That's interesting that they don't list that parts fit wagons. Speedtech parts obviously fit wagons just fine. Some companies don't list a certain car because they've not had one in the shop to try it out. A good example is Speedtech doesn't sell S10 arms even though they're said to be the same as G body. An S10 has never wandered into the shop to try it, and they're more into cars anyway.
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Yes I like Speedtech parts. Some of you know I work there. Before I did though I built the first suspension for Pumkinator about 7 years ago by taking other's advice for what was popular at the time. Since upgrading to what I have now the car runs so much better when I race, like night and day. That's the short version. If you have a few minutes continue reading for the looong, er, more informative version...
That first suspension included SPC uppers, boxed lowers, tall ball joints, factory sway bars, Hotchkis rear lower arms and Spohn uppers. I had Moog 5660 S10 front springs and I tried both CPP and Eibach rear springs, and I had Varishock single adjustables on all corners. That suspension was a huge improvement over stock but when I went autocrossing it left a lot to be desired in how fast/hard I could corner and the car was twitchy and a little unpredicatable and leaned towards some oversteer. I also didn't like the fact that both brand rear springs sagged about an inch fairly quickly, I've heard this again with other wagon owners using coupe springs. My experience was matching the rear to the front but I'm curious if you use a 2" drop up front, a 1" rear spring would do the trick to get 2" rear drop on a wagon.
There are some decent parts out there from a handful of different manufacturers. When shopping for suspension I say stick with a matched set of brand name parts, and PLEASE avoid buying cheap parts because you're cheap and would rather spend the extra money for quality parts eating at McDonalds for lunch everyday. Many customers have called to replace cheap ebay arms because they're garbage and fell apart after a short life. Speedway circle track arms aren't the best idea either, yes they're cheap but they're also designed as a throw away when they get bumped item for a car that only turns left and never sees the street. You also have to decide what you want your suspension to do. If it's just a cruiser, after all the experience I've gained by being in the thick of it I say just put some poly bushings in your factory arms and a sway bar upgrade, do a performance alignment and call it good. That should be more responsive than a factory suspension and an enjoyable drive. If a person is after serious cornering performance it's going to take a bit more than that. After getting to know the parts up close, even if I didn't work here I would likely still have put Speedtech parts on Pumkinator when I got serious about it's handling performance. At this point to save money I will probably put my old suspension on the Mad Wagon and when Pumkinator's back on the road look at something better so my daughter can start autoXing MW.
I built my car for daily driving but in the back of my mind I'm also building it for tearing it up at the track, so I set it up accordingly. I like Speedtech parts because it's anticipated that their customers are looking for serious performance potential. Everthing is you could say over engineered to handle serious abuse, for example you'll see brackets and such are are often more heavy duty than competitors. Notice Speedtech doesn't sell coil springs, all suspension packages come with coilovers. As far as I know Speedtech is the only company that produces a weld in bracket of it's kind to convert to true bolt top mount coilovers. They also sell the hybrid style coilover that uses the factory pin style top mount. Speedtech doesn't sell polyurethane or rubber control arm bushings, everything has Delrin bushings. Despite what some may think both of these items perform fantastically on daily drivers, it's not full race car stuff, just better than the other parts. Speedtech upper front control arms have polished billet stainless cross shafts. This appeals to me because I'm a designer and it looks cool, lol! These super strong cross shafts are also offset machined so you have two different base camber alignment settings to work with, that's a nice advantage there. Lower front arms are set up for coilover springs or coilovers. This is nice if you want to run coils now and switch to coilovers later, that's what I did. Many companies have two different arms depending on which way you want to go and that means more money shelled out later to make the switch. Both upper and lower Speedtech arms have caster improvements built in so it doesn't move the wheels to the point they look off center in the wheel well. Factory rear arms are flimsy so they flex when the suspension binds. Imagine what happens if you make aftermarket arms so that they don't flex, well the bind theoretically gets worse and puts a lot of strain on mounting brackets and the chassis itself. Solid arms with stiuffer poly bushings don't make sense to me, I'm surprised they're still being made. Speedtech rear control arms are super cool- both the uppers and lowers are a two piece arm that rotates within themselves to free up the bind and makes a smoother transition as the suspension articulates. They
really work. DSE has a similar concept but I've seen an old dissected DSE arm and wasn't impressed at all on how they've designed it, the Speedtech arm is
way more heavy duty. Spherical bearing ends are used in some other brand arms but they comparatively have a more limited travel range and I've heard some folks say they wear out, get klunky, transfer more road noise and create a potential weak stress point where the threads meet the tube. Many folks have said switching from a solid rear arm to the Speedtech articulinks alone dropped lap times and made the car feel smoother. 'Nuff said, I don't mean to sound like a salesman.
Click here for a link that talks more about the Speedtech articulink arms.
Bolting a sway bar to the lower rear arms works great if you're drag racing and you want to make as rigid a rear suspension as possible so the car launches hard and straight and rotational torque doesn't induce the G-body shuffle. But, an arm bolted swaybar sucks in serious cornering performance because the arms fight each other and limits travel range even more which can cause oversteer in hard cornering. As such Speedtech uses only a frame mounted rear bar which comes with the rear arms and makes them a little more spendy that brand X arms alone. Pumkinator runs some heavy rear springs and aggressive shock valving so I actually had to take my rear bar off because it kicked the rear end out (oversteer). For a spring rate closer to factory or a typical drop spring the Speedtech rear bar works well and is 3-way adjustable to tune it in.
When I upgraded to coilovers I went with double adjustable Viking Warriors. They worked great, no complaints and the car was well balanced. I currently have double adjustable Viking Crusader autoX valved coilovers which have a much more aggressive valving. Although it drives fine on the street with them turned down a bit, if you crank 'em up it'll beat you to death on a bad street, however on a smooth track surface the same settings drive incredible and give the car serious control.
So, there's a long winded reason I used Speedtech stuff on Pumkinator. Is it better than everybody else? Hard to say because I haven't tried everybody else's suspension on the same car on the same track on the same day and that's the only real way to say something like that, but what I do know is my car got faster lap times with it than what I had before, it's very well balanced, and it does what I ask of it.
BTW, Speedtech just dropped the pricing on G-Body front control arm sets by $239 if you buy uppers and lowers together. That's not a sale, it's just a good everyday price.
