Jeff Smith: The Air Ride Technologies suspension parts are high-quality pieces, but we should take a look at what you want to achieve. Merely exchanging the coil springs in all four corners of your '70 442 for airbags will allow you to raise and lower the ride height of the car at will. Yes, it will require an onboard air tank and compressor as well as some support equipment and controls located in the interior within arm's reach of the driver seat. Air Ride sells a very basic system that will do the job at an affordable price, but this does very little to affect handling other than vary the ride height. Also, keep in mind that the first thing to be done before setting front-end alignment is to establish a ride height. Any change affects camber, caster, and toe-in. So if you choose to modify it, select the position where the car will spend its time on the road and align the front end at that height.
Air Ride offers several levels of suspension components that revolve around the basic air spring.>>>
If you choose to modify the suspension to improve handling, there are several ways to go about it. We'll offer some suggestions progressing from the least to the most expensive. Especially with a big-block A-body like your Cutlass, the car tends to push, or understeer, in the corners. This condition is created by a very soft front spring rate, road-weary shocks, and a small front sway bar. Normally, stiffening the front on a car that already understeers is not the way to go. But with these early cars, the soft package allows the body to roll excessively, which creates a major positive camber gain in the front suspension that rolls the tops of the tires outboard, reducing traction by leveraging the inside edge of the tire off the ground. By increasing the front sway bar diameter along with polyurethane sway bar and end-link bushings, body roll and positive camber gain are reduced. Global West sells a solid 111/44-inch front bar (PN SB-709), while Hotchkis offers a tubular 131/48-inch front bar (PN 1916F).
In addition, we'd suggest increasing the front spring rate, assuming you don't convert to air springs. Both Global and Hotchkis offer spring upgrades. Don't be concerned that this will ruin your ride quality. What will affect the ride quality is shock-absorber valving. Be aware that budget shocks are often very stiff. Recently we went for a ride in a buddy's Chevelle outfitted with Bilstein shocks, and we were impressed with its handling and ride quality. Don't tell anybody we said this, but the Hotchkis HPS 1000 shocks look suspiciously like Bilsteins. The Hotchkis HPS 1000 shock part numbers for your car are 70010012 for the fronts and 71010009 for the rear. These are designed to be used with the Hotchkis springs. Our recommendation for bushings is somewhat pricey, but I've been driving on Global West Del-A-Lum bushings in my Chevelles since 1981, and not only do these bushings ride nicely, but they last forever and do not deflect or squeak.
Getting back to the Air Ride springs approach, you may have seen magazine stories trumpeting how '70s-vintage A-bodies like yours can pull over 1 g on the skidpad. This requires a serious investment in tubular upper and lower control arms to change the front suspension geometry as well as tubular upper and lower rear arms to prevent lateral movement of the rear axle. The Global West and Hotchis tubular upper control arms that are so popular with everyone right now are designed to modify the stock camber curve created by the front-suspension geometry, so you can see these parts are much more than just a fashion statement. Air Ride is offering this same design of control arms to be used in conjunction with air springs to create what it calls the Street Challenge System, which is Air Ride's premiere system. This entire front- and rear-suspension system also costs over $6,000, but it offers advantages of both adjustable ride height and vastly improved handling. To be fair, it is also possible to rack up an honest $4,000-plus in conventional coil-spring handling components, so none of this is cheap.