2005 Pontiac GTO Pedders Suspension Upgrade - Getting A Handle On Things

Back under the car, Walter removed the front lower control arms and radius rods that extend from the front of the car.

To remove the inner control arm bushings, Walter first drills a few holes around the steel inner sleeve and then uses an oxyacetylene torch to burn everything out.

With the factory forged steel control arms cleaned out, the new Pedders bushing is inserted and lubricated with the provided grease.

In order to remove the front antisway bar, the crossmember must be unbolted and lowered a few inches. Then, it can be snaked out once its brackets are unbolted from the crossmember and the power steering cooler lines are disconnected.

The Pedders adjustable antisway bars are not only larger in diameter, but are made of a stronger alloy that is less resistant to flex. This results in less body roll. You can adjust the front bar's torsion rate by mounting the antisway bar endlink within one of the four holes (the rear bar has two.) This gives you eight possible sway bar adjustment combinations; the factory bars are not adjustable at all.

Whenever the front subframe is unbolted from the car, new bolts are required because they are of the torque-to-yield design. Only four bolts hold the subframe in-two black ones and two silver ones.

With the cradle back in position, but without the bolts fully tightened, Frank and Walter then used the Pedders subframe alignment tool to make sure that our subframe (AKA cradle) was centered within the car. The tool slides into two receiving holes that were stamped into the framerails at the factory and the indicator pin is then aligned with a special mark on the subframe.

We shifted the cradle slightly until the mark lined up with the alignment pin on the tool, and then cranked down the subframe bolts into final place.

The factory front radius rod bushings (back) are made of a rather mushy rubber material that is one of the sloppiest points on the front end of a GTO. Here lies one of the biggest causes of poor tire wear as these bushings affect caster and the subsequent loss of camber gain in turns. They also adversely affect braking as they allow the front wheel to move fore and aft in relation to the chassis. To remedy all of this slop, without causing any bind, we installed the Pedders adjustable radius rod bushing kit.

With the front subframe in place, we then installed the new strut assemblies along with the brake calipers, antiswaybar endlinks and finally, the Pedders wheel spacers.

Out in back, we removed the rear shock absorbers and unbolted the rear differential mount from the underchassis. Walter then let the rear subframe come down a few inches to swap out the rear antisway bar, which is mounted on top. Here, you can see the Pedders unit going into position.

The factory antisway bar endlinks are enhanced with new Pedders bushings.