Anybody with a Torque Arm/ Panhard bar?

Griggs makes their parts weigh as little as possible. Obviously they are to make a compromise in durability. You flat out must be willing to accept this compromise. Griggs will tell you that their parts are not intended to be used on the street, and they are not kidding. The Maximum stuff is just better made to handle abuse and it is cheaper. I bought MM stuff not because it is cheaper, but because in my opinion it is better since I only track my car about 5 times a year.

Not to sound like a MM advertisement, I installed a third link and set of LCAs from Evolution Motorsports, and that car was very predictable and fast at the track.

yobi1kanobi said:

Well I hope there stuff is reliable cuz I just got one of there K-members and A arms from them...

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From which company?

I've got the complete Griggs GR-40 on my Cobra. It's got the Torque arm, Panhard bar, coilovers front and rear, C/C plates, K member etc etc. It's an awesome setup.

EDIT: but it's definitely not a real easy riding street suspension, the car feels the bumps. It's not bone jarring, but you know the little bumps in the road are there. I personally don't mind.

Pokageek said:

So would you guys recommend getting a torque arm AND lower control arms?

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yobi1kanobi said:

So Diablo its a real big change with the torque arm and panhard or what? And like was mentioned on a post b-4 do you have any rubbing issues..thanks

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It is a big change, but it's apples/oranges.. I went from a car with only springs/shocks to a car with the complete GR-40, so it was night and day.. I can't say exactly how it would feel to upgrade those two things, since I went from basically nothing to everything. I've ridden in a car with springs/shocks and P-hard bar before, and it stuck to the road very well. I didn't drive it thought.

I don't have any rubbing issues, but I have 17X9's with 285's. The other guy above had wider tires/wheels than I currently have on the car.

yobi1kanobi said:

What do you mean the rear axle rotated more than stock. And how much did you have to hammer the fender inner fender i hope with no visible damge to the car right. Watts link is really out of the question. But I dont mind the side exhaust if I am able to get my hands on some SVO side skirts.... Do you have any pics of the install. I think the MM is only about 50-100 dollar difference but how much is the difference in quality really they both seem like good pieces.

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The stock upper contol arms keep the axel from moving very much. With out them there is no binding and in articulates more. When I went up my buddys steep driveway it rubbed as I turned in off the street 90deg. The outside tire would go "up" more in the wheelwell and the inside or unloaded tire would go down more. The outside tire went up and rubbed. It never did that before. I had the rear Griggs installed at Brads Custom Auto in Seattle and he said some cars rub and you had to hammer the wheelwells.

I didn't have to hammer the inner wheelwells much. I shot some black paint on it and you can't even tell. They barely rubbed. That was with the 10" Magnesium rims and I am not sure of the offset Saleen used. On the 99 up Saleen rims he used a different offset. I just put those on the car but they don't look right. I'm going to get different rims next year.

V8SHME8 said:

Griggs makes their parts weigh as little as possible. Obviously they are to make a compromise in durability. You flat out must be willing to accept this compromise. Griggs will tell you that their parts are not intended to be used on the street, and they are not kidding. The Maximum stuff is just better made to handle abuse and it is cheaper. I bought MM stuff not because it is cheaper, but because in my opinion it is better since I only track my car about 5 times a year.

Not to sound like a MM advertisement, I installed a third link and set of LCAs from Evolution Motorsports, and that car was very predictable and fast at the track.

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I disagree. Griggs makes their parts very strong. They also use their parts on the street, they are not "Race" only. They probably put 10 times more stress on the ractrack than most people will ever see on the street.

Here is a link to Griggs from a few years ago when they installed it on "A Horse with no name" project car which is a street car. They even said the ride was way better than they could belive. Much better than stock with stiff springs added.

