Okay, I am be dumb, but I did search. What do i need to upgrade my brakes and suspension? Rotors, Calipers, Pad, Spring/strut assembly. Brake hoses, spindle that the rotor goes on. I need the complete list. Its getting cold here and I want to get this done before its too cold. I think there is a yard out of town that has an 83 GSL. Will that car work for parts?

 

Grab the GSL rear end, driveshaft, and front spindles/calipers/etc.

Racingbeat springs, Tokico Blue/Illumina Shocks, Hawk HPS brake pads, Brembo Blank rotors, SS brake lines w/ synthetic or new fluid.

Watch for the brake lines, you will need to get adapters depending on what month/year your SA is.

If you really want *****, grab the Respeed Big Brake kit. It uses TII calipers/pads/rotors.

 

Check out www.re-speed.com

 

Why do you want to upgrade the stock SA brakes?

I race my SA regularly in Solo II and have never found the front brakes wanting. With a set of Hawk Blue pads and fresh rotors, my brakes were more than capable of overwhelming the grip provided by my 205/60/13 Yokohama R compound tires. If you're going road racing, then by all means invest in a big brake upgrade. Otherwise, don't bother. Ensure that your calipers are in good shape, that your rotors have adequate thickness and aren't warped/cracked and get a set of street-friendly Hawk pads.

For the rear, the upgrade to limited slip is worthwhile, the disc brakes less so but easy to do as they come with any limited slip axle housing. Be aware that any limited slip diff that you pick up will likely have a significant number of kilometers on it and may need to be rebuilt. This can be costly, depending on the number of parts needed to bring the diff back into spec. My donor diff has about 150k km's on it and is definately weak, but still locks up in high-stress situations like downshifting to 1st to negotiate a tight box turn. I do have to feather the throttle some coming out of higher-speed corners, however, so it could benefit from a freshening.

So far as suspension goes, again what are you looking for? If this car is primarily street-driven, the Racing Beat spring set is a good compromise between old and sagged out stock springs and the much firmer rates usually found in a coil-over setup. That said, if I had my car to do over again, I would have spent the cash up front and purchased coil overs. The availability of cheap quality springs makes playing with rates easy. In terms of shocks/struts, for street usage and light Solo II, I recommend the Tokico 'blue' line of non-adjustable shocks/inserts. They are about a '3' on the Illumina stiffness scale and provide adequate damping for stock and Racing Beat level springs. If you go with a coil-over setup, you'll definately want to go with Illuminas or the Tokico race inserts that can be found at such online retailers as ReSpeed.

If you do go with a Tokico, you'll notice that the original SA sized units are no longer avaible. The new units for the '81 and up cars can be used with a couple of modifications. One is that the upper spring mount will not fit the new struts and will either have to be drilled out or replaced. The other is that the new inserts are just shy of an inch shorter than the old units, requiring either shims in the bottom of the strut tubes, or cutting and shortening the tubes themselves. Cutting the tubes provides for more travel if you cut above the spring perch, while leaving ride height unaffected. Cutting below the spring perch has no adverse affect on travel while providing a way to further lower the car. If you do cut your struts, I recommend doing it above the perch for the additional travel, as it is invaluable when racing and negotiating hard turns as it eliminates bottoming even on rough or uneven pavement.

I think that covers the broad strokes. Good luck.

 

If you're a '79, you can get the FB style brake calipers by simply swapping over to '80 brakes.


Since you have access to a GSL and if you want to make the complete conversion to FB brakes....
o might as well get the complete front strut assemblies
o all the brakes lines - including the hard lines under the body
o proportioning valve
o master cylinder
o complete rear end (don't forget the e-brake cables)
o driveshaft? (I'm not sure which years interchange)

 

I have - coilovers with 350Lb springs
KYB shocks
Noltec adjustable camber/castor tops
24mm Whiteline sway bar
FD calipers with FC slotted rotors, stainless braided brake lines

The sa22C front hub can be machined slightly for FC rotor to slip straight over it, I would reccomend changing to press studs at the same time.

 

OKay, so i guess this is what I want to do as the whole reason behind the upgrading was so that I could get struts for my car. But if there is a way to modify the blues to fit, thats all the better. Could you please explane this more to meÉ I really want to get this done before its too cold out.

 

?

 

If i just get the spindle think from the 83 can i put it in and still use my sa brakes and stuff, but then use a newer strut?

 

yes

 

But isn't the FB spindle different? If it is then the SA brakes will not work. As far as I understand the FB has a bigger outer bearing.

 

worked fine for me. I think the bigger bearing started in 84

 

Yes the big bearing FB spindles started late 83 for the 84-85 year models. All 79-83 struts have the same spindle on them. 79-80 were longer than 81-83.

-billy

 

what exactly was longer? the spindle or the strut?

 

Strut tube.

-billy

 

now are the springs also larger on the sa?

 

I dont think so, Racing beat sells the complete set as 79-85.