need a bit of help with suspension setup.

[BazV6er]

guys , after my clutch was done by sheldon north (vauxhall specialist and mate of callyman) he told me i should try to go back to the original setup for the suspension as obviously the springs (which im still not sure what calibra they came off ) and with the standard dampers wasnt a good match .

now i have been advised to either go back to oem springs and shocks and lose the lowering 40mm of the car or replace shocks with bilsteins and springs with eibach.but the guy i got the springs off said as long as you dont lower the car 60mm you wont need to adjust the camber or is this wrong.

but sheldon recommends i use the standard setup and later on replace wheels with 17 inchers too get rid of the huge gap that the nonlowered calibra has .

now i rang autovaux to find out the cheapest price and also sheldon is going to make some calls for me but how come vauxhall have quoted me 600 excluding the front springs as these vauxhall no longer stock , but you can get a gmax kit for 200 but does that mean you have to alter the camber as well or not.

its not like im using the car for motorsports and as i have a set of spax springs with standard dampers which are going slowly but wearing the rear tyres down but could that be because of the current setup.

obviously as most had said get gmax kit and i didnt i used the stupid method which i realise was a mistake so what do you think i should go for , im definately going to buy a standard kit for 600 from vauxhall thats just stupid but until i find out what the oem setup will cost i wont know.

[RobbieV]

I've had two sets of Gmax kits and never ever had a problem or uneven tyre wear

[BazV6er]

yeah thats very strange rob , cos i rememebr when you did both v6s and everything seemed fine for yours and yours looked good .

so how come you didnt like the gmax , i know gmax is the cheapest out there and has such a good writeup but you can imagine what mine feels like with half and half.

[Fraz]

are the tyres that are on the back always been on the back from new?

[BazV6er]

well they were both that i replaced about a year before the ling longs went on so yes fraz

[Fraz]

OK yes with a lowered suspension set up you will get tyre wear on the inside edges of the rear tyres...but you can get the Bush's to alter the camber ..after all the LE etc did come with 25mm drop out the factory so they fitted these bushes to compensate for that, and thats the ones of the shelf...they are only really effective to a max drop of 30mm though. Any lower than 30mm you then need to look at the adjustable kits to alter the camber ..not cheap and from what I have heard not that great as they can easily be knocked out of the settings with just hitting a pot hole or bumping up or down a kerb

I have had a drop of about 35mm to 40mm and though had the non adjustable bushes on the SE2, I still got tyre wear, never bothered fitting them on the SE6, and when the tyres get the edges worn to a point they need replaced...its also at the point when the rest of the tyre would be getting changed as it about 2>3mm on the rest of the tyre


if your only wanting the arches filled then any kit will do, if you want it to also handle round corners, then get the best you can afford.

G-MAX as far as I am concerned is a OK kit to make the car look good and a improvement over a worn standard set up....a fully matched kit is better than what you have with standard shocks and a lowered set of springs (even G max)

but lots of things can induce tyre wear...worn suspension bushes ...have they been changed?? cheap nasty tyres that are not made right


its your money and if you want G max go get them,no matter how many people you ask at the end of the day if you cant afford £500 or a suspension kit and only have £200 you get what you can for £200

[v6 steve]

if you have spax springs i would just change the shocks too billy's, iv driven Allys and dont think it handles as well as mine as for tyre wear that's just one of the things you have to live with if you want a Cally that looks cool, i wouldnt have thought that your linlongs would last long even if the camber was ok

[Robs-se]

I have Gmax kit on mine, lowered 40mm and i dont get any tyre wear on the insides and dont have camber kit either, suppose if your tyres aren't balanced correctly you'll get wear as well

[Callyman]

if you have spax springs i would just change the shocks too billy's, iv driven Allys and dont think it handles as well as mine as for tyre wear that's just one of the things you have to live with if you want a Cally that looks cool, i wouldnt have thought that your linlongs would last long even if the camber was ok

His ting tongs are on the front Steve, and they still look like new, I reckon they are made of nylon aye Baz?

[BazV6er]

i duno all the tingtong talk lol,as they were 42 quid each there were ok but where a combination of wheel balancing,wheel alignment and the crappy old springs vs standard dampers mite not of helped my situation but all the tires have been on the car for over 2 years and as i dont even do 6000 miles in a yr

[Allys Cally]

if your only driving about like Mrs Daisey then you'll be fine with the g-max kit, if you going to be putting the car through its paces and driving it hard then dont bother.
i've said it once and i'll say it again the g-max kit is to bouncy at speeds over 100 mph, to be honest its f*****g crap. the sooner i get another set of bilstein shocks on my car the better