Chances are your street machine still sports the same suspension it was delivered with. A new suspension may add points to the comfort level, but for most street-machine enthusiasts, ride height or stance count for more than raw athletic ability. But the thrill of brutal horsepower usually comes at the expense of excessive body roll, noticeable understeer, and poor steering reaction. It's a proven formula for an uncontrollable mess.
Our project '65 Chevy Biscayne is a prime example of forgoing ride quality and performance in pursuit of the perfect ride height. The stance was bitchin', and the fuel-injected GMPP 350ci Ram Jet provided plenty of grunt for the occasional wide-open-throttle blasts, but the unfortunate truth was that the car exhibited poor road manners that we simply learned to live with. Then we learned that Hotchkis Performance was working on a new B-body suspension line that provided new front and rear swaybars, upper and lower trailing arms, and shocks. So about a year or so ago, we actually loaned Hotchkis this very car for a few weeks so the company could measure up the appropriate rear control arms and swaybars to fit the '65-'70 Chevy fullsize platform. The prototype parts were tested on some other cars and displayed as a new product at last year's SEMA show, but until now we haven't had an opportunity to see how they perform in action.
With the parts now in full production and a testing day lined up, we watched John Hotchkis, president of Hotchkis Performance, take a crack at the 600-foot slalom course with Editor King's daily driven street machine. "You have to take a breath before every corner" were Hotchkis's first words after a gnarly wide-eyed driving experience. We never before thought a 4,000-pound family sedan could aggressively navigate a corner with any precision; we considered it strictly a boulevard and open highway cruiser.
The baseline performance numbers were dismal, but after replacing the stock parts with the Hotchkis upgrades, our two-ton tugboat can now hit an apex with little fear of tipping over, and the ride quality improvement alone is amazing. Read on to get the juicy details.
