[wayner]

Here is what I did when building my 73RSR replica, and it is very counter intuitive to some

1) I got the body done, painted and running

2) I got the engine in and mounted the suspension that I had.
(the shocks were still good adn the T-bars had been upgraded already by the previous owner)

3) I drove it on the street, and worked out the bugs.

4) I took it to the tack (just DE events) and kept a log book of what I liked and didn't like (including on the street)

5) I talked to a tech expert about suspension and rather than give me this opinion on what I thought I wanted, his first question was "what problems are you trying to solve?"

Since then I have enjoyed solving one "problem" and then seeing what pops up next on my list of tweaks.
I don't ever "need" new suspension parts, instead I "need" to go faster, or tune out some undesirable quality, or get more of something else that I enjoy (which may require new shocks).

I am taking it in steps and enjoying the process, perhaps aligning and corner weighting the car and adjusting ride height and then driving it for a few months before deciding that I need better tires, which then leads to teh next step (cranking in more weight into my adjustable rear sway bar, which has now lead to me wanting to replace the front one with an adjustable one.

Someone asked me why I didn't weld up the shock towers while I was in their during the restoration.
Quite simply because I didn't need to. Im not running coil overs.

But, what if you decide to go to coil overs?

Well, I've fine tuned my wiring harness and mounts to that I can drop my engine in under an hour using only to tools in my on board tool roll. I can always do the mod over the winter.

I've spanned it out over years, enjoying being the development driver rather than just throwing some paint by numbers solution at it and missing all the fun of knowing why the next setup is better.

I don't drive the car the way I want Instead I let the car tell me how it wants to be driven. I enjoy that process, and then once it tells me what it needs next, I go out and solve that problem by talking to the tech experts and asking others for advice.

I'm running 275/17 tires on the back and the biggest T-bar that will fit, so at some point I may need to go to bigger springs by way of coil overs or helpers, but I haven't gotten there yet. Maybe when I start running R-compound tires at the track I'll need to do that.

With my big heavy larger than stock wheels and tires, adn the biggest torsion bar, my car actually rides quite comfortably on the street though, and takes the corners flat. Its perfect! On track though it has a bit more body roll that I would like, so, I'll explore that one day. I'm enjoying the engineering process.

Right now it tells me it needs me to get rid of the poly bushings in the back that make it sound like squeaky old boat trailer, and introduce more decibels into the cockpit than the noisy exhaust does. (I've measured that and I wouldn't have guessed that when catalogue shopping for parts)