My pleasure, Silver, and thanks for the tips.

Here's an importent followup to my last. The guy who said in my linked thread that the manual states as long as you re-lock tite the hardware, it can be reused, came back and apologized and that he'd misremembered a blurb that pertained to the driveline.

Another guy chimed in however and said he got all the hardware from Tousley online shipped for ~ $50. Going to call them in the morning and order, guaranteeing now I won't be able to install until I get back.

 

After a bit of delay, pack arrived today. All mounting hardware is included.

Unfortunately I'm working all weekend and am leaving town @ 3a Monday for 9 days and simply have too much to do to get it installed and alignned before then.

Shocks/struts are Tokico D-specs, supposedly built to Ford Racing/Dynamic Suspension design specs.

Couple notes; this came out of Detroit, not Fl like I'd written above (was thinking of something else at the time), and for my car and what I want to do (ie, increase tire width to 255/285) and how it was OE equipped (non-Brembo w/18" wheels), I needed everything included in the kit.

Very pleased with it and the folks I bought it from, FordRacingParts123.com. Best price, by far, I was able to find. Again note that in order to get free shipping (which would have otherwise been $98 for me), you have to add a hunerd bucks worth of stuff to get the order >$1500.

To be continued...

 

Freeze,

Got my pack and installing it this Memorial day weekend. Wanted to make sure I got it right and found that Helm Inc. at helminc .com will give you an online subscription to the full Ford Service manual, TSBs and all, for only $11 for 72 hours (or 31 days for $20). I highly recommend it - has all torque values faster part #s etc. and is printable for future reference and looking at in the garage (helps keep grease of the laptop LOL). Im also thinking about getting the full CD although that's $190 so maybe the short online subscription is good enough for my needs. Good luck with your install!!

 

I am having the Ford Racing Adjustable Handling Pack installed this week on my car.

I assume you guys that have this pack kept the stock parts right?

I really don't have the room for spare parts.
Is there demand out there to sell the stock parts...
How much are they worth?

 

Silver, congrats, how'd the install go and how do you like the package?

Did you slot out the lower mounting holes on the struts to allow that camber bolt to function? Any other tips? I recall hving a question or two as I read between the manual and the article I'd linked from StangTV, but need to read over all again. One may have been torqueing, and whether that's done while car is up in the air and load's off the components.

I have a link (stickied on another forum) for a free on line fully browsable 2011 shop manual. Printed off the applicable pages some time ago.

http://iihs.net/fsm/?dir=499

Just got back in town and have 4 more days to work and a bunch of other crap to do around the house but am off for 4 days after that and will have it installed by the end of them at the latest.

El Diablo, congrats to you as well. Same questions for you. I'm planning on keeping my OE junk, at least initially. No clue what it's worth, but may check ebay. Imagine only desirable for some one who's wrecked their car and needs specific parts cheap. They're not light, so I'd guess shipping $ will be a factor.

 

After the install: The car has a totally different feel. It feels nice and firm. The bouncy Lincoln Town car ride I hated is gone. Feels much more like my 370Z did. Sharper cornering, you can feel the road. Now my Stang is a canyon carver. The car sits much lower and looks way more aggressive now. The car just handles so much better.

As far as adjustments go... The tech set it up for me and I'm good to go. I have the manual and the little Allen wrench to make adjustments if needed.

Thanks!

 

I didn't slot the struts yet. I decided to put it together and have the alignment checked by a local performance car/race shop. If it needs adjustment I will either slot them then, or more likely get a set of Eibach camber bolts ($30) that go in the upper slots and dont require grinding. Something permanent about grinding those expensive parts tha makes me nervous lol.

Per the service manual/ instructions you should torque the various sway bar mounting bolts and lower rear shock mounts with the suspension at ride height to avoid potential binding.
Only trouble i ran into was torquing the top shock and strut nuts. No way to torque to spec with a torque wrench cause the shaft will just spin. I tried to hold the top by the flats but they are too small and you will strip them out. I actually did on one rear shock and will have to clean up the threads with a die so I can put the protective cap on it. I talked to my race shop guy and he said everyone just uses an impact wrench on the struts. He suggested that I use the extra nuts on the rears to make a jam nut to torque against (second pair of nuts on the same shaft run tight to each other). So I got that problem figured out today and will complete the front install this Saturday. Looking forward to completing the install and driving it.

Re: old parts... probably not much market for them as you said. But I have the Brembo package and the springs and sway bars are stiffer than stock. Maybe someone will want them if I sell them cheap. But I may just hang some of these parts on the wall as "garage art"

Good luck with your install this weekend and let us know what you think when you're done.

 

Oh and hey thanks for the service manual link Freeze!!

