When I bought my Laguna back in 1995, it needed some minor suspension work. The springs were a bit sagged, the back end had airshocks which weren't holding air and the car felt mushy. I took it to a local shop and had new springs and shocks installed all the way around. However, one of the lower control arms had rusted out around the lower shock mounting holes. I quickly located another lower arm, this one from a mid 70's Camaro which, I was told, uses the same arms as the Chevelle. In retrospect, I'm not so sure about that. I've broken two front coil springs on that side. Yes, I said broken! And no, I don't go off roading. When the car is on a lift, the side with the Camaro arm hangs differently. I wanted to correct this. Also, the back end sits too high for my liking and the car feels like it's going to roll over on sharp corners!

The car is fairly tight, considering it's age, but I've decided that it really needs a complete and proper update. I'm doing this on a budget and as time permits, and I'm not going to do anything that anyone else couldn't do. So follow along as we try to answer to the above question... can a 4,000lb car handle like a new Camaro? We're going to find out!

The starting point: a pair of clean, rust-free southern lower control arms. After placing an ad on Chevytalk, I picked these up from Gary Marchi in Alabama, who replaced the A-arms on his '76 Laguna with a set of tubular arms from Fatman Fabrications. His Laguna originally came from New Mexico and after seeing how nice the lower arms were, I got ahold of Gary again and had him send me the upper arms too!

Our buddy Cliff is 'da man! He does fabrication and uses any excuse he can to play with his welder, so I took the arms to him. First, he boxed the upper arms. Then he had to have a special collar made for his press to fit my bushings and then the old bushings and ball joints were popped out of all four arms. Now they just need to be cleaned up. The holes you see are access holes for the sway bar end links.

We dropped the arms off at a local place called Multiblast (environmentally friendly media stripping - says so in their ad!). The arms were media blasted and cleaned up nicely. The guys were great and the price was reasonable. I mentioned I was going to have the arms powder coated, so they steered me to someone they deal with regularly. He picked up my arms from their shop (that's why there's no pic after the blasting) and they came back in about a week, powder coated in semi-gloss black. If you haven't heard of powder coating before, the parts are hung on a metal rack, then a small electrical charge is run through them. A fine powder (large choice of colors) is sprayed on. The powder sticks to the parts via static electricity. Once covered, the parts are put in an oven to bake at about 435 degrees. This is the end result, a beautiful and durable finish.

After a lengthy intermission, the suspension project is finally back on track and the parts gathering has picked up some steam.

Of course, the upgrade wouldn't be complete without a new set of KYB Gas-A-Just shocks for all four corners. Shown at left are the front pair I ordered from Summit Racing for $27.95 each. I had a $20.00 certificate from them I used, so it was almost like getting one of the shocks for free! The back pair (not shown) I snagged on ebay for $29.99 + shipping for the pair. The back shocks are brand new even though the boxes look like they've been through world war three!

Parts is parts. And this is a whole lot of parts! This is the complete front end rebuild kit from Performance Suspension Components. The kit comes with new TRW/Federal Mogul upper and lower ball joints, inner and outer tie rod ends and idler arm. It also includes Energy Suspension graphite impregnated polyurethane upper and lower A-arm bushings, polyurethane sway bar bushings, end link kit, tie rod and ball joint boots and control arm bump stops. The order also came with a new catalog and... decals!

The front sway bar on my Laguna was a little wimpier than I thought. According to the GM specs, it measure .875" in diameter. For a few bucks more, I ordered a new bar from PSC. This bar is manufactured by Hellwig and measure a much larger 1 5/16". This thing is HUGE! PSC "deletes" the sway bar stuff from their kit and credits you for it. The Hellwig bar comes with all the hardware you need, plus new polyurethane bushings and end link kit. Eventually, I may add the matching rear bar, which measures 1". I haven't measured my factory rear bar yet to see what the difference is.

Stay tuned as there will be more updates as soon as my checkbook recovers!