i think i will be fine with a car that oversteers, i have driven 3 4th gen camaros out of which 2 did not have any form of traction control and i felt fine with the rear coming loose. Like i said before i am not scared of oversteer it was just the fact that my car does not have a consistent feel to it and it did not handle the way i expected. I believe i will be fine with a car that does experience snap oversteer in its limits.

 

Biggest problem here is the Camaro is RWD.....it will oversteer when you give it too much throttle (or get off the gas too much at corner entry) and is very easy (imho) to control with the throttle. Feather it a bit, let the rear take a set and get on it, love steering with the throttle

Oversteer in a FWD is a whole other kettle of fish. If it starts to oversteer it happens quickly. Snap oversteer is almost instant. Unless you can correct instantly and (as pointed out above) you have enough room to gather it up, it will have you swapping ends faster than you can say "WTF?!?!?"

Just a rear bar and no other suspension mods....you're just asking for trouble. Do it right, a balanced approach will give you the best results.

 

alright... well i guess im going to have to go deeper into this than i thought but better safe than .... in a ditch on the side of the road. Has anyone done a spring job them selfs with minimal custom tools. Also are there any springs that offer no drop. I would really like to keep my car out of the alignment shop but i have not seen anyone with no drop springs.

So how do these cars handle with tires, springs and sway bars. I wouldn't expect vette performance but i have a feeling its similar to a go kart feel.

 

Yeah theres a big difference between a live axle rwd power oversteering where when you let off it almost always comes back in line and oversteering where getting off the throttle makes it worse.

All you need to replace springs is a a hydraulic jack and jack stands, or a lift, a wrench/socket to remove your rear shock bolt(the same one used to take off your stock wheels will work), a socket to remove the strut shaft nut(an impact wrench makes this much easier) a wrench/socket to remoe the strut mount nuts, a hammer to remove the bolts, and a wrench/socket to remove the sway bar end links.

Ive never seen "no drop" springs. Ill post a pic of my car, its got SS/TC springs....Eibach Prokit is almost the same just very slighlty lower in back. It doesnt look lowered, just like it shouldve stock.

 

Your car looks nice... pretty much identical to mine . So how does your car handle? Also how much was alignment and how long did it take?

Also where did you get your SS springs?

 

Thanks.

It handles as well as a stock tire Cobalt probably can, I have the full SS suspension with the excption of the rear axle(its just not installed yet) I'll be getting a custom rear sway bar sometime between now and probably January-ish. The stock tires really hold me back right now but it rides with less motion, it wanders much less, it turns flatter, and it actually turns when you turn the wheel(up to the point that the tires roll under in very aggressive turns)

If you go with the SS/TC springs you really NEED better rear shocks(SS or Koni) because the springs are a much higher rate than stock and the shocks cant control it well over rough or undulating roads, what youll start to experience is rear brake lock up(or ABS events) under moderate braking on uneven pavement, which sucks *****. I didnt notice this behavior when I had the SS/SC springs(even with LS shocks) it was only once I switched to the TC springs. Go with SS/SC springs and youll be fine with stock shocks/struts.

Alignments run $70-100 at most shops(in Southern NJ), and a quality alignment can take anywhere between 40min-2hrs.

You can get springs at GMPartsDirect.com or CrateEngineDepot.com or many other online GM parts dealers. All the part numbers youll need are in the suspension/brake sticky, post #11

I do all my own work, I am a technician by trade and the only people who ever had a wrench on my car are the men/women of Lordstown Assembly who built it

 

Yeah i will be replacing the stock tires next spring. They are worn out and dont offer the traction i want

Why are you still on the stock tires?

 

pretty good posts here esp. maven. stock tires? all we can afford? right now....

 

whats wrong with stock tires?
I have them too hahaha

 

yeah i have been driving on the stock tires but now they are worn and i am going to get new ones in the spring. It just seems like if people are putting this much money into the suspension they would get higher performance tires before doing all the work they do.

whats the reason for getting a custom sway bar?

is the SS/SC the Fe5?

 

Don't forget a spring compressor for the front struts....don't want to bust that top nut loose with the springs under pressure, you will be getting hurt or damaging things big time. Local rental shops can supply these for a few bucks a day.

As Maven points out, it's not all that complex a job, basic nuts and bolts stuff.

 

I didnt forget it. you dont need it.

 

Are the springs not under any pressure when you lift the car in the air?

 

my bad thought that was TTR I wasnt reading lol

The springs always are under some form of compression with the upper strut mount on. Go to autozone and get a set from the loan a tool. You get all your money back when your done.

