I'm looking to do a good road racing suspension upgrade to my wayyy outdated components on my '87 LX 5.0. With a budget in mind, can anyone recommend some good parts to start with? I have a few brands in mind, but I need to know a good foundation to build on. Thanks in advance!
maximum motorsports is great for the pricing. i personally am going with griggs. redo'ing all the bushings in the front of the car is a great place to start using delrin(if you dont mind the feeling of daily driving) or poly. make sure to get a solid driving shaft to get rid of the flexible rag joints. from there if you can do a set of koni yellows with a coil over setup from either griggs or maximum and that will help out an incredible amount in the way the car handles. also a book called mustang performance 2 is great for little tricks to do to your stock suspension and pick up some much needed geometry in the front end.
if your on a budget I'd wait on things like replacing a steering shaft and coilovers.
Read up on griggs, MM, and here for some good advice. Make sure the stock components are in servicable condition... pay attention to ball joints, bearings, tie rods and bushings. Those are the things that connect you to the road and they need to be good.
Deffinatly do some chassis stiffening, best parts in the world won't help if your whole car is flexing uncontrolled.
Figure out what your gonna do in the rear, I think for RR moneys best spent keeping the back end under control.
Add a set of race springs, HD struts/shocks, Caster/Camber plates and your well on your way.
After that work on your brakes, theres some very affordable upgrades out there.
yeah...i forgot to even mension the subframe connectors!!!!! thats the first and all important thing. lca's should be on teh list and if you can afford it something to keep that rear end located. i can vouch for the "rear steer" on the stangs as i had it really bad when i started out. i was mensioning the coilovers as if your going to do the spring and strut combo and cc plate, its just worth it to go that extra mile with the front to make it seem like your going a crap ton of miles forward as it will make a huge difference on handling. plus it gets rid oalot of unsprung weight and allows you to use a more aggresive spring rate. maximum motorsports has a whole write up on the coil over and the advantages of them as well as all the rest. just make sure you dont use polyurethane in the ula's as it WILL cause your suspension to bind and wont allow you to push the car to the limit on the track.
Thanks .....I understand brakes, suspension, and the DRIVER are the key to a good car. This car isn't going to be a dedicated track car, so i don't want to get to crazy. Right now i think i need to replace the shocks/struts, springs, bushings for now then stiffen up the chassis from there. After a few HPDE's, if i'm serious, i can really upgrade some things.