And another suspension question....

iamlance · Oct 17, 2004

Hey all, I recently purchased a 65 fastback, 289 , stick. I will be using the car as a dailey driver for several years and want to modify it to ride and handle like a modern car as much as possible. I am definately going with power rack and pinion. I can't decide on suspension. I am considering the Fatman kit or Randalls R&P and Total Control or Unique coil over kits. The Fatman would be less expensive when all is said and done and most service parts are easily available used or at any parts store. Brake upgrades would be less expensive also.
I have read on this board that the unequeal controll arm suspension handles better than the strut suspension. Is this issue even worth considering for a street car?? I might yahoo the car every once in in a while , but it will be mostly just used for cruising / transportation.
On the other hand , I love the trick / industrial look of the aftermarket suspension but if something breaks, I'll probably be waiting days for parts.
Another consideration is updating whats there with with springs , shocks, negative wedge kit etc. I've read here that the original suspension configuration can be made to handle great , but can you achieve the ride I am looking for?? (the car will be lowered 1-2 inches)
As a point of reference , I currently drive a 98 Cobra Mustang with original suspension and it rides and handles awesome in my opinion. Thanks for any advice.

iamlance · Oct 17, 2004

Oh, and eff Chip Foose for renewing my interest in street machines

HistoricMustang · Oct 17, 2004

Go here and forget all the people (including MAD man trying to sell you stuff).

www.historicmustang.com/tech.html (no pop up's and non commercial)

HistoricMustang
www.historicmustang.com/tech.html

iamlance · Oct 17, 2004

Thanks for the link. I have a few questions : What does "reverse eye" on the rear springs mean?? Also, you suggest Granada spindles. Is this just for the brakes or do they have another advantage. Also , could a coil spring softer than a 620 , cut to lower ride height, provide both decent handling and ride ?? Thanks again

Opentracker · Oct 17, 2004

iamlance said:
Thanks for the link. I have a few questions : What does "reverse eye" on the rear springs mean?? Also, you suggest Granada spindles. Is this just for the brakes or do they have another advantage. Also , could a coil spring softer than a 620 , cut to lower ride height, provide both decent handling and ride ?? Thanks again

Reverse eye

Not reverse eye

Any kind of front disc brake will help the car stop. The Granada swap is a cheap and easy way to go. We do it A LOT in our garage. We don't use 620 springs. Soft springs and big sway bars is our way of doing things. You can adjust the height of the car as much as you want if your willing to put in the time to do it. This car looks this way for a reason. It takes a lot of time to get a car to sit right. I spend more time getting the cars to sit right than it does to change motors.

John

iamlance · Oct 18, 2004

Thanks for the explanation. What kind of front springs do you use and i've read about ball joints running out of travel, is this an issue??

65mistress · Oct 18, 2004

John

Do you have a write up of how you have your suspension set up on your car? That's exactly the stance that I'm looking to achieve. Looks good.

Opentracker · Oct 19, 2004

The front springs are out of a '69 Torino wagon with a 429 and A/C. This is the fifth car they have been in, I would say they are around a 550 or less spring. They have one full coil cut off. The rear leafs on this car are the ones it came with from Ford. Sagged to the point they are now. They are a bit soft but still work well on the track. I like the car to just not bottom out on the track. The only place it does at this point is turn 10 at Laguna Seca, and it's not bad. On all the other cars, and this one too at some point, I rebuild rear leafs to get the spring rate and ride height I want. I have never bought new leaf springs, nor do I plan too. I get used sets for free and make one new set out of two used sets. The link below is to a post about leaf springs.

Leaf spring rebuild

There is no ball joint bind with a 1" drop of the UCA mounting point. If you go lower than 1" the ball joint angle has to be changed to stop it from binding. Simple stuff here. My set up is stock, with the rubber parts replaced with bearings and some bracing added. Big sway bars, soft springs, Koni shocks.The link below has some info about ball joint angle of the UCA.

