Hey I raced a 07 impala last year at a 1/3 mile dirt track and am planning on using it again this year. It is a stock class but I was hoping to get some insite on how I could make it handle better in the corners. Like sway bars or struts anything like that would help. Thanks in advance
How much do the rules of your class actually allow? In for pics by the way if you have any.
The rules for the class say stock suspension but I can play with it a bit like disconnecting the sway bar or putting struts from dif. Cars in it as long as it looks stock. I have been playing with tire pressure and stager a bit as well
If you can find Grand Prix GXP or comp G sways I believe they were the biggest W body sways you could get... also GXP has nice factory Bilstein dampers as well.
Also think about maybe stacking bump stops on the strut shafts. Could significantly stiffen things up and be hidden under the dust boots so not blatantly obvious.
In reply to Nick Comstock :
I will have to look into those. I was thinking of the 07 police impala parts as well but a little harder to find in junk yards
I find the car unloads the drivers front tire as I'm getting into the gas coming out of the corner I am going to try a bigger left front to balance the car out a bit and also I will try a few things with the sway bar
Wonder if you could take the rear sway bar links and weld turnbuckles in, to give you some cross weight to keep the left front tire down. Kind of a poor mans weight jack.
In reply to Knurled. :
I think that would be to noticable. I was thinking cutting the links and making one side a bit shorter? Or maybe a heavier spring?
It has to be THAT stock, huh...
Cut and weld sounds like the plan then, if you can't find an auto parts store that will let you check their stock in the back and try to find links that are longer or shorter than stock.
In reply to Brad76 :
There must be tire rules. Can you run a larger, more aggressive tire? Are you limited to steel wheels?
Is there a limited slip dif available?
Over the years, fwd Impalas offered big and small engines. Are you V8? Are you 3900?
In reply to John Welsh
I have the 3.9 in it . As for tires I have a 15" on the l .r a Ford ranger 16" tire on the r.f. and 16" on the other corners not sure of tire sizes off hand and it is an open dif. We have to have steel rims on the right side.
In reply to Knurled. :
I have a welder friend at work that said he would make me a few "stock" links of dif. Sizes to try out to see what works
Ooh! That's an idea, you could also play with stagger on the rear tires. Although that would also be obvious to the people you race against. If you started winning, everyone would be running your staggered setup the next time!
In reply to Knurled. :
I have 10 or 12 psi in the l.r. tire and about 38 in the r.r it helps kick the back end out coming into the corner I think it's the front setup that needs the most attention.
Can you run spring rubbers?
In reply to Nick Comstock :
I'm not sure If I'm allowed to run them but if it works I would give it a try lol whee were j thinking?
My local dirt track has a very similar "Street Stinger" class, and I've always thought it would be fun to build and race one. Dirt track suspension setups are some kind of voodoo magic to me.
You could also try snow tires up front. They're almost like budget rally tires.
It's easy to find out what other cars used the same platform so find a good size wrecker that lets you into the yard and go window shopping. Take a tape, vernier and notebook and measure and write EVERYTHING down. Because it's a GM you'll find springs, struts and sway bars that are longer/shorter/heavier and every combination in between.
Don't be afraid to try different or oddball combinations and parts and... write everything down because you never know when you're going to need that information. It's easy to get lost in a multitude of mods and crazy ideas.
In my best year of limited class racing I had the chance to get a fair bit of practice in before the season started. Trying a number of different ideas and combinations, I accidentally found one that worked so well everybody thought I was cheating. None of my crazy ideas worked that day, but if I would not have tried them, I wouldn't have stumbled on the one that did. If they don't check the computers have it tuned, and try to stay reasonably balanced with your tire sizes. If you run a big one on the outside rear, run a smaller one on the inside front.
Edit: Snow tires aren't allowed, but good quality all season or summers make a difference, and run high air pressures. A lot of guys see the top classes running low pressures and think that's answer. It is when you're running race tires, but on street rubber 30-40 psi works best in most cases
In reply to maschinenbau :
The class I run is called a stinger class it's a very basic gut and go with safety rules it has a $750 claim rule to keep things in line . We can't run snows but we can run a mud and snow this year so I might see what I can find
"handle better in the corners" means what, exactly? think about the corner as three separate events:
and in each of these three events, what do you want it to do better?
once we know those things, we can make some more focused recommendations. help me help you! ;-)
In reply to Mr. Peabody :
I ran the car mostly as it was built when I got it last year as it was my first year but now I'm ready to try a few new things with it and I will take your suggestions about writing everything down . I can see how it would be easy to get lost in part #s and such. I think part of the problem with the front is that I was running stager and with an open dif it was sending power to the smaller inside tire and spinning that tire and losing traction.
In reply to AngryCorvair :
It would be as I get on the gas coming out of the corner I watched a video of my race and when I got on it the inside tire was smoking. I think it's because i was running a smaller tire on the l.f. with the open dif. Should I be running the same size tire? And just play with air?
Brad76 said:The rules for the class say stock suspension but I can play with it a bit like disconnecting the sway bar or putting struts from dif. Cars in it as long as it looks stock. I have been playing with tire pressure and stager a bit as well
If the rules require stock sway bars... do they say how many stock sway bars you are allowed to run at one time? 
This guy has some interesting notes on suspension upgrades.
http://www.getoverkilled.ca/wbodytech.html
The GM Performance Parts police sway bars are still available from places like ZZ Performance - they look like they could be stock pieces, and were on police-spec cars.
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