rubber bushings and unibody design absorbs the bumps. When you put on poly bushings your going to get a harsher ride for everyday driving. I personally started switching to poly bushings in August at the body mounts and rear sub. I was happy with the tight ride and I am now currently working on the front.

If I have too live life on my knees I'd rather die on my feet.

[80TA]

Time for a bit of an update guys.So far I put in those new moog 8002 springs,put in new ball joints and new tie rod ends.Then I posted after that.I then kept going and put in new polygraphite control arm bushings and polygraphtie bushings for front sway bar and endlinks and did the back sway bar with same type of stuff all polygraphite.

I drove the car with that stuff done and the car did seem to handle much better but ride was pretty awful still.It did kind of feel like no shocks or springs.I think I have some shocks left as the car doesn't bounce and bounce when I do the push down on the car test.But sure they have seen better days.The back springs I think have seen one change in the 23 year life of the car.They car doens't seem to sag at all in the back.They are mega rusty and the bushings under the springs are totally gone but think there is still some spring there.

Anyway the polgraphite did help the handling.The car handles pretty darn good considering its not dropped from stock height and the sway bars are stock size ws6.I have the 15 by 8 draglites and
fairly new kumos although 225/70/15 in back and 205/70/15 in front.So the too narrow fronts and so so backs dont' help the handling as much as they could.STill the car is way tightened up with all the polygraphite stuff and not harsh at all from that.

Next I got mad and replaced the two front rad bushings with polygraphite.Changing just these two body bushings has made a huge improvement in the car both handling and most noticeably ride.Its much much better already and the back four are basically totally gone so now are fairly confident that with changing those the ride will be greatly improved.I just got some new 255/60/15 firehawk indy 500 which are supposed to have great ride and be super quiet also and will install them probably next spring.Car is going away for winter in a week or two.

I will install my subframe connectors right after I get the new bushings in and pretty sure that will cure a lot of rattles and remaining squeaks.I also still plan on new shocks but still can't decide between say the edelbrocks which are supposed to give a great ride and good handling or the qa1 which should be great all around..likely still get the qa1's just maybe
have to get backs and then later fronts due to the price of the qa1's.Are they overkill probably but there is no other adjustable shock for our cars that can be adjusted quickly at the track ,etc.

I don't mind the kyb agx 8 way adjustables on my 99 but they aren't made for the 80.Also calvert said they modify the rancho to work on our cars.
So anyway I can live with the ride of my car even right now with just the front bushings in there.

So my advice is get the new bushings in the car..and I would still go polygraphite.I really dont' think they make the car ride harsh at all.
I did have some very negative experiences with poly tranny mounts on my 99 and 97 trans ams.

I went to 1le rubber one on that car.I am not sure about poly or polygraphite motor mounts either but guys seem to be relatively happy running solid motor mounts and they should be
more vibration absorbing than them.

I also have poly bushings on my 99 on sway bars,control arms,panhard and lowering springs and kyb agx shocks.Ride is still pretty decent of course the new cars do ride better and don't have anywhere near the problems with rattling windows and doors and stuff that the old cars do.
I did spend quite a bit of time on eliminating rattles on my 80 with some success.I will spend some more time.

Anyway its not hopeless but the body bushings do seem to have a pretty big effect on ride and handling.And as for rubber being so great..well its almost totally rotted out everywhere in the car..whether it be bodybushings or weatherstrip.
Of course it is a 23 year old car.

80TAWS6,400,edelbrock carb,accel wires,dual exhaust,dynomax mufflers,3.42 strange gears,turbo 400,B&M converter/shift kit/etc., polygraphite everywhere,draglites.
14.24 at 97.40mph 2.21 60ft tazzo vpc.
1900 ft altitude.
99TAWS6 ..lots of mods.13.35 at 109 2.27 60ft tazzo vpc.
96 Z28 camaro vert,14.66 at 98.3 with 2.47 60ft

[OneTaLuvr]

Thanks 78Ghost I will look into all of your suggestions. I just bought new door strikers and Im working on getting new Body Bushings.

I have replaced everything in the front end including shocks. I went with Small block Hotchkis Springs with a 2 inch drop. The height of the car is perfect, Im hoping the springs arent the problem, because these cant be returned but if it takes another 150 to buy new springs to fix this issue Im all for it. I am very aware that a TA has a firm ride, but the ride Im getting is definitely not charateristic of the TA's Ive had in the past. I might also look into the subframe connectors, but Im trying to follow the cheapest routes first. Thanks for jumping in, anyone that has advice Im all ears, that is after all what these boards are about!