When General Motors decided to build the new '10 Camaro, they wanted the car to perform, but that term means different things to different people. The vast majority of people have never driven a truly fast car. They get out of their Honda Civic to test drive a '10 SS and feel like they've been strapped into a rocket ship. They take a curvy road and feel like they're on rails. However, a small minority of people out there know better. They've driven fast cars that can carve corners with the best of them, and it takes a bit more to peg their "fun meters." Chances are that if you're reading this magazine, you fall into the latter group of miscreants.
The main problem with the new Camaro is that it's big, not in a dimensional sense, but certainly in terms of weight. Mass in motion wants to stay in motion, and the more weight you have shooting along in a given direction, the more difficult it is to get that petrol-fueled mass on another trajectory. Add in the fact that GM's main concern is making the majority of buyers happy, and it's easy to see how our little minority of performance junkies is left wanting more.
Here's the '10 suspension...
Here's the '10 suspension kit (PN 033021, $975) from Detroit Speed Inc. The sway bars are quite a bit larger than stock and come powdercoated gloss black. The springs lower the ride height for a more aggressive stance, but more importantly they have increased spring rates for better handling.
Detroit Speed Inc. saw the limitations of the '10 Camaro SS right away and decided to engineer a kit that would help the heavy Camaro transition from one direction to another with greater ease. They also wanted to make the system easy to install and affordable.
The result is a kit that doesn't attempt to reinvent the wheel, but rather make that wheel better than it was. Bigger sway bars to help tame body roll work in concert with higher rate coil springs. The effect is a Camaro that ends up feeling a lot lighter than it really is. As a side benefit, it also drops the stance down to the level that is aesthetically pleasing, yet not so low that you end up cringing in terror at every speed bump or slightly inclined driveway.
And while we appreciate a killer stance as much as the next guy, we really felt we needed "before" and "after" testing. After all, this is Camaro Performers, not Camaro Posers. With that in mind, we baseline tested our project SS on both the skidpad and the slalom. We then installed the DSE parts and retested the SS on the same tires and wheels that it had from the factory. No trickery or other shenanigans to sully the results.
After working on so many old...
After working on so many old Camaros, diving under the 2010 was a bit of a shocker. The first step was to unbolt the brake line bracket from the factory strut. We also unclipped the ABS line from the front of the strut. Here you can also see the much discussed caliper wheel weights that GM stuck on the front Brembos, but that's a story for another time.
Follow along as we upgrade the Camaro Performers '10 SS.
| PARTS SPECIFICATIONS |
| FRONT SPRINGS |
| STOCK |
DSE |
| 156 LBS |
220 LBS |
| REAR SPRINGS |
| STOCK |
DSE |
| 373 LBS |
425 LBS |
| FRONT SWAY BAR |
| STOCK |
DSE |
| 504 LBS |
1,148 LBS |
| REAR SWAY BAR |
| STOCK |
DSE |
| 595 LBS |
1,400/1,764 LBS |
Back To The Track
Prior to doing the suspension upgrades, we took our bone-stock SS to our test venue to get some baseline numbers. The two tests applicable to these suspension upgrades were the slalom and the skidpad. The slalom we use is 420 feet long consisting of cones spaced 70 feet apart. Our skidpad test measures a car's lateral grip buy hauling ass around a 200-foot diameter circle. The best time clockwise is averaged with the best time counter clockwise and that number is plugged into a formula that gives us an average g-force reading. This method makes it extra tough to hit the magic 1g number, but then again, it's not supposed to be easy.
Using a 15mm socket, we then...
Using a 15mm socket, we then disconnected the sway bar endlink from the strut.
The upright was then unbolted...
The upright was then unbolted from the strut using a pair of 24mm wrenches.
With the upright bolts removed,...
With the upright bolts removed, the bottom of the strut was now completely disconnected.
Moving underhood, we then...
Moving underhood, we then used a 24mm wrench to unbolt the top of the strut from the strut tower. We were sure to have someone on the other end to catch it when it dropped free.
In our case the front spring...
In our case the front spring wasn't under any tension, so we just unbolted the retention cap from the strut. It was nice to not have to mess with a spring compressor.
Here you can see the new Detroit...
Here you can see the new Detroit Speed linear-rate spring next to the stocker. It's quickly obvious that the new spring is going to drop the stance, but not so obvious is that it features a stiffer spring rate. Detroit Speed was careful to strike a balance between performance and good ride quality.
The new springs were simply...
The new springs were simply slid onto the OEM struts and secured in place. One nice aspect is that the new coil springs are a direct replacement for the OEM units, and still retain the factory isolators. In short, our suspension will be as quiet as it was with the stock stuff.
The re-assembled strut was...
The re-assembled strut was then inserted through the strut tower and secured in place. Again, it helped to have two sets of hands for this.
We then reattached the upright...
We then reattached the upright to the strut using the factory hardware. To finish up the front, we snapped the ABS line back onto the strut and secured the brake line.