Suspension

Front suspension

We are using a torsion bar setup in the front. The SyTy's came with Bilstein HD shock absorbers (#B46-1446) from the factory. There are several manufacturer who you can choose from, I'm currently using red Konis (#80-2633) and completely happy with them. Quite a few people like the Sy sitting a bit lower than it came from the factory. In the front you can easily adjust the height with a big wrench. However, stay on the bright side. Currently my Sy approximately 2" lower than stock at this is the limit. I'm spending minutes at every hump and forget about parking on the sidewalk. * Al Dustan has a front coil over kit to replace the stock one. You can spare a lot of weight and improve the handling with it, but it's quite pricey and have to modify the frame to install. * One more thing. Sooner or later every one have to replace the front end bushings on the controll arms, sway bars etc. I've replaced the four on the sway bar and replaced the two bump stops. I used GM parts, but now I know that Energy Suspension has a really good kit for our trucks. They are using polyurethanse which is much more durable than the stock one and you can choose from different colors. #3-5186R is the front sway bar kit and #3-3119R the controll arm kit.

Rear suspension

The rear suspension is using leaf springs and Bilsten HD shock absorbers (#B46-1447). I also used Koni's here as the replacement (#80-2634). If you want to drop the rear, you can use lowering blocks for any 4WD S-10/15 or you can make hammered the springs a bit. I choose the second one. Also you should do this in synchrony with the front end. * Al Dustan has a coil over kit for the rear too. Beside this you can get a rear sway bar to improve handling, cornering. There are two manufacturers producing rear sway bars for as. Suspension Technology is one, Addco is an other. I've not heard any bad word regarding ST, which I can't say about Addco.




Wheels

Our wheels 16"x8" which was used only on SyTy's. The bolt pattern is 5x4.75". We are using different offsets in the rear than in the front. It's +41mm in the front and +13mm in the rear. These means you can't interchange your front and rear wheels. The offset is the distance between the wheel's centerline and the hub mounting surface. It's positive if the hub mounting surface is closer to the outside edge of the wheel. * When I got my Sy the wheels was painted white. It was fugly, so I removed the paint, sandblasted and clear coated them.


There are quite a few popular replacement wheels. One type is the different type of Vette wheels, 17"x9" in the front and 17"x9" or 17"x11" in the rear. I especially like the turbine style of the early 90's. You might have to use spacers with these combination. * If you want to find a good replacement wheel in Europe you can ask for BMW wheels. It has a bolt pattern of 5x120mm which can be fit. It was used by the following BMW models:

• BMW 5 Series E34, E38 (excluding 525i Touring), E39
• BMW 635csi
• BMW 7 Series E32, E38 (740i and 750i)
• BMW 840 and 850csi

I really like the E34 M5 type wheels. It's 17"x8" and was use by the 8 series as well if my memories serves well. * Anyway, I might change my wheels in the future, but I like the original ones and they are really belongs to the SyTy image.

Tires

The stock tires came from Firestone and was 245/50 16". This gives you 652mm for the diameter of the whole wheel. If you want to get the same with 17" it could be 245/45, 275/40, 315/35. Since I'm performance oriented I don't want to go higher (like 18") it could be hurting at the starting line. Bear in mind if you ever change this diameter you should keep the front and the rear on the same level, unless you wanna replace expensive drive train components. Also note that a different diameter will give you non accurate speedo readings. Anyway. In Hungary I prefer BFGoodrich, they are maybe the best bang for the money. Toyo could be an other one. * Some words about the pressure. Currently I'm using 38 psi in the front and 28 in the rear, but note that's a performance oriented setup and might be far from the optimum.

Steering

There is a lot of problems with SyTy's wandering all over the road. I've already used to it and yield it's a usual behavior. Anyway a front end bushing kit could help and our steering can be adjusted as well. Some people have rebuilt their steering box to a quicker ratio unit. Some others are using steering stabilizers (there is one from Rancho, #2000), but they report minimal improvement.

Brakes

The SyTy's are using disc brakes in the front and drum brakes in the rear. They also use a four wheel anti lock system. That kinda barking capability is barely enough to stop a stock truck in critical situation. If you started to improve the performance of your truck you should also think about increasing the braking capability. * There are quite a few ways to upgrade. One way is to replace the rear drums with a disc system. IMHO this is not worth it, at least for me. If you use your truck as a daily driver you might consider it. Two thoughts about this. First the rear brakes only give around 10% of the whole stopping power. You will never able to use the disc on their full potential unless you could change that 10% rule. Second the disc setup has a smaller contact surface which results in less holding power at the line. Anyway if you still want to upgrade to rear discs, you can buy a kit from Baer (# F1WT-10601-5DN), or a modified Wilwood kit from Al Dustan. You can also swap in a rear disc setup from a late model S10 or Sonoma too. * Beside the disc conversion at the rear there are an other small upgrade which you can do. Replace the sock drums with aluminum ones. You can spare some 5 lbs of unsprung weight by side this way. The alu drums came on a bunch of GM vehicles during the years. You can easily find one on ebay or on your local yunk yard.


My ones came from ebay. They are refinished ones, with silver paint on them. As you can see the two drums are slightly different, but they have the same part numbers, and functioning equaly well. GM PN is #1255496. The list of the vehicles which you can find them stock:

• 83-84 Blazer/Jimmy S/T models
• 80-84 Buick LeSaber 85 RWD
• 78-81 Buick Century
• 78-87 Buick Regal
• 81-85 Buick Riviera
• 82-92 Chevy Camaro
• 86-89 Chev Full Size passenger cars
• 78-81 Chev Malibu
• 78-88 Chevy Monte Carlo
• 82-84 Chevy S10/S15
• 80-85 Olds Delta 88
• 78-82 Olds Cutlass
• 80-81 Pont Bonneville
• 83-85 Pont Bonneville
• 86 Pont Parisienne
• 82-92 Pont Firebird
• 78-85 Pont LeMans
• 78-88 GMC Sptint/El Camino

* At the front there are two options. Baer has a few different kits. If you are using the stock wheels you won't be able to use larger discs than 12" (# F1WT-10125-5EN). For after market wheels they have a 13" kit (# F1WT-10150-5HN). They also have a PRO kit for more than 2 grands (#F1WT-10175-5HN). * An other option is the Wilwood kit from Al Dustan. A great advantage hear is the less weight compared to the Baer systems. *