Updated TCP G-Bar triangulated 4-link...

So like I said before everything was pretty straightforward with the exception of the vent/brake line thing. Yes, you could probably get away without welding the hats on, but you've already got the welder out so why not zap it up. Of course, do little bits at a time to minimize the chance of distorting the housing.

I won't bother going into the step-by-step since you can download the instructions from TCP's website and they very clearly walk you through it.

There are three phases to the assembly (besides taking all of the old stuff out): positioning the cradle, assembling the parts, and adjusting everything. It's the first and third parts where you spend all the time.

There is adequate adjustability in the cradle mounting points to account for the chassis irregularities we all know and love. There are six points of attachment: L&R frame rail just aft of the snubber, the 2 old upper shock mounting points, and the 2 pinion snubber bolts. I spent a couple hours getting the cradle positioned just so, which was probably overkill, but I'm weird that way. When you tighten one part down another moves, but through a sequence of jumping around and tightening fasteners in steps you can get it where you want it to be. They also provide shims to place between the cradle and the old upper shock mounts to get that interface to sit flush and I used 2 per side.

Once you weld the frame brackets into place the cradle is captured and can't be removed. At first I was bothered by this but when I thought about it I couldn't figure out why. If the whole thing had been weld-in I never would have thought twice about it so why do I care now?

To go off on a brief tangent, the frame brackets could be designed to be completely bolt-in. DVS's Cobra IRS installation kit places a bracket in the same location, and it's bolted in in a very secure manner, complete with anti-crush spacers inside the frame rail. It carries basically the same load as well. I guess my thinking is that then the typical person could bolt the entire kit into the car and take the housing to a local driveline shop to get welded up. It would be more of a garage-friendly installation. It would come down to cost -- would you be willing to pay an extra 50 or 100 bucks to not have to weld to your car?

The other thing about the cradle installation is that they have you basically mock the whole thing up into place, get it all aligned perfectly, then take it back out to grind a couple of holes and prep the frame rail metal for welding. Then you have to get the thing back into place again. Next time I'm going to do it all in one step. You know within about 1/4" where the brackets will end up, so do the frame rail prep ahead of time with a little extra space. You can also make the oval holes with the bracket in place.

So then you have to assemble everything. Lower links, upper links, and coilovers. It was hard to get the springs onto the shocks, but I was doing it by myself. If you had someone helping you it would be easier. I took the adjustment knob off of the shock so I could thread the lower perch just a little lower to squeeze the spring on. A 1" shorter spring would have been ideal.

So here's what I think is the useful observation out of this whole process:

The g-Link kit would be a lot faster and easier to install and adjust than the g-Bar kit.

As has been discussed ad nauseam in this and other threads, systems with polyurethane bushings require those bushings to deflect (people often mistakenly call this "bind") as the linkage moves. As a result, each bushing has a neutral position in its mounting location where there's no resistance and it can move in and out of place freely. In any other position there is resistance to motion. This resistance is negligible with the weight of the car acting on it, but when you're trying to move things by hand to get them to line up it can be a bear. So, when you're removing, adjusting, and replacing the links to adjust pinion angle for example, if everything's not lined up just so it's not easy to get them out of and into place. You run into the same problem when installing the coilovers and adjusting ride height. Do not interpret this as a shortcoming of the system, it's just the nature of the beast if you want the ride quality (and lower price) the bushings provide. That ride quality was the goal with this particular car, so I think it'll be well worth the effort.

With the g-Link pivot ball system, you'd be able to remove, adjust, and replace links much more easily regardless of the position of the suspension. Over the course of the install this probably would have saved me 2 hours and some knuckle skin.

Overall, the kit looks awesome in the car and the quality of the hardware is outstanding. Nothing I encountered would lead me to discourage anyone from going for it.

The car won't be on the road for another couple of days until I sort out some other unrelated stuff but as soon as I drive it I'll post my impressions of ride and handling.