 

This only partially true....the main 2 reasons stock Cobalts have unpredictable handling(imo) is due to the absolute crap tires they have from the factory, and because they have very little caster(Ive seen new cars with as little as 2degrees caster)

Cobalts understeer, unless you hit a mid corner bump or in some other way unload the rear tires, only then will a stock Cobalt oversteer. The sway bar makes a stock Cobalt much more consistantly oversteer, leading many people to believe it cures the wonky handling, when in fact it doesnt, it just makes it nearly impossible for the car to understeer, so all you notice is the oversteer events. A bad thing?? I think so, but many others dont. No matter what your thoughts on a loose car are there is no debating the fact that a simple bolt on sway bar(any brand) isnt goin to cure the things a stock LS/LT suffers from



some very good points there, but with stock springs and dampers with falken 615's it was inconsistent on autocross courses. with eibach prokit springs and yellow koni's and hoosier a6's it was inconsistent, only when i added the rear sway did the consistency come. and yes i love tail happy, there's a negative camber 120ish degree turn by my house that i rarely enter without being in a 4 wheel drift. my best advice for snap oversteer is gas gas gas and point your front tires in the direction you want to go.

and for doint the front struts if you have two wheels and tires laying on the ground you just took off your car sandwich the strut between them and put your foot on the strut then remove the retaining bolt, the tires will absorb the energy of the spring release. it usually pushes the tire holding the top mount about a foot or two.

 

I take it then that with the stock struts / springs the springs are completely unloaded once you drop the strut out? Or just loaded enough that the spring unloads as you undo the top nut?

Never seen a setup that was like that before but I wouldn't be surprised at anything anymore

Of course, I did see a former co worker use exhaust u-bolts (!) to tie the coils together before he undid the nut.....I vacated the room and waited for the bang. Never did come but he ended up getting a compresser to reassemble everything because the clamps distorted enough he couldn't get the nut back on

 

You dont need a spring compressor, its a waste of time and money, and is just one more way to hurt yourself. With the car on the ground, just sitting there like normal, take off the strut shaft nut. Nothing will happen, the springs cant go anywhere becasue the weight of the car is on them and they inside the strut towers. Now you simply jack th car up, as you do this you release the spring pressure. Place car on jackstand. Take off the wheel, unbolt the sway bar endlink from strut, unbolt strut from knuckle. Now you just remove the strut and spring. Just be sure to protect your CV boots as the strut and spring assembly are going to be longer and the strut may want to dig into the boot depending on how you take it out.

What little tension is in the spring when you do it this way is nothing compared to when you use a compressor and you are never in a position to have a heavily loaded spring fly free and damage you or the surroundings. Going back in is even easier because the new spings are shorter and arent under any tension at all when you put them back in usually.

Just feed the strut with spring on top back up in the whole, bolt it to knuckle, and use your jack to lift the control arm/strut back into place, either reach in through the spring and guide the shaft through upper mount with your hand, or you may even be able to use a long screwdriver through the topside of mount to guide shaft back in as you raise control arm. finish reassembly.

This is the way Ive done it on the side of the road, this is the way I do it at my/friends houses, this is the way I do it at the shop even with the fancy wall mounted compressor only feet away. For many cars, and for many people, I feel this is the safest way to do it, and if youve got a lift and helpers for guiding back in, its actually significantly faster!



And of course we come back to the oversteer issue...snap and trailing throttle oversteer are at best undesirable on the street. Why would anyone want to tune these characteristics in?

 

This is brilliant, thanks Maven. I'll definitely be doing it this way from now on.

 

Hate to admit it but I have done this myself.....had a bitch of a time getting it lined up going back together but was putting the stock springs back in (1973 Mazda RX3)...so long ago I had forgotten about it.

Can see this working much better with shorter springs going back in, not to mention a little help lining everything back up

Thanks for jogging my sometimes foggy old memory cells

 

im starting to get the impression that maven is the expert on all things to do with cobalt suspension!

I wish i still lived in New Jersey... i would love to have seen your car.

 

And of course we come back to the oversteer issue...snap and trailing throttle oversteer are at best undesirable on the street. Why would anyone want to tune these characteristics in?

an unquenchable thirst for adrenaline

 

I really wish i woulda found this earlier. This also reduces the risk of breaking the POS strut mount bolts. Thanks a lot!

 

Yup. ZERO chance of breaking the upper mount bolts my way.


Ill make a howto when I install my TC stuff.

 

TC struts use the SC top mount all dimensions are the same, for whoever asked that question....

 

I think it was 3pointStu.

Yup, LS/LT/LTZ/SS/Sport/SS-SC/SS-TC pick a trim.....all the same.