racing, body roll.

i have an 01 impala LS with the 3800 series II motor, i like to do fast cornering in my impala, it hugs the road so tight for as large of a car as it is, but there is alot of body roll. any sugestions on how to lessin this affect? i was considering the police and taxi suspension but that is pretty spendy, im also planning on lowering the car 1.7 in. in the back and 1.4 in. in the front, to help lower the center of gravity, i love my impala and the way it handles, but wish there was alot less body roll.

any ideas?

sincerely,
Impala racer.:evillol:

i have an 01 impala LS with the 3800 series II motor, i like to do fast cornering in my impala, it hugs the road so tight for as large of a car as it is, but there is alot of body roll. any sugestions on how to lessin this affect? i was considering the police and taxi suspension but that is pretty spendy, im also planning on lowering the car 1.7 in. in the back and 1.4 in. in the front, to help lower the center of gravity, i love my impala and the way it handles, but wish there was alot less body roll.

any ideas?

sincerely,
Impala racer.:evillol:

Yep, check out this site:

http://www.gmpartsdirect.com/results.cfm?perfPackages=1&pkgid=121

Heavy duty front and rear sway bars, tubular rear trailing arms, and a strut tower brace. Shouldn't set you back more than $180 if you install it yourself.

You seem to be wanting to do a lot of upgrading to your car... Might as well buy an actual sports car! :-) If you're set on upgrading your Impala there are several other things you can do:

1) Fenderwell cold air intake (you can make this yourself for less than $125, but you have to be careful not to drive through deep puddles or engine hydro-lock might happen).
2) Upgrade your exhaust. The Impalas have an infamously restrictive U-bend near the catalytic converter. If you get a downpipe and a wider exhaust (size would depend on whether you supercharge your car or not) you should see some performance gains.
3) Turbocharge your car instead of replacing the engine with one from a SS Impala! You would most likely still have to replace the transmission with a 4T65E-HD... This is by far the most expensive upgrade but one that gets you the most performance. A number of people have done this successfully. You need to know what you're doing however!

If you're planning on keeping the car naturally aspirated there are also a lot of things that you can do outside of the fenderwell intake and the exhaust upgrade. There are a lot of forums around that are dedicated to upgrading W-body cars with the 3800 series II engine.

i was considering turbocharging my impala, but was told that because it is a chevy it wouldn't go very well. i would rather do a turbocharger, i love the sound of the blow off valve. i was also told that because it's not an import that there would be alot of extra work involved as far as making brackets and everything else. and the reason i don't buy a sports car is A) you see alot of impalas but not very many that are cusomized, i want to turn heads. B) i can't afford the insurance and all the mods of a sports car. C) it's a beautiful car and im in absolute love with it.


would you be able to direct me to some of the other usefull forums, im not real great at this web searching stuff...



sincerely,
Impala racer.:evillol:

Yes, there would be a lot of work involved in turbocharging the car, but it's not impossible... Doing the engine swap to a L67 supercharged 3800 Series II is also a lot of work. Are you planning on doing this yourself or paying someone to do this? You also have to realize that if you mod the car and don't report the aftermarket equipment to the insurance company, if you get into an accident you might have problems with the insurance covering the damage to your modded car, since they are only insuring the stock version of the car. There is extra insurance that you can get for the additional parts and mods that you plan on adding, but that will raise the premiums.

i was planning on doing the motor swap myself, i've done a few so it's nothing real new to me, i understand that all cars have different tricks with every motor swap, but the basics are the same. i bought the car for alot cheaper then it's worth for fair market value.... i bought it for $6,500 with 92k miles back in 02.... so i got a pretty good deal on it. so even if a wreck it after putting a few mods into it, i wouldn't come out to bad on the deal i think.

im looking for anything i can do to make the car faster and handle better.... i've already found the lowering kit and body kits and whatever else, just need to get the actual performance part figured out, any help from anyone that has either done some work to thier impala or can point me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.



sincerely,
Impala racer.:evillol:

You should just get a 96-98 328i 2dr/4dr 5spd with the sport package and turbo it. That way you save all the modding money and drive a nicer car overall and they are cheap to buy now.