How do you think an aftermarket suspension setup on an S197 from a reputable company fair against a stock S550? For instance, an 11' 5.0 with Steeda shocks & springs vs a stock IRS 15' 5.0?

 

all conjecture when the new car is still dust.

 

Exactly! So speculate, guess or hypothesize.

Divadanielle with the buzzword of the day!!
Now speculate woman!lol

 

well out of the box it's going to have significantly better manners.

what I'm excited for is the look/feeling my GTO had when flooring it which was amazing to see.

Whenever you floored it, you'd see the *** end squat, which was hilarious, especially when shifting.

In the 6-speed cars it was this but with every shift.

 

IMO a properly set up S197 will hand a new S550 it's A$$ on the track. But my guess is it won't ride quite as well on the road. Keep in mind that ride is just as subjective as exhaust tone, meaning that some will tolerate a firm ride to reap the benefits on the track while others may not. It's not a fair comparison IMO because the new S550 will have a lot of compromises for the sake of cost and to appeal to a large demographic.

 

Stock versus stock- no point in discussing this. S550 will pwn the S197.

Out on the street, modded vs. modded, S550 will almost certainly be better.

In racing, modded versus modded, I suspect they will be in the same ball park on a road course (edit: road course with a relatively smooth surface), S550will win by far at the autocross and S197 probably favored on the strip.

I suspect that they will be similar enough everywhere that a good driver in a S197 won't be embarassed by a S550.

Just my guess.

 

I agree with some things you mentioned, but in most cases, if you were to race these on a track(both stock or both modded) they be within a second or two of each other.

 

There are plenty of IRS-equipped cars on the street right now that can't put away the S197. BMW makes a pretty good car, and their 3-series gets matched by the current 5.0 and its SRA. The car will almost certainly perform better than the S197, but I wouldn't expect it to be by very much at all. If you equip the S197 with a competition suspension, it will out-perform the S550 stock all day long. People don't stop and consider how good a job the engineers at Ford did when they set up the S197's suspension to handle turns. It's not just a 1/4-mile muscle car.

 

It's such a generalized statement iRS>SRA.

It's like saying
automatic>revolver
Horse>car
Gasoline>coal
Metric>standard

Sure maybe in general but you can find individual examples of each that are actually better. Would you rather ride a Secretariat around in a steeple chase or drive an Iron Curtain era eastern block car?

How about DOHC>OHV

Well that's a bad example

 

 

So what do you think is better Coke or Pepsi
This a ridicules topic sense no one has sat in one of these cars let alone drove one!

 

Coke!

 

---
^ This, +1. Ford did a very good job tuning the S197 chassis and suspension, especially for the 2011 mid-cycle-refresh. Everyone knows about the Car & Driver episode with a 2011 GT vs. BMW M3, racing on a road course, with the Bimmer winning by a tenth of a second (find it on YouTube). Ummm...that is with a stock 2011 GT. With a quality aftermarket set-up (springs, shocks, sways, etc.), a GT can really stick on the track (ask me how I know!).


Now, the real question is aftermarket S197 vs. aftermarket S550...that will be fun.