Handling Kits

There are drivers who think of their cars as tools, appliances, mere transportation devices to get from point A to Point B, and then there are those for whom their car is a machine built for excitement. If you’re in the latter camp then you’re an enthusiast, a gear head, and for you every excursion behind the wheel, even a mundane trip to the market, is an opportunity for fun. Unfortunately, many cars are built for people who want appliances, and even performance models can fall short of expectations. But if you want to amp up the fun factor on your ride, we have the handling kits to make it happen.

Mr. Appliance Driver just wants a smooth ride so his latte doesn’t spill on the way to work. The fact that his cushy ride also results in a car with excessive body roll that wallows in the turns doesn’t matter, because he’ll never drive it hard enough to find out. But that lackluster performance is unacceptable to an enthusiast, which is why we offer the products you see before you. With these kits and components you can transform even a grocery getter into a fine handling machine, and make driving a performance car the exhilarating experience it’s supposed to be.

As you can see from our huge selection of performance handling components, we offer a lot of choices. Whether you want to upgrade and enhance the capabilities of a daily driven car or truck, or you autocross, road race or drag race, we have kits and components that are specifically tailored to your vehicle and desired application so you can reach your performance goals. You can do a handling makeover with a complete kit, or if time or budgetary constraints dictate, modify your car incrementally with selected parts. The brands we offer know that many enthusiasts take the latter approach and offer their kits with different levels of performance. When you choose to add on and further upgrade performance, you can be assured of getting components that are engineered to work with the ones you already have.

Sway bars and sway bar kits are an easy and affordable way to start improving the handling of your car or truck. The diameter of most factory sway bars is too small for optimal performance, which results in excessive body roll, poor weight distribution and traction, and a lack of responsiveness, and many vehicles don’t even have a rear sway bar. We have large diameter bars for both front and rear and our sway bar kits come with firmer mount and link bushings made of polyurethane. They’ll reduce body lean for improved traction and handling, and some are adjustable so you can dial in the stiffness. We also have rear sway bar kits designed especially for pickup trucks that will greatly improve handling when tall loads like a camper are carried in the bed.

Lowering is another proven way to improve handling. Dropping ride height lowers the vehicle’s center of gravity, which also helps to reduce body roll. Lowering kits include stiffer springs to reduce dive and body roll in the form of coilovers that allow ride height, spring preload and damping adjustment; shorter progressive coil springs; and/or leaf springs that achieve the lower ride height through less arch, shackle and hanger kits that reposition the spring mounting points, or lowering blocks and U-bolts. Choose from lowering kits with just springs to all-inclusive kits that contain shocks, struts, sway bars, and more. A lowering kit will make your ride look like a performance machine too, with a ground hugging stance that will also improve the look of the wheels and tires in the wheel wells.

Flex in the chassis, which is all too common with factory parts, can make a vehicle feel less responsive and stable. Another sure fire way to improve handling and responsiveness is to stiffen the chassis and chassis components. To that end, our most comprehensive handling kits include parts like tubular control arms, tubular or box section trailing arms, strut bars, underbody braces, and even beefed-up K-members for some applications. Some control arms provide more caster and camber adjustability, and are equipped with low friction ball joints and polyurethane or Delrin bushings to provide rigidity without excessive resistance. Trailing arms may be adjustable to allow important settings like pinion angle to be dialed in and may be equipped with polyurethane bushings or spherical ball joints.