Hey MC Family. Stumbled upon this and decided to share this with you all.

http://m.bmrsuspension.com/?page=products&vehicleid=13&maincatid=52&catid=119

 

Just as a FYI, these parts have been sold for about 20 years for the W platform. I run everything in that kit except the STBs (I use GM bars for that) in my 5th gen.

IMO its not even remotely worth it, especially relative to the value of these cars these days. The problem with this kit is that virtually all of the parts are for the rear suspension which is the area doing the least amount of work by far on a front heavy FWD car like these.

For someone wanting to improve handling, theres a lot better places to spend your money first:

-Tires. Being a fairly normal passenger car, it seems many people tend to run standard all season tires. There is a huge amount of grip to be gained by going to a higher performance summer tire. Even if you've tried summer tires years ago and weren't blown away, its worth another try as the vehicle OEMs have really pushed the high end of summer tires to very high limits these days.

-Springs / struts. Theres only so much you can do with a very soft suspension like these come with stock. Ride height is also very high (although we're limited as to how much we can reasonably lower without running into other issues) which makes the car more susceptible to body lean. The OE struts though are on the very soft end of the spectrum when considering performance applications.

-Sway bars. As with the above, the stock sway bars are intended for a 'daily driver' type of car that would never be used in a performance application. There are improvements to be made - even in some cases by at least going to a bar from a more sporty trim level.

-Weight. This is useful for any kind of racing and there are really significant gains to be made here for basically free if you don't mind living without some comforts. Every movement the car has to make is easier with less mass to have to do that with.


For the parts in this kit itself:
-Trailing arms. Without question the BMR arms are stiffer that the cheap U shaped metal that many of these cars came with. However GM has put out several W bodies now with OEM tubular arms (granted not as thick as the BMR arms, but the deflection difference is likely minimal). These used to be very cheap from GM when new, but Im sure they can be found in junkyards for virtually nothing.

-Lateral arms. IMO the only real benefit here is 4x adjusters (instead of 2 stock). But if youre not having a problem getting the alignment #s you want (which are likely different from OEM for someone truly worried about handling as the priority) - then it doesn't really benefit you. The stock arms are already tubular (but again not quite as thick as BMR). Thats an awful lot of money for just adding 2 adjusters though.

-STBs, Certainly there is some benefit to rigidity of the chassis by doing that, but these are very expensive compared to other options. The OEM GM bars used to be literally $15 each back in the early 2000s. I don't know if they're still available, but again you should be able to find some in a junkyard / ebay for practically nothing.


Given the age / mileage of these cars, I think the most immediate benefit from this kit is from new bushings. The deflection of a steel bar is nowhere near the deflection of a 20 year old chunk of rubber thats been squished, pulled, and dry rotted for 20 years. But there are manufacturers who make these if someone is really interested in them - the sizes we use are nothing odd.

My point is that if someone really wanted the benefits of this kit, you could get 90% of it for a tiny fraction of the price.

 

Also, their marketing person really drives my engineer side nuts on this one:

How? If anything, I'd say it has the opposite effect (granted a miniscule one). All but one STB in this kit is literally added dead weight as the back wheels are just along for the ride in a FWD launch. So the car weighs more and that weight is not over the drive wheels to help improve traction.

Someone was just blindly copy + pasting this one. The vast majority of this kit is nowhere near the drive wheels and isn't even heavily stressed on a launch. The front STB is the closest, but even that has no impact on wheel hop. Its not like the strut towers flexing together and apart is what causes wheel hop.

Another copy + paste error. The kit doesn't replace a single arm or bushing on the drive wheels.

This is also a general pet peeve of mine with some suspension companies. They just generically say "stronger = better" without providing any real test results to quantify things.

The one I'd be most interested in seeing is a W body lateral vs BMR lateral measured for deflection under the highest cornering load (to measure how much actual deflection you'd see at the tire). Specifically I'd want to see this done with matching durometer bushings to eliminate that variable (ie if you were to put a poly bushing on a stock arm). Given how rigidly the lateral arms are mounted (and the fact that they're so long that they're almost completely in tension / compression), I'm just very skeptical that there is substantial deflection in a stock control arm in the normal max cornering loads you'd ever see.


Id also be curious for the trailing arms - how does the strength before notable deflection occurs (better GM vs BMR) compare to the shear strength of the body side mount bracket (which is fairly flimsy sheet metal ears). Given those bars are really only loaded heavily under hard braking (and both rear wheels combined aren't doing anywhere near 50% of the brake effort), I'd think the body mount would break off before you ever get notable deflection in either bar (so then so what if the GM bar deflects 1/2" by 2000# and the BMR takes 6000# to get there if mount is only intended to support 750# and shears at 1500# - all made up numbers of course).

 

Some general items I will say. I was surprised to learn when I saw it at the junk yard, the stock laterals are hollow. I have been turned off from the BMR items for years because how spendy they are and potentially minimal gain.

Just for comparison sake. I always felt my blue monte felt like the read end was loose. But now, I feel the car is a lot tighter and almost feels it rides on rails sometimes (almost, not 100% there). And I can push her pretty hard on some curves to freeway on ramps lol. But here is all that is done on it from a suspension standpoint:
- ZZP front and rear strut braces. They are pretty cheap but honestly I feel better than the GM ones.
- New dorman control arms with the moog spherical bushing (like a ball join and I suspect gives the stiffness people seek from poly; cool to NOT have the rubber one anymore)
- Poly front sway bar bushings and poly front sway bar end links on the factory original sway bar.
- UMI rear trailing arms (probably the same quality as the BMR)
- Moog rear sway end links (they have a thicker connecting shaft)
- Switched from factory 16's to aftermarket 18" wheels.

- Factory strut assemblies (the front struts have been replaced with stock spec, but still uses the factory springs)
- Factory laterals.
- Factory front and rear sway bars.
- I have a set of Brandon Furches solid sub-frame bushings, but not yet installed.

I want to change the rear sway bar bushings to poly, just haven't done so. Not sure how close I am cost wise to the BMR kit, but I feel this has done me well.

 

Well for one, I have had this exact BMR package for years and have never regretted it. Still like new, not some old half assed minimal built set that turns to rust after 3 years under a car. So I'm good with it. Sure it doesnt check all the boxes, but it works for me and I have pushed it hard on professional road courses, even that time I took 1st in Novice class on a SSCA Autocross event, it handled sweet into and out of the corners while under extreme braking, acceleration. I would buy it again.

 

Thanks everybody for the reviews. Didn't know this stuff has been around since the 6th Gen's lifespan, but now I know.

Still grabbing the kit for my MC; hopefully it will do the same for me as it has for you Zippy.

 

Hope you post your thoughts on them when you do them - they sound interesting. That cradle is such a substantial piece in these cars that you'd think there would some notable upside to solidly connecting it to the body.

That a good one that I'd completely forgot to mention! Swapping out flexible sidewall (especially on non performance tires) for solid rim goes a long way towards improving the handling feel.

Just curious, have you done any other suspension mods? That was the point I was trying to get at- that this isn't a good spot to start in terms of bang for the buck. If you've got the money and plan to upgrade everything in the suspension, then there's certainly some level of benefit, I just wouldn't reccoemnd starting there.

 

Yes. I have new MOOG shocks and struts, sway bar, tie rods, and control arms.

 

I could be mistaken, but aren't the MOOG parts just intended to be OEM like replacements and not actual performance upgrades? Ive just never seen someone interested in performance use their parts as an upgrade vs the traditional aftermarket vendors.

 

Now THIS I didn't know. I thought MOOG was a step above OEM parts.