Also a cop car in Hawaii which uses Griggs on the street to catch the bad guys

http://www.griggsracing.com/reviews.html

I've read up and researched both MM and Griggs suspension components. Its seems that both make a quality product and would be a good choice either way. I think price might be the deciding factor when i decide to do the rear suspension. But once you pick a company it would prob be a good idea to stick with it, because company's like MM and griggs build their components w/ the idea that they will be used with their other parts to create a system(meaning their parts are made to work with their own other parts, better then if mixed an matched different company's parts).

hopefully i helped, and if not you scuk j/k

oh and i herd that kenny brown was pretty good, he was sick and i am pretty sure they shut down the shop. not positive though

This is off of stangsuspension.com:

"You must use good quality lower control arms, panhard bar, and a higher rear spring rating with the MM Torque arm kit."

I've been researching MM suspension components for a bit now and I know nothing of these exhaust fit issues? I called MM and I told them the parts I was interested in and they said I should be looking at their adjustable lower rear control arms versus their standard and that it does make that much of a difference.

I was looking at the HD TA and Panhard Bar, am I going to have problems with 2 1/2" tips? Furthermore, it sounds like a lot of people are going out and having these installed, would this be something an average gear head could do? I have an air compressor and air tools now (thanks Santa!) and have a place to work on it.

There are no exhaust fit issues. I thought there would be, but I have my full mac cat-back and tailpipes on with no fitment issues. You just have to have a exhaust guy that has a clue.

I have the full MM kit, Panhard, Torque arm, bilstein coil overs, SFCs, lower control arms, rear sway bar, plus more.

After 3 different suspension setups, this was the end product. Never been happier with how my car handles. The car is very predictable. You can feel the rear coming loose before it happens.

If your serious, you won't regret it.

As far as the exhaust, you can get it on, I have no problems. I also have 295/30/18 on the rear of the car with no rubbing. It took some adjustment with the panhard to keep them from rubbing, but it was pretty easy.

Howdy Paul,

Since you don't know much about them, I'd recommend looking elsewhere. The traclink is an allright product (it's just a relatively short torque arm, nothing more), but you need to understand a couple of things. The most important of which is the amount of antisquat it puts down. Since I haven't been too active in with the Mustang thing lately (been concentrating more on the crotch rocket) the exact numbers escape me, but let's just say it's a bunch. I mean a bunch. Something like 150% where the Griggs T/A puts down right about 100%.

For those who don't know, antisquat is measured in a percentage of the force that the rear suspension is exerting in an upward direction. Basically, if the action of the rear suspension causes X newtons of upward force (which will ultimately cause or at least contribute to wheel hop, i.e. loss of traction), 100% of antisquat would transfer X newtons of downward force back into the rear suspension. 150% would result in 1.5X newtons downward, which is a net INCREASE in downward force.

Good thing? Maybe. Depends on what you're looking for. If you can get the front end built properly to balance out the load and deal with the wild swing in traction from off to on throttle, go for it. But be sure to reinforce the floor of the car too. Last time I looked a a traclink install, they were all being installed directly to the floor pan (with some fender washers to distribute the load).

The Griggs and MM units mount to a steel structural member welded to the subframes. The traclink, exerting more force to the nose mount, bolts to sheetmetal. Less force being mounted to structural steel beams. More force being mounted to sheetmetal. Hmmm... Care to guess how many traclink owners have either found cracks in the metal surrounding the mount? Care to guess how many have flat out ripped the mount out of the belly pan? I know of lot's of cracks and have talked to one guy who had his ripped out. In GW's defense, it was a damn powerful car with some fat, sticky tires. Regardless, the sheetmetal mount is bad news. If you plan on going that route, plan on reinforcing the belly pan in that area with some decent steel (I'd use .125" both inside and outside the car) and tie it in to the cars structure.

Of course, all of this is moot if GW has changed the mount configuration. Looking at the picture though, it doesn't look like it.

Killercanary said:

Anyone know anything about this and how it compares? I've never heard a bad thing about Global west.

Traclink:
http://www.globalwest.net/mustang 79-98.htm#Traclink Traction kits

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Dan, thanks so much for the explanation. I'm trying to read and learn as much as I can about suspension setups since attending my first solo II event. I have no plans to turn my '95 into a SCCA car, but I may go in this direction with my '90.