6G Celicas Forums

So this weekend, we overhauled Jenns suspension on her 94 GT, I figured I'd post about the install and some of the in's and out's of what went into doing it.

First, here is what we bought for the install.

• Megan Racing "Street Series" Coilovers
• Polyurethane Bushing kit Front and Rear
• 2's r Us Front St185 Endlinks
• Racing Beat Miata Rear Endlinks
• New OEM Ball Joints

Jenn's car had Eibach "Sportline" Springs, and KYB GR-2 shocks that I actually had installed by a local shop litterally over 10 years ago now. (Its actually one of the first things I posted about here on 6gc!)
When I first had them installed, they worked well, and rode pretty good too, but over the years, the shocks got worn out, and all the mounts, ect started to clunk and creek like crazy.
The ride really started to kinda suck, especially as the milage piled up, and all the suspension bushings got really worn, which introduced lots of slop in the steering and basicly made the car not handle nearly as well as it should, especially with the 3rd gen 3s in there.
So, we went ahead, and ordered the front and rear bushing kit from poland thru a seller on ebay called gt4goodies. here is a link to his ebay store:
http://stores.ebay.com/gt4goodies
We also ordered the Megan Coilovers thru upscaleautomotive.com, who has a FS thread here, and the discount code in the thread still works as of a few weeks ago.

So on Friday night, we went over to Dustin & Steff's house, and started tearing into the rear suspension on the car, which because of the rust issues, was a real challange.
A few things to remember when taking all that stuff apart, is that #1, heat is your friend. If you have acsess to a torch setup, awesome. If not, your gonna have issues.
I went ahead and had steff order me all new hardware, knowing that we were gonna have to cut and break some bolts to get em out, and I was right...lol
The long bolts that go thru the hub in the rear very often will be seized up, and without torches, and sometimes a press as well, they just will not budge.
So, what I would suggest, is if your car is rusty, and you dont have torches, ect. just tear it down so that the rear trailing arms are attached to the hub, and drag that whole unit to a local garage, and ask them to remove the bolts. If I had to guess, they'll charge you an hr or 2 labor for it, and it'll be done.

Next up comes getting the bushings out and installing the new ones.
For the front, its just the 2 bushings in the a-arm, which are held in place with rings on the outside of the bushings, that hold them in place. as long as those rings are intact, you can just use a drill to drill out enough space to get a sawsall thru the bushing, cut the ring, and the whole bushing will just push right out.
then its just a matter of pressing the new bushings in, and reinstalling everything.

The rears can be alot trickier, depending on the year make and model of your celica.
From what Dustin and Steff have been able to figure out, it looks like the 96+ GT's, and "Sport suspension" St's have diffrent arms that the poly bushings wont fit into.
Before you do the install, its best to make sure you have arms with the replaceable bushings (you'll be able to tell once you have the bushings, and compare that to what your arms look like on the car)
and if not, you can get ST arms most of the time. I'm sure I'm screwing this up somehow, but dustin will back me up with the correct info in a future post im sure!

Anyway, lets get on to some pics, thats what we're all here for, right?!!?
So, since Dustin has some spare front A-arms, we just installed the bushings into those, and here is what we had once we were done and ready to install em.



Then we went to do my rears, and noticed that the rings that hold the bushing in place, had actually rotted and basicly desintigrated as we removed the bushings.



I had to chip and hammer that crusty stuff out, basicly ended up smashing the ends of the arms a bunch with a 3lb sledge to break up the crust, then used a metal die grinding bit, to clean up the holes



then installed the bushings in those:



once we got those all done, and did the same to the rear hubs, we had everything ready to install:



We installed the fronts first:



Then installed the all the arms on the rear subframe



And reinstalled everything in the rear



Once everything was all reinstalled, we spent a little time adjusting the height of the car with the coilovers, and got it close enough to let everything settle in for a few miles.



Now its just a matter of driving the car, and playing with the damper settings till we find our sweetspot





The initial impressions are amazing.
First off, the car really does handle like a whole new car, everything is nice and tight, very responsive, the bushing kit makes the car feel so smooth and predictable, its really great.
The coilovers are really nice, small adjustments of 2-3 clicks actually make a diffrence that you can feel, everything is just awesome about them in every way.
over the next couple days I'll play with it some and get a better feel for everything overall and make a nice detailed post about it.

I do wanna just take a minute, and say thanks to my best friends, dustin (batman722) and steff (hurley97), there is no way I would have gotten all of this done without they're help, they really came thru in a huge way, especially steff, she actually took the rear hubs, with the arms connected to work, and had one of the techs there take the time to get those bolts out and clean up the holes for me, which saved me a bunch of money, time and effort!
thank you so much guys, we really appreciate it!!!

Great write-up as expected, hoping to do the same before the meet.

Nice man, how do the Megans ride? im looking to get a set of street series aswell so i it would help for some feedback on them! lol thanks man job well done

Makes me wanna re-do my suspension haha. What's the ride like compared to springs/struts?

Damn. Love the paint color!

I think my '98 GT may not have the Sport suspension. All of my nuts and bolts are the same size, all 19 mm. Stef should be running my VIN to let us know. Just looking at my control arms, the bushings I have should work but regrettably the car is an hour and a half away on jack stands so I can't compare my poly bushings to my rear control arms to see if they're the same size.

That's how we roll bro !
Glad you're happy with the set up, you guys deserve it.

It's not often we can do big things to help you out, you've helped us a ton in the past it's about time we hook you up.

A full suspension overhaul was needed and you guys did it right.
Having a one of the best looking and best handling 6gens, along with the 3rd gen 3s, makes that car unbelievable.

Great Job! What was the total cost?

Sweet Deal!
I still have to do my rear bushings :lothing:

Those bushings look crispy!! I would like to do the same to my car!

This post has been edited by adonzo: Sep 3, 2013 - 4:23 PM

thanks rico!


the megans are awesome. the adjustability is the biggest thing that makes them so great, you can make the car ride soft like a caddy, or stiff as a racecar, or anywhere in between.



its a huge upgrade over the springs & strut combo. not that the spring/struts ride bad, this is just way better with all the adjustability, ect.


thanks!



thanks dude, you guys are the best!



megans were a little over 850 shipped, the bushings were a little over 300 IIRC, 150 for the 2 sets of end links, and 85 for the 2 ball joints, so ~ 1400 total.


thanks dan!
its alot of work getting everything apart, especially in the rear, but its sooooo worth it!

Great work guys thing must handle like a dream now, and I'm sure it's more forgiving now on the city roads too +1!

Hell yea, cam, its massivly better in thd city. Set the coilovers on 12 and the thing rides smooth as silk over the city streets!

It's confirmed, I do not have Sport suspension in my '98 GT. Stef ran the VIN for me today. Thanks, Stef! Time for me to brush the dust off the rear bushings I have and get to work.

I've been meaning to ask. How is the squeaking with these? I know polyurethane can be really annoying if the grease dries up. Has that happened to you guys yet?

enjoy. did the same, only with d2's, and DAMN it is night and day different. SOOO much better handling.

No issues with squeeks. Its been 100% silent so far.

awesome, the noise would really be a big issue for me. It's tough to make a case that your car has good handling performance when it sounds like its broken. Plus squeaks, rattles, and knocking sounds are maddening after a while

I really wish I could get those bushings in black...

been rocking the poly's for 25k hard miles in the last 6 months (delivering pizza) on the front end and have no suspension squeaks, still feels as good as the day I got them installed.

This post has been edited by b22ri22an: Oct 9, 2013 - 4:27 AM