 

Better off slotting the struts than using camber bolts. Those bolts are thinner than stockers and may not take the full 160 ftlb required. There is a reason ford recommends slotting vs camber bolts. As for torquing the top nut you can use a crows foot extension on the TQ wrench.

 

excellent, and you're welcome

Thanks for all that, good luck to you, too. Do have the man printed off and have read once but need to go over more thoroughly...I respond w/questions below devildogs post.

welcome...I'd thought about spending the 2 bills for the disc manual too, but have held off.

I had a similar suggestion elsewhere...the OEM Ford camber bolts...are stronger and can be tightened to the full 165 ft-lbs of torque that's specified for those bolts. They will be less likely to shift under load than the Eibachs, which can't be tightened as tight.

But you've just made me realize perhaps I don't understand something...with those camber bolts from Eibach, you don't slot the strut hole??? as Silver mentions above, and also that the Eibachs would go into the upper of the 2 strut mount holes?

Where is it that you find Ford recommending slotting?

I'm not going to slot mine out either, at least initially. From what I gather w/just a 1" drop, should still align...I think if in the future I want to be able to alter for the track, I'll look into a 3rd set of wheels/tires...maybe 27" 275's all the way around on 18's...and some adjustable castor/camber plates.

To torque with a crows foot (I need one...happen to remember the nut size?), I'd guess that'll throw the indicated torque the wrench breaks off from what I'm then actually putting on the nut? Without me looking it up, are you able to steer me to a way to calc what will then equate to the proper torque? (I think these are 76#'?)

And I see you have the same issue on the rear, w/is smaller and torq'd to...30#'? Smaller nut and crowfoot?

 

You are correct with the Eibach bolts you don't slot the strut, but they go on bottom not top. Reason is that they have a cam lobe design which rotates within the original hole moveing the strut. This is why they are thinner than the stock bolts. I don't trust them for track driving, DD maybe. With my drop which is about 1" I ended up with about -1.5 on both sides, perfect for track /street.

As for the crows foot adapter for your torque wrench. My koni rear nut was 3/4 and my koni front nut was 22M. The calculation is

desired torque x torque wrench length
torque wrench length + crowfoot length = torque wrench setting to obtain desired torque

torque wrench length- On your torque wrench, without the crowsfoot, measure the distance between the center of the torque wrench handle, and the center of the square drive

crowfoot length-Measure the 'distance between centers' on the crowfoot wrench you're using (see pic)

 

Good point on the Eibach bolts Devildog. If i need camber adjustment I'll slot the struts. I feel much safer on the track with the thicker stronger bolts.

I used the crows foot on my torque wrench but the problem was that the shaft would spin before i could apply the correct torque. Holding the 8mm flat at the top didnt work cause this was not strong enough to hold the torque and i stripped the threads when i tried. I had a local shop carefully tighten the fronts with an impact wrench (Which the ford documentation says NOT to do cause you can damage the shaft). I also tried to use a jam nut assembly on the rears but the jam nut didnt hold the torque and the threads were starting to deform from the 2 jam nuts torqued against each other. Rear top nut is tight and I think its ok with the second nut on top (comes with the shock).

I'm not real happy that this wasnt designed well for proper installation and would feel much better if I could know it was torqued down correctly.

I apologize for the long message here. But its finally installed and the car handles fantastic! Love the new feel so far but havent had much chance to check it yet. Will provide more input after my track day in 2 weeks.

 

Freeze, one thing i'll point out is that in the strut documentation that comes with the kit there is a sheet that says the strut nut torque for these is much less than the service manual says (67 vs 46 ft-lbs as i recall).

 

Glad your happy with the set-up.

 

Thanks for the link for the manual. Im piecing together a kit, so far Ive scored on the K springs, GT 500 mounts, and bumpstop kit this past weekend at the Carlisle ford show. According to your pics, the shocks/struts are from Tokico? latemodelrestoration has the Dspecs in stock and Im thinking of ordering a set. Is there anything else mandatory I should order, any input would be appreciated.

 

Just an FYI, the Koni's are known to be better. But they cost a bit more.

 

thanks Alex, would you have a part# or a link to which model you are suggesting.. what are you guys doing for camber correction? Whats considered acceptable for street use. I heard the eibach camber bolts are sketchy as in durability..any truth in that

 

That's a bit vague.

The D-Specs and FRPP adjustable dampers are valved differently. Same construction, different components.

 

The Koni sports for rebound adjustability or the Koni Strt's for non adjustable. I track my car so the sports is what I went with. As for Camber adjustment, I agree the camber bolts are sketchy. I didn't do any camber adjustment, with the Steeda sport springs which is about a 1" drop most have ended up b/w -1.3 and -1.7. For a DD that will se track time -1.5 IMO is perfect. I got -1.5 on mine.

 

Just stating that for our cars the Koni's have a better following and are recommended by most. At least that is my impression.