Post about ball joint angle

John

HistoricMustang · Oct 19, 2004

No need to repeat what John said as I agree. If you do open track or hot lap events you may want to keep a couple of different sets of front springs. Believe it or not I use a 1000# front spring at Daytona and Lowes and drop back to a 620# at most of the other places.

As John said, work on your ride height. These things do not want to turn so get the ride at least level and mine actually has negative stance to the rear at speed. You want to make the car think it is lighter up front.

HistoricMustang
www.historicmustang.com/tech.html

bnickel · Oct 19, 2004

i noticed you said you were considering going witha coilover setup and i just wanted to let you know that one of the guys on this board that goes by dolfan87 is working on production of a coilover kit for the early cars he is trying to get some cnc machining vendor stuff worked out and hopefulle will be in production soon. his stuff should be quite a bit cheaper than the tcp or unique stuff as well. just have to give a shameless plug to one of stangnet's own here a couple of links to discussions about coilovers in general and dolfan87's stuff specifically, they are good reading
http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=496033
http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=498499&highlight=coilover
http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=468653&highlight=coilover

anything that opentracker does is great as well, john is a god when it comes to making the best out of modified stock parts :worship: john has already provided you some links

historic can you give lot's of good advice on how to make an early car handle well on a budget with stock parts but he doesn't like anything aftermarket when it comes to suspensions and will do his best to talk you out of buying any kind of aftermarket stuff, including coilovers, tubular control arms, negative wedge kits etc. and he's pretty adamant about it too. he and i get into it a lot about stuff like that, in fact this will probably start another war, but i'm only trying to let you know what options are available to you, so if he and i get into another arguement about stuff keep that in mind

one other thing to consider is the use of adjustable strut rods to give you more control of fine tuning the suspension, opentracker has a set on his car that i beleive came from another member of this board who goes by billgear, his company is www.streetortrack.com

and there are a couple of companies besides TCP that do rack and pinion conversions as well
www.randallsrack.com and www.speeddirect.com they both have pretty good rack kits that aren't near as expensive as TCP stuff but they aren't high end stuff like TCP either and they will be the first to tell you that, they are more about the average enthusiast than the guy who has a ton of money to throw at his car. check 'em out when you get a chance. whatever you do stay away from the flaming river rack kits they are unworthy of a preformance oriented car, they are more for street-rod type classics than corner burners, they have a pretty bad problem with bumpsteer and camber changes under normal suspension movement from everything i have seen.

finally do a search here and learn as much as you can then head over to www.corner-carvers.com and learn what you can there, but try not to ask too many questions that you don't have a definate idea of the answer you are looking for, those guys can be pretty brutal over there. i usually don't post over there much because i'm afraid i'll get torn to shreds and i have a pretty good idea about what i'm doing although i can't quote roll centers or instant centers and stuff like that off the top of my head like some of those guys can. opentracker posts over there quite a bit as well.

get as much info as you can and decide before hand what you actually want from your car before purchasing any major parts, also research the available options thoroughly before deciding on anything and don't let one person or group have too much influence on your decision. this is something that only you can decide as you will have to live with the end result. good luck and keep us updated on whatever you decide

edit: added another link

iamlance · Oct 19, 2004

HOLY CROW!!! Thanks to all for the info !
I like the Randalls rack set up, but I emailed them and although I recieved an autoresponse, I never got answers to my questions. I don't remember there being a phone # on there sight. No response and no phone # make me leary of this company. Anyone here do business with them??

bnickel · Oct 19, 2004

there are a few people between here and the VMF that have used randall's kit and so far everyone loves them. try PM'ing a user named cloudbuster he has installed one on his 65 (or 66) and has a writeup on his website which of course i can't find right now. randall may be on vacation or something because he usually gets back with people really quickly. every time i have emailed him i've gotten a response with about 48 hours or so, so don't give up on him yet. i will be using one of his kits when i get the car to that point.

edit: found the link to cloudbuster's site

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/CloudBuster/RNP.htm

mdjay · Oct 20, 2004

Well it's nice to see that Historic has returned with newly expanded horizons.

