Suspension Mods - How Much Is Too Much

[66 C10 383]

When you do mods to your truck, how do you know if you've gone too far for what the actual intended useage will be?

Obviously, a daily driven street truck doesn't need a full tube frame. Also, a dedicated autocross truck will need more than a set of drop spindles and swaybars. For everyone else, it's all about compromise. How much ride quality do I give up or how much handling is enough for what I intend to use the truck for.

I'm not talking safety as in "are my 140,000 mile original front end parts still okay?", I'm reffering to performance above and beyond what the truck was originally designed for. As in, moving to a more modern ride and handling.

From stock to track use, everything we do is a compromise. Daily drivers give up handling for ride comfort. Track vehicles give up ride quality for ultimate handling. How much of either I'm willing to give up is differant than what you may be willing to give up.

It would be nice if we could get some type of guidelines for the various mods we've come up with for our trucks. We have mods for everything from what makes a nice daily driven street truck to the fully dedicated autocross trucks.

What I'm looking for are recommendations on some of the lesser, more cost-effective stuff we can do. What can we expect from certain mods. Are they streetable mods or geared more towards the no-holes-barred competition truck. Are we getting carried away with mods you won't ever really need/use.

Lower profile tires - Tires range from 75 series 15's to 30 series 18's & 20's. Each has their intended useage. No, 75's wouldn't be very competetive on the track. If I ran 40 series tires on the roads we have here, I'd be blowing sidewalls out on a monthly basis.

Control arm bushings - Do I stay with stock style bushings or upgrade to poly's? Do either bind suspension movement more than the other? Do poly's squeek or how to keep them from doing so? Both A-arm bushings and trailing arm bushings?

Control arm relocating - How much benefit does moving these make? For the lower we have the "Castor Mod". Is it still worth doing if we stay with stock style bushings and how far do we go? Is it worth moving the upper arm and how is it done? Taller upper ball joints? Then we move on to $800+ tubular arms ...

Drop spindles - These I do know have many positive benefits. Suspension drop with no loss of travel & gain modern disc brakes.

Coil springs - You can cut your 30+ year old sagging springs, buy new stock springs in various rates and cut somewhere between 1/2 to 2 full coils off. Or, you can buy springs with 1" - 3" drop ready to bolt in. Actual drop on any of these will vary for many reasons including engine (6 cylinder, small block, big block, or LS).

Rear trailing arms - When should we scrap or modify our trailing arms or buy the tubular rear arms? Should we run the stock rubber bushings, move to poly's, or go all out for the spherical bearings?

Frame boxing - I know the frame isn't part of the suspension. But if you can reduce the flexing, then the suspension has a better chance to control the truck. The suspension can't control it if the frame flexes like a wet noodle ...
But, how far along the modification list would this be recommended for? Do you just simply box the rails in? Do you continue it with cross bracing? Adding in additional bracing above the cross bracing?

Other frame based mods - These can range from pancaking the front crossmember, cutting the frame to raise the crossmember up, or swapping for a custom tubular crossmember.

These are just a few of the mods we can do to our trucks to transform them from ancient utility vehicles to trucks that can show most modern cars a surprise view of their tail lights. Most of us here fall somewhere in between these two extremes. What mods should I do for a sweet daily driver vs. a more high performance street truck or full autocross track star. Of course, time and cost will be another factor. Thus, which mods are worth spending my money on and what mods are going to cost more than I need to spend to acheive my goals. Ability has to be figured in this as some users can handle fabrication skills and some others will have to pay to have these mods done. If you have to pay to have these mods done, which ones will give me the best bang for my buck ...

Does any of this make any sense to you? I've read the "Make It Handle" (which sadly seems to have died now ... ) thread so many times and every time I do I come away more confused than before I had (re)read it. I'm not looking to build a truck to compete with the trickest autocross parts but I would like to be able to climb in it and keep up with the traffic going to work at 70 - 75 mph without fearing for my life ... and maybe make that Camaro wonder why that 40 year old truck is hanging on his back door just a little bit longer than it should be ... LoL