So who's spending their stimulus money on mustang mods?

I'm going to do my part to stimulate the economy by spending mine . . . finally going to get the Vorschlag strut/spring/camber plate suspension kit that I've been holding off on for a year or so.

 

We'll see how it goes.
I might order my Roush full catback.

 

Bert I think you'll like the Vorshlag set up. I bought one a year ago and it's worked well for me. IMO the caster/camber plates are really well made and so far quiet and durable. The plates offer a pretty wide range of adjustment too. I advise you to buy the jig [ $50.00 ] that they sell to open up the hole at the top of the strut tower so that you can make full use of the adjustment possible. The Bilsteins are a little stiffer on compression than ideal for the spring rates [ they will tell you as much ] but they are pretty close and revalving them would make them too costly. Being a monotube design they react more quickly than a twin tube. They really help to control the brake dive and rear end squat on acceleration that 197 owners often complain of. They also do a good job of controlling rear wheel hop on hard acceleration even with stock rear control arms. In so far as ride quality is concerned I have found that the ride is worse [ harsher ] on sharp impacts like expansion joints, railroad crossings etc., but better on wavy or undulating pavement. They are definitely not floaty compared to the stock set up. As for the spring part of the package, They like the Ford Performance "P" springs and that's what I got. It's the only part of the package that's even a little questionable. I have found from direct personal experience that the ride height varies quite a bit on stock Mustangs depending on how it was equipped. My friend's stock '13 track pack car sat 1 inch higher than my base '14 GT with identical size tires and wheels. When I installed the Vorshlag setup the front dropped about 3/8 of an inch, but the rear dropped close to an inch and a half and wound up actually sitting lower than the front. I found this unacceptable, both aesthetically and functionally so I wound up keeping the stock base rear springs so now the car sits close to how it did stock ie. a slight downward front rake. In terms of spring rate it's fine. Vorshlag checked spring rates of "P" springs, track pack springs and base springs. The average spring rate of the front base springs was 99 lbs/in. The track packs were 110 lbs/in. The "P"s were 167 lbs/in. A little different story at the rear, base were 122 lbs/in. the track packs were 167 lbs/in and the "P" s were 121 lbs/in. These are average spring rates. At full compression [ 6 inches ] the "P" s were a little stiffer than the base springs 148 lbs compared to the base at 140 lbs. Not enough to be concerned about IMO. All things considered I wouldn't hesitate to do it again. I also found Vorshlag to be good to deal with.

 

Mine will go directly into my future house savings.

 

How do they compare to the original B12 sets? I can see they come with the plates but their description says struts are shorter than stock?

 

The front struts are complete and assembled. As for the length, I don't know how they compare to the B 12 set you mentioned. but these struts have the same part # [ 35-128717 ] as the Bilsteins you can find at Summit or any other vendor that sells shocks and struts. They are designed to be used on '05-'10 models. Since Vorshlag supplies the strut mounts with the assembly they work fine on 11-14 models as well. As Vorshlag says in their description they are intended to be used with lowering springs. Since as I pointed out in my earlier post some 197 models are already lower than some other models I think they would work just fine on lots of stock springs too in so far as length is concerned so long as you used the earlier strut mounts. FWIW the torque spec for the strut to spindle bolts is 166 ft.lbs. Vorshlag prefers a lower than stock spec for the four nuts that hold the strut to the top of the strut tower. Stock is 26 ft.lbs., Vorshlag uses something like 15-17. I split the difference a bit and use 220-228 in.lbs. At these lower torque levels I think in.lbs. are more accurate. The Bilsteins have a much larger shaft than the stock struts, 40 mm. vs 22 mm. This also makes the use of factory type bump stops impossible. Hope this helps.

 

No, that defeats the purpose, you have to SPEND it! And better yet spend it on motorsports, which was on the verge of complete collapse before this crisis.

Thanks for these tips. I wasn't going to bother opening up the strut tower but maybe I'll reconsider. What did you cut it with?

I was just trying to figure out which springs to order. I want 1" drop in the front and I want the car to be level, or a little bit of downward rake toward the front. Also want the highest spring rates that I can get. Right now I have Steeda Sports which claim 1" / 1.25" and the car sits nice, slight downward rake. I was looking at the Eibach springs that say 1" / 1.5" ; they are listed for 11-14 cars but Terry told me that doesn't really matter and they will be OK on my 2010. Thoughts?

Terry says they are "specially chosen" and "shorter" for use with lowering springs, and that is super extra special proprietary secret and would not say more. It does make sense that a shorter strut would be good with shorter springs.

hmmm . . . that does make me wonder about the super special proprietary secret "shorter struts" . . . I really like their camber/mounts and I want them for sure, might be able to save some money by buying their mounts, buying the struts elsewhere, and using my current Steeda Sport springs . . . but the full assembly sure would be convenient, I have fought with spring compressors before and it wasn't fun. I asked Vorschlag if they would sell the mounts and struts/shocks without the springs and they declined.

Thanks for the tips about the torque specs. When I installed my Steeda Sports, on GT500 take-off struts/shocks, I did not use a torque wrench, that might have been a mistake but they seem to be OK, will do it right this time.

what "bump stops" are you talking about?

