ok, my curiosity has gotten the better of me -- Why does the axle shift to the left when lowering the car? I thought everthing went up and down, not side to side?

 

Actually, on 05+ cars the rear end is offset to the left at stock ride height. Lowering it moves the offset slightly further to the left and that is why many people recommend an adjustable panhard bar. To tuck it back in and help center the rear end.

 

that pic just looks ..... dirty

whats the est. cost on some of these?

 

Yep and Yep.

The thing about not having an IRC is that much of the suspension on the Mustang pivots on a point, thus the circular motions, be it up down or side to side. Instead of just pivoting in one direction, it has multiple. The log will shift to tuck those back tires when turned hard enough. It's just basic geometry. When the car is lowered the rear end will also rotate slightly due to the pivoting control arms. Much like the axle will shift due to the fixed pan hard bar. Like SteedaGus said, the adjustable will help correct that by bringing the axle back in toward center. Also the reason the Watts linkage setups are so successful.

Dampers: say you have a chamber with compressed gas, and a compression piston sliding around in it. Given the fluid pressure and stroke of the piston, the calculation is made as to how relaxed that gas will be in it's chamber. Like any fluid, it will be more volatile when it has no escape route. Even with bleed off the amount of fluid necessary to rebound is hard to adapt in the scenario that the compressed gas has no way to recuperate from the now small play area. When the new dampers are put in, a new compression and fluid density can be calculated to better suit the needs of the new distance of piston travel vs how far the piston can travel without bottoming out the shock. This is needed to properly seat the compression piston in the gas so the two can play nicely. It's like laffy taffy....kind of.

 

Here is a link to a website I came across a while back. Goes into pretty good detail about suspension and other mods to the S197.

http://www.cherod.com/mustang/HowTo/LoweringS197.htm

http://www.cherod.com/mustang/HowTos.htm

 

Crappy roads - 1" drop
Smooth roads and/or not daily driven - 1.5" or more

I learned my lesson on this with my last car. Did H&Rs which SLAMMED my Speed6. Everything became a hassle. Won't make that mistake again. Don't get me wrong, it looked amazing, but wasn't worth the headache.

I will be doing a 1" FRPP spring on this with adjustable dampers and adj. Panhard bar.

 

I have FRPP 1.5"

 

Thanks for all your replies (and pictures) of course... Looks to me that 1" will be enough to get rid of the 4x4 stance, which I really don't care for.

I almost sure that I'll be going with the Steeda Springs and Adjustable Panhard Bar... Steeda has some awesome products!

Gus... you better get ready for my shopping list, as it grows on a daily basis!

 

Modshack: Nice pictures... thanks for posting it! Looks sharp with a 1" drop and Brembos... that's what I have on order!

 

Did the FRPP 1" drop with Steeda adj. Panhard bar. Just perfect IMO over here on the crappiest roads in North America. Ride is still fine and look has improve quite a bit.

 

Thanks! Don't forget the adjustable Panhard bar. My axle was off 1/2" after the drop...

 

Handling any different? Did you only do the springs or did you get shocks too?