bob

translation = if you've got all the time in the world to monkey with spring rates, sway bar rates and shock valving then back it up with some testing then I wouldn't reccomend it.

Redleg

LOL. Reading those posts was a real good suspension 101 for me. What I never understood is why would Shelby, Saleen, Roush, etc...swap out front sway bars if there was no reason to do it. That just seems odd to me.

Poco

Those are Raceline GT's,20x8.5's frt/20x10's rear.

Phorty

Thanks! They remind me of the Shelby Redlines I'm interested in. I haven't been able to find any pics of a car.
http://www.buywheelstoday.com/products/?id=3773

kevinb120

I threw the steeda catalog at two of my other stangs with adjustable everything and it was a pain to deal with and I don't think I ever got everything set up right. I'm just getting the FRPP pack this time around, I'm not racing the car on a track.

ttbit

I wonder how it compares to the Roush kit? I for one, want something that won't scrape the ground so I am looking for the most mild drop, so I have started to lean toward Roush.

I actually wonder if there is some tweaking I can do to the car stock to help it to turn in faster. Maybe more negative camber and less toe in? It just seems that I really have to crank that wheel to get it to turn, and then the understeer. Whoa... I don't want to mess up my ride, but the springs feel too soft and it is still more harsh on some bumps than my lowered 95 was with Bilsteins.

I am just driving it on the street and it is my daily driver, but we have a lot of fun roads where I live.

cati

Bob,

I could not agree more regarding testing and suspension mods.... post some track times, spring curves and let's compare facts than rather conjecture..... There are many posts like crazy als and in the end I got feed up trying to seperate fact from fiction and thought FRPP simple and if anything it would be a little conservative given that it is ford and carries a warranty


Regarding sway bars, there is a great reason why this is one of the first things to be changed and it's due to dive on the front suspension and as any one knows once you start diving, due to braking, cornerning, potholes or hitting road kill your suspension geometery goes south and everything changes.

If you want to see how much difference it makes, google a car citreon made inthe 90s called the Xantia active. This had a rather cool system that altered the tighteness of the swaybar depedning on what you were doing. Soft for going to the shops and hard for driving like an idiot. This had a dramatic affect on handling and really demonstrates the importance of this peice of kit.

It's been a week with the FRP kit and I have driven 500 miles so far and I still love it.

Drive in ...drive out Downs Ford cost - $1,800
Smile on face - Priceless

max2000jp

That "Big Al" guy on the other forum is providing incorrent information in a few catagories. For example, a non-adjustable UCA?? How are you supposed to adjust your pinion angle when you lower the vehicle.

LBJay

???? How does a sway-bar affect dive????? Shocks and springs control dive. Sway-bars will only come into effect when there is an opposing motion on the wheels.

Rudiepoo1

Unless I'm mistaken the guys running a fixed upper are going with the adjustable lowers for that very reason.

cati

When you have opposing motions you get dive as well, body roll is dive on one strut and release on the other

The below is from how it works and demonstrates my point.

Stabilizer bars are part of a car's suspension system. They are sometimes also called anti-sway bars or anti-roll bars. Their purpose in life is to try to keep the car's body from "rolling" in a sharp turn.

Think about what happens to a car in a sharp turn. If you are inside the car, you know that your body gets pulled toward the outside of the turn. The same thing is happening to all the parts of the car. So the part of the car on the outside of the turn gets pushed down toward the road and the part of the car on the inside of the turn rises up. In other words, the body of the car "rolls" 10 or 20 or 30 degrees toward the outside of the turn. If you take a turn fast enough, the tires on the inside of the turn actually rise off the road and the car flips over.
Roll is bad. It tends to put more weight on the outside tires and less weigh on the inside tires, reducing traction. It also messes up steering. What you would like is for the body of the car to remain flat through a turn so that the weight stays distributed evenly on all four tires.
A stabilizer bar tries to keep the car's body flat by moving force from one side of the body to another. To picture how a stabilizer bar works, imagine a metal rod that is an inch or two (2 to 5 cm) in diameter. If your front tires are 5 feet (1.6 meters) apart, make the rod about 4 feet long. Attach the rod to the frame of the car in front of the front tires, but attach it with bushings in such a way that it can rotate. Now attach arms from the rod to the front suspension member on both sides.
When you go into a turn now, the front suspension member of the outside of the turn gets pushed upward. The arm of the sway bar gets pushed upward, and this applies torsion to the rod. The torsion them moves the arm at the other end of the rod, and this causes the suspension on the other side of the car to compress as well. The car's body tends to stay flat in the turn. If you don't have a stabilizer bar, you tend to have a lot of trouble with body roll in a turn. If you have too much stabilizer bar, you tend to lose independence between the suspension members on both sides of the car. When one wheel hits a bump, the stabilizer bar transmits the bump to the other side of the car as well, which is not what you want. The ideal is to find a setting that reduces body roll but does not hurt the independence of the

05BlackGT

Been there, still doing that.

LBJay

Nope, dive, squat, roll are all different things.

Dive happens under braking, squat under acceleration and roll during cornering.

cati

tomato - tomato it's all suspension geometry

Poco

Thats tamaaatoe

LBJay

A tiger and a domestic cat are both felines. Make a threating move toward a cat and you'll get one response. Threaten a tiger and you'll get another.

Words have meanings...

wjones14

Nice info, Cati... thanks!

Did Downs install a new Panhard bar too? Even though it's not part of the FRPP FR3 kit, most guys say the rear is not aligned right or something after you lower the car, unless you use an adjustable panhard.

cati

No, downs just fitted the FRP kit and the alignment was fine

LBJ, yes but the point of this conversion is about FRP kit being an effective suspension mode and it is. I agree with you completely abouy Crazy Al

In europe we call sway bars, anti roll bars but in the end it's all about the same thing.....making your car go around corners :-)
Potato or is it potato crisps vs chips