Red Camaro - Nope. Still Red.

I've never been crazy about the handling of our 1996 Camaro. The ride is pleasant but the handling always felt a little loosey goosey, as if it wasn't all there. What I thought was a supple, compliant ride at first, especially compared to my punishing Z28, grew tiresome since a car that doesn't handle well is a chore to drive.

Turns out the handling really wasn't all there because the front sway bar, or stabilizer or whatever you call this thing was broken and here on the passenger side, it wasn't even connected to the car. I bought a set of links about a year ago in a well intentioned attempt to bolt thing back on but it did little to help since half of the link on the bar was broke off on this side. I don't know if the old link broke off when the sway bar snapped or someone removed it; not that it mattered. I knew the sway bar had to go.

OEM sway bars for our car are hard to find and they're expensive. The parts counter at the local Chevrolet dealership wanted $300+ for it (if they could find it) and online they usually come part of a kit that runs almost $500. Rick's Camaro's offers complete with fresh links and bushings for $200. Still, I thought that was still kind of a lot of money.

Luckily, I have a yard here in Cleveland that is wonderful to do business with. No matter what I've needed over the last couple of years they've been able to get for me or, there's been times they've been quite candid in telling when I should forego used parts and go with new. Candor is part of great customer service.

It took them about a week to find this rusty old thing that they told me does have a minor hairline crack in the right side. Not uncommon with these things since they're hollow, brittle and old. I rolled the dice and took it home.

Removal and installation was pretty straight forward. I also bought a set of new links and bushings for both sides. I torqued everything down to 75 foot pounds and took the car out for extended spin.

Right from the getgo I could tell my efforts were successful. Not only did the car ride taughter, the handling was nimble, crisp. Well, nimbler and crisper. There's no confusing the handling of our red Camaro in the best of circumstances with that of a new Corvette.

I came home after the test drive proudly crowing to my wife that my Sunday afternoon flat on my back removing and replacing the sway bar was a huge success. Again, straight forward work but fairly time consuming. Add in the time that I spend shopping for the sway bar and buying a couple of special sockets for the job and this whole thing took me a substantial six hours or so to complete. All worth it in my humble opinion since I found the car to be so much more fun to drive.

Later in the week I asked my son if he noticed anything different about the car after he drove it for several days. "Nope," he said, "still red".