Over the summer, I decided that it was time to give my 1998 F-Body a makeover. After nearly a decade of go-fast mods, it was time to change things up a bit. Included in the overhaul was a new hood, repaint, new wheels, and lowering the car 1-3/4” all the way around. It looked great, but the rear suspension was terrible after lowering it. While I’ve never experienced a great amount of traction with my car, lowering it caused a series of extreme fishtailing incidents — which is only fun when it’s on purpose!

That’s why this weekend I picked up a rear lower control arm relocation kit to correct the geometry of the rear suspension — allowing you to reposition your car’s instant center.

Here’s a quick recap of how the install went:

You can choose between weld-on and bolt-in kits — this project called for the weld-in because I didn’t want to pay the extra hundred bucks for the bolt-on version. Whichever kit you decide to go with, you should go ahead and replace the control arm bushings while you’re in there — they don’t cost that much and really make a difference. There are two per side and even the stock replacement ones can make a huge difference if your car has over 100,000 miles like mine does!

If you really want to turn this project into a proper overall, you can opt for different style bushings. I actually found a set of poly bushings on eBay as a set for what I paid per side from the auto parts store, so planning ahead probably would’ve helped here. To be honest, I wish I had invested in a set of aftermarket control arms — but if you’re on a budget, the relocation kit is worth the hassle.

When you get your kit, it will come with hardware and instructions, but here’s what’s involved. To get started, keep in mind that you need to do one side at a time to keep the rear from falling on you, that would be bad.

Remove the rear wheels, remove the parking brake cable, cut the bracket, unbolt the lower control arm, and unbolt the bar supporting the parking brake on the passenger side.

Slide the bracket in between the bracket on axle and install the supplied bolt and weld the bracket in — three spots need to be welded along the sides and back of the bracket. There’s a little more to it than this, obviously, and it should only take about 2 hours to do. If you did decide to go with the weld-ins like I did, you’ll find out that they come unfinished, which is fine — but as you can see in the pictures, a little paint was applied over the welds to keep anything from rusting, you might want to do the same.

Between this and my new torque arm and poly mount, my car’s traction is a lot more confidence worthy. We’ll see what kind of difference it made after I take her to the track this Friday. I’ll post the results in the comments section and discuss how I feel about the difference next week.