Does any aftermarket companies offer an IRS setup for the 197 body?

Steeda get to work.

 

One of the advantage of IRS is reduced unsprung weight.

What is all this about IRS being high maintenance & high cost? So now you will have to pay extra $20 or $30 when you go for an alignment, big deal. A lot of you easily expend much more than that on aftermarket parts for the life of the vehicle and now you are going to crying for this insignificant amount. I also don't see anything on a IRS setup that needs to be replaced more often than on a SRA.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that a lot of you are DIY people and know first hand how easy is to do performance upgrade on a SRA setup (my friend installed the lowering spring and shocks on my car). But you know what I've seen my friend and mechanic do suspension upgrades on IRS setup and although there are more nuts and bolts involved I don't see what is so "rocket science" complicated about. If my friend can do it with limited amount of tools and he is less mechanic savvy than must of you, I'm pretty sure you can handle it.

Guys don't settle for good enough, settle for the best there is. If Ford was able to make the current GT and Boss handle this good with a SRA setup, just image what they can do with a properly designed IRS. Think of the possibilities and stop making excuses for an antiquated 100 year old technology.

Now I'm going to while you guys to death here.

 

actually... yeah

http://www.mustangirs.com/

 

Ford has done it - see the Ford GT. It can drag race, run a road course, and is drivable as a daily. Tuners have swapped the supercharger for turbos and put out more than 1000 HP without trashing the rear end. Sounds like a good plan to me.

 

The Ricardo M6 in the Ford GT? The go used for 15k plus plus whatever bits connect the halfshafts from the trans to the wheel hubs.

The big issue obviously is wheel hop, not so much the amount of torque you can send through the rearend, you could beef it up with larger and large parts so that the IRS just shrugs off the rapid unloading and loading of the axle, but that makes the rearend that much heavier and ineffcient. Ford just needs to develop some sort of system to manage the wheelhop - I think the Camaro uses two different diameter shafts and possibly different lengths as well to manage this (or is it the other way around?)

 

I think youll find that the camaro ss owners who add some power to there cars and sticky tires are buying upgraded half shafts. Gm strenghtened the rearend assembly in the new zl1.

 

The possibility for camber adjustment, folks. Embrace it.

 

There are also aftermarket Ford 9in.-based center sections and GM 10.5in. (? truck?)-based center sections to replace the weak factory version in the 2010+ Camaro IRS for those cars that will see slicks, big hp, + drag launches. Allows more gearing options too (9in.).

 

You may wanna try the "Thread Tools" in the top right corner and select "subscribe to this thread" instead of spamming every thread with 'subd' next time.

 

Finally somebody said something. This guy has been in like EVERY thread this morning

 

As I recall, Ford put IRS in the Thunderbird. Where is the Thunderbird today ? If the IRS is beefed up to handle high torque engines, will the unsprung weight be more than a SRA rearend ?

 

Short term, 2 seater, SMALL UNDERSIZED 8, $$$
Pretty much tells ya where it is.

 

You seriously think Thunderbird was not popular because of its IRS suspension?

No on the second question.

 

I was wondering WTH that was! lol

 

Me too.

 

I'm all for solid axles, in fact I prefer my g500 to my x5 for that very reason. But none of those cars were designed to go fast around corners. Out here in so cal, all of the tracks are bumpy except chuck walla and my boss was a hairy car to drive through those sections. What it didn't do was hinder my track times, just my driver confidence. In some situations the rear end would step out from too much play but for the most part it did better than I ever expected. But you can't deny the fact that it drives differently from a solid axle

 

Sorry, meant IRS

 

Sounds to me like it made you a better driver.

 

I think thats the big issue with an SRA - driver confidence, if your used to a complaint IRS setup and you jump into an SRA equipped car, hit a bump and feel the rear end dance out it does get a bit unnerving until you adjust to it which frankly requires a good amount of time behind the wheel for most people.

I had a conversation one time over at my Brand-X hangout over the SRA in the rain - I posited that it would take an extroardinary set of circumstances to lose control of a Mustang in the rain with the live axle.

Sure enough one of the Brand-X guys trotted out his buddy's "I hit a mid corner bump on a curve and wrecked my Mustang" story.

I related my personal experience in the rain with my car - no problems with mid-corner bumps in the wet (provided I was on a good set of tires) but I dont think the guy beleived me - he was pretty sure smoking in nitromethane factory was infinetely safer.

 

Let see, upgrade axles $400 vs half shafts $1300-??? and that doesn't including the center section.
I sure hope ford put in a heavy duty IRS in this thing.