everyone knows the extra weight slows the car down

 

The spoiler helps with weight transfer.

 

Great Intro Luis! Stang looks great!

 

but it will throw your balance off in a curve :P

 

depends on the direction of the gust.

 

What's a curve?

 

weres the up to date pics?

 

I've been too busy to put on the new parts.

 

Alright, I'm going to start saving up for the next phase of mods: suspension.

Any advice on what I should be getting and who I should be getting it from? She's a daily driver; I'll be taking her down the 1/8th mile from time to time; and I have no intentions to turn. I'm looking for something built for the straight line but very DD friendly.

Here's what I'm thinking so far:

• MM CC plates
• Tokico D-spec struts/shocks
• New ISO's (stock or aftermarket?)
• Steeda FLSC's
• Torque box reinforcement
• LCA's
• New OEM bushings for the stock UCA's

She's going to be a brand-mutt

I already have the H&R race springs but I'm thinking about going coil-over in the front - I'm mainly going this route for the comfort factor. Any suggestions on who to go with? MM's kits look very promising but I still haven't looked too much into coil-over kits. Torque box reinforcement is something I haven't looked much into as well; can someone explain how you reinforce that area? As for LCA's, it seems Team Z would be a good choice for my application. Once I get my LCA's, will I need the quad shocks? In other words, should I replace, remove, or just leave them alone?


Anything I should add or remove from this list, please let me know.

 

They make kits with plates to weld up the torque boxes but you can also just weld up all of the seams and that will help out a lot. Since you're replacing the control arms and doing sub frames, should be pretty easy to have access to the boxes to weld them up. The type of tires you use at the track and the type of bushings you get in your control arms play a factor in how far you want to take the reinforcement. If you're just using street tires and urethane bushings, welding the seams will be fine.

I have the Steeda SFC and they are great, they come with a re-enforcement plate that welds in over the underside of the torque box and serves as a perfect mounting point at the rear. Plus that spot is usually banged up on our cars so it limits the amount of work you need to do to get them welded in. Also fit is perfect and there were no surprises welding them in.

I have MM extreme duty LCA's and they are great. I have a built rear and use DR's at the track so I wanted something a little heavy duty. They are pricey though.

Still unsure on UCA's, hear differing opinions on getting aftermarket ones or just sticking with the stockers. Some people swear by them and other recommend against anything but stock arms and bushings to prevent chassis damage and/or binding. Might be wise to just replace the stock ones. MM sells the stock arms and bushings.

 

I'll have to go overkill on the torque boxes then; I eventually plan to launch at 5K with some DR's

I have heard the same on UCA's, so that was my reason behind getting new bushings. Although, replacing the whole unit is not a bad idea and I'll definitely look into it.

Thank you for the pointers

 

Pretty sure UPR has the torque box plates.


Might want to go with spherical bushing LCA’s if you’re going to run the car hard at the track. Will be overkill for now but you’ll eventually kill the urethane bushing at the track. Everyone says the spherical bushings are noisy but I haven’t noticed any noise from mine. Might be there but nothing that the exhaust doesn’t drown out.


Also, plan for at least 31 spline axles and differential if you’re going to use drag radials, you’re almost guaranteed to snap the stock axles with them. And not to pile on but if you get the rear done, look into gears at the same time. That way you can save on labor (unless you do the work yourself) since the rear will already be opened up. Get Ford gears as well, learned that the hard way.

 

I'm going to rebuild the rear before slapping on the drag radials. I plan to pull out the rear and get 31 spline axels, supporting diff, 4.10', new diff cover, and some fresh paint. All of this is LONG term of course. Right now, I'm just trying to get my suspension done by July before I move on to another project.

I've heard aspherical on one end and a urathane bushing on the other works great as well?

 

Sounds like you have a solid plan, it's a good idea to plan everything out beforehand and do upgrades in logical stages.

When I was building my rear end, the plan was for a track mostly set up since I only drive it on the street occasionally. Thought about urethane bushings on the chassis end but heard they deteriorate with hard launches over time and I was more worried about that than the additional noise all spherical bushings might cause.

