For the money, the best handling upgrade would be stiffer front and rear anti-sway bars. For $250, you will notice a HUGE difference in the cornering attitude of your car.
If you go with the Whiteline setup, make sure you get the adjustable rear unit if you live where it snows. The Rear bar can be SO STIFF it will cause the rear end to slide around on you in snow. In snow, adjust the sway bar to the softest setting, and then in summer, stiffen it up. The stiffest setting can also cause problems on rain slick roads...so Caveat Emptor.
Next would be springs. For about $200 to $300. Stiffer springs help the car handle better by asbsorbing road irregulairities, they also allow less body roll, and lower the center of gravity of the car. Only thing to worry about here is suspension travel. The Tibbies only have 3.25" of suspension travel up front. If you lower the car 2", you only have 1.25" of suspension travel before you hit the bumpstops. NOT A GOOD THING! <img src=/images/forums/snitz/angry.gif width=15 height=15 border=0> There is NO FIX for this, outside of replacing the struts.
Struts. $200 to $500. The Struts or "pro-dampners" as eibach calls them are there to cancel out the spring. Left on it's own, A spring would continue to occilate (think BOING, BOING, BOING) after every irregularity in the road. The job of the strut is to actually "dampen" out the springs occilations, while allowing the spring to do it's job. Too stiff of a Spring will over power a Strut. Too Stiff of a strut will over power a spring. To weak of a spring will be over powered by a strut, and etc..etc...etc.. That is why you should try to carefully balance your suspension components. Eibach springs on the stock struts do okay, but Eibach springs on Eibach struts is another whole magnatude better.
If you don't want to go the "eibach" route, consider the Koni adjustables. At about $140 each they are not cheap. They are also a major PITA because Koni does not sell their strut with the mounts or the spring perch. So you must hack your stock struts (or a stock set) to pieces in order to fit the Koni's inside. It would be better to call the Koni's "inserts" and the Eibach as Full Struts. The KYB's are softer than the Eibachs, but not as soft as the stock struts. I would worry about the KYB's having the dampening power to handle the H&R racing 2.25" drop springs. I think the KYB's would wear out very quickly with that stiff of a spring. Since the Koni's are adjustable...they would be a much better match.
Next...Front and rear strut tower Braces. Thes guys basically tie the two upper strut tower braces together to keep the chassis from shifting in opposite directions. They do still allow chasis shift, but both strut towers must shift in the same diretion, and the same distance. This does stiffen up the chassis by quite a bit, but they would be even better, if the front bar tied into the firewall to prevent ANY movement of the strut towers. The rear bar really has no where else to tie into, but by itself, it does a fairly decent job of keeping the rear chassis in line.
Under strut braces. These work just like upper strut tower bars, only they tie in the lower suspension mount points. They make about as much of a difference as the upper units do. Consider them "fine tuning" rather than "full tuning".
There are also other things you can do to help your car handle better. Camber and caster changes, tire width changes, wheel offset changes..etc.etc..etc. But this should be enough to keep most of you busy. As those other options are REALLY fine tuning, and need to be right, or your tires will only last 1000 miles.
<hr width=60% noshade size=1 align=left>quote from 4DoorGL:
"Told you. Random is cool as hell in person, even if he is a dick on the net <img src=/images/forums/snitz/wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0> (j/k)"
Leave it to Random to Needlessly complicate things.
