It seems that today's cars have more soften-the-ride suspension bushings than we can even count. What's even more surprising is how poorly these bushings actually perform when it comes to handling. Thankfully, there are companies like Pedders who identify the shortcomings these late-model cars suffer from and provide solutions for nearly every rubber piece on the car. They call it "Pedderising" and we call it "required."
If you don't know by now, the LX platform uses many parts from Mercedes-Benz. It incorporates the W220 control arm front suspension from the old S-Class and the five-link rear suspension from the old E-Class, in addition to several other foreign parts, but we're here to focus on the suspension components.
It's because of this sharing with Benz's roots that we have a sophisticated, affordable rear-wheel-drive luxury sedan from Chrysler. But, it's also because of these roots that we have some room for improvement in the performance department. The Mercedes parts are designed to be comfortable, which means they were made with a lot of "play" in them. The entire rear assembly from the E-Class moves around considerably under acceleration in stock trim. Now imagine how much it moves around when you've installed a few aftermarket parts on it, and the Hemi is pushing more torque towards it.
This is where Pedders steps in. According to Pedders, just driving your stock LX car in a performance manner will wear these bushings at an accelerated rate, the results being reduced tire life and poor handling.
Up front, Pedders has come up with a correction for the front control arms' reputation for bumpsteer. Engineers say that the factory LX front suspension will alter toe as much as 15 mm under load, causing the tires to "scrub" and the steering to become less responsive. In some cases, the car will actually steer into a different direction because of the bumpsteer being so severe. The Pedders Bumpsteer Correction Kit claims it will reduce the tendency for toe-in and toe-out changes to within 3 mm. Additionally, front lower-strut mounts, front/rear radius rod bushings, and lower control arm bushings help to provide consistent suspension geometry under cornering, acceleration, and braking. According to Rich DeCrane at Precision, "The factory rubber bushings are weak, and will cause your alignment to fade over time. The Pedders bushings also allow a wider range of camber, so that you can dial in your alignment to suit anything from everyday driving to aggressive road race conditions."
The rear cradle certainly isn't forgotten, either. Pedders offers a rear camber-adjustable bushing since the factory bushings don't allow any adjustment-required for cars that are lowered-and the full gamut of control arm and rear cradle bushings to minimize cradle deflection. According to Pedders, even under normal driving conditions, the factory cradle will move from side to side, as well as fore and aft. This makes the car feel sloppy in corners, and once you feel a "Pedderised" car you'll know what you're missing. It also gets rid of the differential-killing wheel hop.
Last, but not least, the parts that steal the show are the Pedders Extreme XA adjustable coilover shocks for the front and rear. These shocks are 30-way adjustable, and unlike other shocks, you adjust the height by turning the body of the coilover and not the spring. This keeps the spring at its preload and doesn't compress it further to make ride height adjustments.
Parts List 160059Pedders Extreme XA Adjustable Coilover Kit EP2113Bumpsteer Correction Kit (Front) EP4107Front Lower Strut Mount (Front) EP6567Front Radius Rod Bushes (Front) EP7276Rear Radius Rod Bushes (Front) EP6568Front Lower Control Arm Bushes (Front) EP6570Front Upper Control Arm Bushes Adjustable Camber (Front) EP7277Rear Camber Link Adjustable Bush Kit (Rear) EP1172Rear Cradle Bushes (Rear)
Alignment Precision Motorsports gave us their alignment specs provided by Pedders to help them get the most out of the new products. These settings are a starting point to give car and shop owners an idea of where their alignment should be set. These are just ballpark numbers.
OEM Alignment CamberFront: 0.75 Rear: 0.75 CasterFront: 10.00 ToeFront: 0.02 Rear: 0.1 Full Road Race CamberFront: 1.00 Rear: 1.50 CasterFront: 11.00 ToeFront: 0.02 Rear: 0.1 Full Drag Race CamberFront: 0.50 Rear: 0.50 CasterFront: 10.00 ToeFront: 0.02 Rear: 0.1 Aggressive Street CamberFront: 0.75 Rear: 1.00 CasterFront: 10.00 ToeFront: 0.02 Rear: 0.1
Total toe is 0.20 degrees and thrust is set to 0 for all of the Pedders alignment specs.