 

Good point. Looks like I'll be going spherical then.

I agree with you, better to do it right the first time then pay twice down the road.

 

I believe that's the difference between a "mostly DD" car and a "mostly track" car. Urethane on the chassis side is a good idea for most any street driven car, because it gets rid of noise, and instead of the chassis flexing when you hit that pothole (doh!) it's just a $40 bushing kit. The track is where cars get abused for a little while, but out on the street a lot of gnarly stuff happens to your suspension. I would say that your set up is really going in a weird direction.

While mixing brands is alright, I think that you're confusing good road parts with good strip parts. (Forgive me drag racers...) Those dampers are made for an auto-x/road course in mind. It may say "adjustable for any situation" but it really means that you can tune them pretty good to do well in auto x or road course driving. What you want for a real drag based set up is some Strange shocks/struts. Their valving is much better suited for weight transfer that you need at the strip(also adjustable to tweak). Tokico also has a set of drag shocks/struts, but I haven't really read anything about them.

Your spring choice is completely wrong for what you want to do. H&R Race springs are stiff all around to provide a stiff ride with little body roll. The springs that drag racers use are much more progressive to allow for that weight transfer front to rear. Spring rates should be around stock at the high end for the front, while the rears should be significantly softer than stock. Most brands of drag springs will make the rear right progressive from super soft to ludicrously hard to help plant that tire.

As for the upper control arms, you have the right idea to replace them with stockers and new bushings on the chassis side. The idea of the 4 link in a Mustang is all about bind. The bushings in the uppers need to be compliant enough to allow the lowers go through their arcs independent of one another. It's much easier if you do what I did to try to understand it, and rig up a few sticks of lengths representing the rear end, lcas, and ucas. Once you have set it up so it looks similar to what's under your car, it is time to try to bump one side, without allowing the other side to move. With solid joints like a spherical bushing, this is impossible, but with compliant rubber bushings it has enough breathing room to make it through that arc with little disturbance to the other side.

 

I need to clear up my goals so that the weird makes (some) sense: I want a comfortable DD that can hold it's own at the strip. I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too but I'm willing to sacrifice some ET's for comfort.


As for the Tokicos, I've personally had the D-specs before and they worked great for the strip but even better for the street. Everything I've read about drag dampers has been noted as too mushy for the street. I am very open to suggestions though. Is there anything that you recommend for my goals?

The springs have been a headache. And yes, I agree the H&R springs are not suitable for the strip. But I find the H&R race springs comfortable and I think the floaty ride of the drag springs would drive me crazy. That's why I'm thinking about getting coil-overs; I believe this will give me a good medium. A couple of calls to UPR, Maximum Motorsports, and Steeda should help figure out what my medium needs to be.

Thank you for the advice. I was getting carried away with some parts heading toward the extreme side; it's so easy to get carried away.

Since its suspension related: I went to the strip this past Thursday, for the first time with her, and figured out my priorities:As for the ISO's, does anyone recommend going with aftermarket or is OE the way to go?


By the way, she ran consistent 9.4's Is that average or terrible? We're talking about a bone stock GT with H&R race springs. I couldn't launch all night (2.3 60's). I'm sure I can get 9.3's once I get my launch down.

 

I have after market isolators and don't have any issues with them. I just picked mine up at summit because I was ordering other stuff. They're not really a big deal and the guys that where helping me with my car where making fun of me for even wasting money on new ones. A lot of guys just leave them out.

Make sure you tape them to the springs when you put them in and keep an eye on them while you tighten the rear back up. The biggest pain in the *** when I did my rear (besides having to cut stock bolts out) was getting the isolators to stay put when everything was going back together.

Your ET's aren't bad for bone stock. That's around 14.75 or so in the 1/4. Mine ran 14.60's with just a cat back my first couple of times out after I got the hang of it.

 

That's exactly what happened to the isolators. Guess the prior owner was to lazy to fix it and ripped up. I'm surprised I haven't been made fun of yet; it's unheard of for someone to replace them.

Cool! Glad to hear it's not terrible then.

 

I replaced mine too. I just wanted that extra 1/4" of ride height.