General Motors’ fourth generation of the F-body platform ran from 1993 to 2002 through the Chevrolet and Pontiac brands. These Camaros and Firebirds continue to become more affordable, and there are plenty of them out there to use as a foundation for a project car. You can go to any drag strip in America and find F-bodies being used as street/strip warriors, or as full-blown race cars laying down impressive runs.

There’s a mountain of parts available for the F-body platform that can be used to create a wide variety of performance vehicles. Team Z Motorsports, known for its Mustang parts, has jumped on the F-body train with a new take on front suspension parts. They have some fresh ideas that are designed not only to improve performance, but also to make it easier to work on your fourth-generation F-body.

Team Z’s K-member really opens up a lot of space around the engine under the hood of a fourth-generation F-body.

Why You Need To Upgrade Your F-body Front Suspension

Rarely will a consumer vehicle manufacturer crank out a car that has an optimized performance suspension. There’s always going to be some type of compromise, whether it’s the material the parts are made of, the design of the parts to make the vehicle ride better, or just overall cost. The fourth-generation F-body greatly benefits from ditching the stock parts in several different ways.

A fourth-gen F-body’s OEM front K-member and control arms are heavy. So, going to aftermarket tubular parts is going to remove a lot of weight off the nose of the car. Tubular versions are also going to make it much easier to work on the car since the OEM parts are so bulky, and provide additional clearance for things like large primary custom headers or a turbo system – or even a big-block (not to mention the aftermarket parts just look better).

So, how much weight can you save from making the switch from OEM parts to an aftermarket setup like Team Z offers? If you move from the OEM control arms and K-member to the tubular parts, you’re going to shave about 32 pounds off the front of the car. Plus, you’ll gain more strength with these aftermarket parts as well. If you’re a racer that has to meet a minimum weight, having those extra pounds to move around is a big deal.

An aftermarket K-member and front suspension parts will allow you to make suspension geometry changes to areas like stagger, caster, and camber on a fourth-generation F-body. The OEM parts have a much more limited range of adjustment by comparison. 

Dave Zimmerman, owner of Team Z Motorsports, drills down further as to why these upgrades will help a fourth-generation F-body so much.

“The OEM stamp steel is flexible, and the bushings are way too forgiving if you’re trying to get steering feedback. If you’re road racing, the bushings lock things up, and they flex in drag racing applications under hard acceleration. Moving to aftermarket parts opens up what someone can do with their vehicle as far as adjustments, so it works better in a high-performance situation. These cars didn’t come with high-performance alignments from the factory, the adjustable suspension parts give you the ability to put a more aggressive alignment in the front end.”

Designing High-Performance Fourth-Generation F-Body Parts

Team Z may be new to the fourth-generation F-body suspension game, but it has years of experience designing parts that work. All of that experience gave Team Z the perfect baseline to create high quality parts that worked well with a clean-sheet-of-paper approach.

“We wanted our parts to be something your typical enthusiast could bolt right in and not have to change anything. For example, our K-member can use the stock power steering rack, power steering plumbing, and power steering pump with no modifications. If you want a quicker steering ratio, you can put a manual Pinto rack in the K-member without any changes, thanks to our modular platform. You can lower the engine down in the engine bay or change where it sits with a different set of mounts as well,” Zimmerman says.

The serrated adjusters on the Team Z K-member will help keep the lower control arms locked in place during hard acceleration at the track.

Any vehicle is going to see some extreme conditions in a high-performance environment. When you really start pushing an F-body hard at the track, the front end alignment might be impacted by hard acceleration and braking. Team Z wanted to address this with its K-member, so it added precision incremental A-arm adjusters that help maintain the alignment no matter what forces the car is exposed to.

“We’ve been using serrated adjusters for years on our rear suspension components. We decided to add them to this K-member to help with flexing. This locks everything in place and keeps the alignment from changing under acceleration or braking. It also makes precision adjustments and changes much easier,” Zimmerman explains.

Team Z also took a fresh look at what could be done with the upper and lower control arms. There wasn’t a need to completely reinvent these suspension parts, but, Team Z saw some areas that could be improved and optimized. Both the upper and lower control arms received CNC-machined billet steel ball joint cups. The A-arms use a revised gusset system that adds strength to the parts, while helping to keep the overall weight of the parts low.

“The A-arm design uses the same geometry as the OEM parts. This gives our customers the option to just bolt these A-arms in and not have to worry if they will fit or not. Now, we’re going to offer the A-arms with different bushings so customers have some options if they don’t want a harsh ride. If they’re looking for more performance, there will be a version that allows them to adjust the camber and caster,” Zimmerman states.

Parts That Anyone Can Install

Coming up with new parts is awesome, but if they’re impossible for the typical DIY car enthusiast to install, are they really any good? Zimmerman wanted to be sure that these new F-body parts wouldn’t require a Mechanical Engineering degree to bolt on to an F-body. The parts also needed to work well in any high-performance application. The final products are easy to install and offer plenty of adjustment options.

“We wanted to create parts that our customers could install in their driveway or garage. If you can follow the directions, you can bolt these suspension parts up to your car. Just take your time, take pictures of everything that you’re taking apart in case you need a reference, and have the right tools when you start. If you do run into any problems, our customer support staff will be able to walk you through most situations,” Zimmerman says.

Team Z Motorsports took a practical approach to the design and manufacturing of its fourth-generation F-body K-member and control arms. There wasn’t a need to make these parts more complex or use exotic materials. These suspension parts are perfect for enthusiasts looking to add some basic performance to their F-body, or those who are trying to push their rides to the very edge at the track.