Sway Away spring plate install quesitons.

Rick Lee · Rick Lee's Garage

My long-awaited suspension rebuild has begun. Last night I got the right spring plate and t-bar out and replaced them with a shiny new Sway Away adj. spring plate, poly bushings and 30mm hollow t-bar. But I'm wondering about the camber adj. or oblong bolts. They're the ones in the middle of the old spring plate. The Sway Away has holes for them, but'm wondering if I still need them. I could swear we did not transplant them, when we did my Carrera, from the stock to the Sway Away spring plates.

I'm not real good with measuring stuff, and so I just used a Sharpie to mark a line along the top of my old spring plate and lined up the new one a tad above that line, wanting to lower the car an inch and I preset the height adj. bolt to the middle. Since the car is still on stands, I can't check height yet. Left side shall get done tonight and A-arms later in the week. How in the world can someone replace trailing arm bushings without removing the arms? I did it in my Carrera with the engine and tranny out, but it looks totally impossible in the SC, even if the engine and tranny were out.

jpnovak · 03-29-2005, 05:14 AM

Out of curiosity, why did you go away from the stock adjustable plates?

You will still need the camber and toe bolts. how else are you going to align the car?

Use the spring plate angle finder to set them up initially. It's on Thom's site.

Jim Richards · 03-29-2005, 05:29 AM

RL, if you're not already doing it, use the spring plate calculator program that Wil Ferch and Thom have made available for our use. Your new 30mm t-bars will require a significantly smaller angle than the old stock t-bars. With the spring plate hanging free, you should index your t-bar to give you the closest match to the angle called out for in the spring plate calculator tool. Then, when everything is buttoned up and the car is back on the ground & suspension is settled, fine tune your ride height with the adjustment on the spring plate.

As Jamie said, you need the camber and toe eccentric bolts to align your rear suspension.

Rick Lee · Rick Lee's Garage

Ok, well spring plate is coming off the trailing arm again tonight, as I was just told that makes it possible to get to the trailing arm bushings. So I'll put the toe and camber bolts back in then too. Still worried about getting the angle right, as this stuff is really Greek to me. I just don't understand it and don't want to go through a huge hassle at home then find out they still have to reindex my t-bars when it goes to the shop.

arrivederci · 03-29-2005, 06:03 AM

The spring plate angle calculator got me close enough to make the final adjustments with the factory spring plates. I've heard that the SwayAway plates have a wider adjustment range...so you should be ok.

If you get the ride height set up properly, the alignment and corner balance should be within range of the adjustable spring plates...

Jim Richards · 03-29-2005, 06:10 AM

RL, I'll try to stop by sometime this week (or weekend) to help you get through it. I'm an engineer...I'm a geek.

Rick Lee · Rick Lee's Garage

Thanks. I think Charlie may come by tonight to tinker a little. My goal is to have this done (front A-arms, shocks, ball joints, etc) by the end of the weekend, so I can drop her off at ASG for the tuning. By the time they're done with it, my roll bar and track seats will have arrived and she'll be a lean, mean tracking machine. I probably need that Fabspeed CF airbox cover to complete the bling though, no?