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Would you guys like me to go through our setup in detail? What we did, why, how, what we found, how we addressed, etc.?

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I can also cover aspects of install as well so you know what is, and what's not, involved.

You can draw your own conclusions about it all, I'll just lay it out and walk you through it. I may ask some questions along the way with regard to places we could cut cost and whether you consider the difference important or not.

Let me know and I will start.



John,

Absolutely! I'm interesting in listening to whatever you are able to share.

I've been working on my 1971 Satellite's suspension from back in the days when California Suspension (remember them?) was one of the few vendors offering high performance parts. For years my only guides were "Super Street Mopar" (still an excellent book) and "How to Make Your Car Handle". In 89 I used the Corvette ZR-1 as a template and tried to get my Satellite as close to that as possible, in spring rate, weight, CG, polar moment, tire patch, and weight ratio. Of course, I never got quite there, and there were tons of things I overlooked.

I don't know about anyone else, but lots of people thought I was crazy to waste time getting my car to do anything more than go in a straight line. Their attitude was that my car was built for the dragstrip. My attitude was to improve the car's weaknesses rather than further its strengths. Now it seems the tide has turned a little bit and there's finally some respect for (and investment in) getting these cars to handle. Great.

Let's open the XV vault!

- Jim

ps - Congrats on the nice write up in Car & Driver, John. I was hoping the XV Challenger would have pulled more than a .90, though. Were there any extenuating circumstances?