EDIT/UPDATE: I just heard back from Jason from Vorschlag; and he recommended the P springs, as you predicted. On their web site it says 1" drop front and rear, which is strange that yours dropped so much in the back. I guess I could use the P springs in the front and my existing Steeda Sport in the back; but then I won't be able to sell my Sports to offset some of the cost. Hmmmm . . . .

 

Bert regarding the strut tower hole, Vorshlag sells a jig that helps you do a neater job. It's basically a steel plate that bolts to the strut tower from the bottom just like the strut would. It has a steel tube in the center that allows you to use a hole saw to open up the hole cleanly. I used a 2 1/2 inch hole saw to do mine, but if I ever have a reason to take the struts out I'll probably go back in and go with a 2 3/4 in. saw. You can go all the way to 3 inches, but I don't really see the need and at 3 in. you may lose a little bit of the vertical wall. Use cutting oil [ ATF works ] and keep a shop vac handy since it gets messy. They also make a jig for S550's in case you know someone that wants to go this route.After cutting the hole I used a sanding roll on a dremel to clean up the rough edges and then painted the cut with primer and touch up paint. Ford's "K" springs are stiffer than the "P" s and will lower the car more. Unfortunately I don't have any personal experience with them so I can't offer any advice beyond this. As for the bump stops, they are somewhat similar in design and appearance to the ones used on the rear from the factory. They have a hole in the center so that they can slide over the strut rod prior to assembly to the mounts. since the Bilsteins are nearly twice the diameter of the stock strut shaft 40 mm vs 22 mm they wont fit over the shafts. No matter, as Jason correctly told me if you ever hit anything hard enough to coil bind the "P" spring you'll have bigger things to worry about than bump stops. As for ride height all I can say is that how much a given set of springs lowers the car is going to depend on just how high it was to start with and that varies depending on what springs it came with from the factory. If I had started with my friend's track pack car the "P" s might have lowered it an inch. My car was already an inch lower than a track pack car to start with. I know it seems odd, but I know from personal measurement that both our cars had factory original suspensions and identical wheel and tire sizes and my base car had an inch lower ride height stock than his track pack with it's more performance oriented suspension.The "P" are listed as a progressive rate spring and this is really noticeable from the coils on the rear springs. The base springs are pretty much linear. Fortunately for me the average spring rate for the rear base spring and the rear "P" was nearly identical with the base actually being 1 lbs/in. stiffer in average rate. Personally I prefer to have the car sit with a SLIGHT front down rake. I think it MAY offer a slight aerodynamic advantage and as a practical matter if you ever use the car for a trip and have to put luggage and other stuff in the trunk and /or back seat your headlights won't be blinding on coming traffic or just making the car look silly. Let me know if I can be of any further help.

 

We know that inverted monotube struts (Bilsteins) have an internal bumpstop.

On this Maximum Motorsports website (Bumpstop Kit for 2005-14 Mustang), under FITMENT TAB, says 'If your Mustang has monotube struts, order REAR bumpstops ONLY'. Following the link for rear bumpstops (Rear Bumpstop for 2005-14 Mustang), under DESCRIPTION TAB, says 'This MM bumpstop is 3/4" shorter than the stock bumpstop'.

Does Vorshlag set come with their own fitting (40mm?) rear bumpstops or are we re-using the stock ones? Are the shorter Maximum Motorsports ones (still 22mm?) a must??

 

You're correct about the Bilsteins having internal stops, I probably should have mentioned that earlier. As for the rears, prior to getting the Vorshlag Street Pro set up I had already picked up a set of Ford Racing bump stops [ part # M-5570-A ] from another vendor. I saw as soon as I took them out of the box that they looked just like the stock ones on my car. The rears are about 3 1/4 inches [ 76 mm. ] tall. Since I reused my original base rear springs and my original stops were in good condition I didn't see any reason to change them. If the rear was a lot lower, then shorter stops might be called for. If necessary you could always trim some material from the top of the factory stops. Perhaps not ideal, but it would probably work. A good way to check to see how close things are would be to smear a little grease on the top of the stops and then go drive on some bumpy roads and see if the grease has transferred to the chassis.

 

Thanks both . . . I already cut down my rear bump-stops from when I installed the Steeda Sport springs and I actually have a set of the FRPP stops that I never got around to installing. I guess I'll see how this all fits when I get under there. With my current set-up I have bottomed out a handful of times over the past several years; when I hit a hump/bump in the road just right. The Vorschlag kit is supposed to have everything you need, including the hardware, so hopefully there will be no surprises.

I see about the hole saw on their web page also, I guess that is worth doing if I am going through all this trouble. I'd like to have a chance of being somewhat competitive in SCCA Time Trials T3 class (which probably ain't gonna happen, 2011-2014 Mustangs are in the same class, but it's a goal) so I might as well go for everything I can within that class.

If I do go with the P springs then I can use my Steeda Sports in the rear if I don't like the way it sits with the P in the rear. I want it to have a slight downward rake or sit flat, definitely don't want it pointing up.

Now I am wondering about the K springs, but not sure if the additional lowering will cause trouble on the front end that will have to be corrected with extended ball joints and bump steer kit. I just did my ball joints and bushings in the front last year and I'd rather not have to go through all of that again, plus the alignment required for bump steer is pretty involved and I don't know of any shop around here that will be willing and able to do it correctly.