Patty’s Suspension Day

Patrick wrote: The procedure that Gary had done to Colby’s Fiero involved cutting the end off the metal bumpstops, shortening the remaining cone about an inch or so, and then welding the end of the metal bumpstop back on. It took quite awhile to do all this, as I was being rather particular about how much we could shorten the bumpstops for maximum travel without bottoming out and ruining the shocks. I also wanted to install a rear sway bar. Colby actually had an aftermarket one there I could’ve installed, but I wanted to make use of an extra front Fiero sway bar I had.  To make a long story short we mounted the sway bar with the bow to the front and arms pointing to the back of the car. I’ll take some pictures soon of what we did.

Well, here they are...

The first one is actually of my parts car to show what these "cones" are that Gary shortened on the front of my 84's suspension. I had read that taking .75" off was ideal. I wanted to take more off, and we fussed and fiddled to try and do so without bottoming out the shocks. I had forgotten to measure what length the cone was originally, but when we were done, the length had been shortened to 4.5". So how much did we end up shortening these cones? Look at the picture of the uncut cone and figure it out.

At the bottom of the metal cone is normally a rubber bumper which absorbs any impact if the supension bottoms out. The bumper had been removed prior to this picture being taken, but they're both definitely on my '84.

I was quite pleased how well we got the transplanted front sway bar to fit in the back. There were holes already in the control arms in the correct location that only required being made a bit larger. The end link "tubes" were cut down to I believe the width of Gary's finger, and everything lined up great. Notice the "tabs" on the end of the sway bar arms and how parallel they are to the rubber bushings on the end links. Almost perfect!

You'll notice in this shot how there are NO problems with clearance between the head of the end link bolts and the rubber boot of the CVs. No need to cut the top rubber bushing down, lots of room.

The only thing that would've made the job easier would've been if the spacers weren't required for the sway bar mounting brackets, but the holes for them would've required drilling up through the cradle into the control arm bushings. That obviously wouldn't have worked, so using the spacers allowed us to spread the bracket mounting holes further apart, thus avoiding the control arm bushings. (The spacers also allow for more clearance between the sway bar and the exhaust pipe on systems that may require it.)

Again, thanks to Gary for being so patient and for doing such a nice job!

Romeo wrote: I love those spacer plates, they look so beefy.

Well yeah, there's a lot of power to harness with this baby.

Patrick wrote: Romeo wrote: I love those spacer plates, they look so beefy. Well yeah, there's a lot of power to harness with this baby.

Man, that was such a fun day though, thanks again for having us! Haven't had that much fun in a long time.

Car-2-Lo wrote: Hey Patty, do you have after pic showing shorten cone or where was the cut made ?

Sorry Johnny, I didn't take my camera out to Abbotsford that day. As Gary said, the cut was about two inches from the bottom.

The most important measurement is the .75" you need to remove from more or less the middle of the cone.

Basically you want to remove as much as possible and NOT have the shocks bottom out. (We triple-checked and measured without the rubber bumper being in place.)