John I like the hint of the Boss stripe on your 65. I was talking with one of my friends about this on his early Coupe and it's nice to see it done. Only bummer is we didn't do it ahead of you...

HistoricMustang · Oct 20, 2004

bnickel, great post. One of the best I have seen at StangNet! You express my feelings very well. In fact you express them much better than I have been able to and I hope people will now understand where I have been coming from. There are options out there and if you have the money go for the upgrades...............they are kinda cool to talk about. If you do shift work, like I do, or perhaps have an after school job, you can make your early model perform and you do not need to feel embarassed or talked down too because you can't afford all the high dollar stuff.

mdjay, yes I have been tied down with a civic project and actually gave away a bunch of money. Never have tried to sell anything to anyone here and my site is one of the few with no pop-ups, no ads and no commercials. Just free cheap advice based on a lot of laps.

Perhaps the few months away from the board has helped all concerned.

Cheers to all!

HistoricMustang
www.historicmustang.com/tech.html

I still got to get use to Alfred as it looks like he is not going anywhere.

HistoricMustang · Oct 20, 2004

If you are interested in seeing what the old man looks like and what kept me away from the board for a few months go here. About half way down the page on the left.

www.historicmustang.com/memorialpage.html

Get out and enjoy that early model.

HistoricMustang
www.historicmustang.com/tech.html

bnickel · Oct 20, 2004

historic, thanks for the compliment as i must say that is the first one i have received from you. not trying to upset you or anything here, and i hope i don't, but the whole reason a lot of people around here get ruffled by your posts is not the advice you are trying to give but the manner in which you express them. we all know that you have good recommendations for the early cars and we can all respect that, but none of us like to hear attitude about how spending money on our cars, that's what some of us like to do. please don't think i'm trying to flame you here because i'm not. we are all trying to give people options on what they can do with their money if that's what they are looking for, a lot of the high dollar is stuff is about bling or flash, and a lot of it is about safety especially on a street car. that said thanks for all the low-tech info there are a lot of people on budgets that don't want to/can't afford to buy the high dollar parts. most of us can't afford to have TCP parts on their car so that's where people like dolfan87 come in and build the same quality stuff but can afford to sell it cheaper because they are not greedy like tcp was. i think there are more people on this board that middle of the road like opentracker that want the higher dollar stuff but can't afford it so they make their own and opentracker is a great resource for those of us that would rather go that way. personally i'd like to combine a lot of what opentracker and dolfan87 do into my own version of the two systems combined. point is there area a lot of great people on this board that have a lot of good ideas and each of those individuals deserves the chance to show his stuff. you, opentracker dolfan87 and everyone else whos has great ideas. i would just like to be able to read about the different options and decise what's best for my car, than have to wade through a bunch of people arguing with each other, myself included, so that everyone has the option of doing just that. can you understand where we are all coming from now? i truly i hope i didn't upset you again i just thought it was important that you understand where we are all coming from so that we can avoid future unpleasantries have a great day everyone, i'm off to work

HistoricMustang · Oct 21, 2004

bnickle, thanks for the kind words!

This never has been a personal issue between me and anyone on the board, expecially the regulars. I am trying to re-read the post several times now before putting up my two cents. Having said that, I expect my thoughts will be put up when someone or some company says you HAVE to spend a ton of money to make these cars perform. That simply is not true.

Modifications are just fine and they produce a lot of good conversation and if you have the money spend it -- chances are you will improve the performance but if you are on a budget these early models can still be made to perform.

Always remember "The Day the Earth Stood Still". No brag, just facts.

Cheers,

HistoricMustang
www.historicmustang.com/tech.html

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