Global West or TCP?

Red Barchetta · Sep 3, 2004

mdjay said:
...Ride quality? Well when you move to improve handling, you sacrifice ride quality no matter what! You need higher spring rates to keep the wheels on the pavement!

You couldn't be any more wrong. With the coil over setup, you can run a softer spring due to the change in wheel rate. In stock form, the suspension geometry sucks. To prevent the oustide wheel from going into positive camber during a turn, a stiffer spring is used to limit body roll. The reason why you have to run such a stiff spring on our cars is because we have a crappy wheel rate. Improving the wheel rate will improve the effectiveness of the spring which will allow you to run a softer spring to acheive the same effect.

LMan · Sep 3, 2004

dolfan87 said:
Ahem...our system will be much cheaper. I was going to stay out of this thread, but I feel like some of you should be aware that we are very near to a completion of our coil over kits.

87

Gram, I owe you those measurements. I will get them tonight!

dolfan87 · Sep 3, 2004

Red Barchetta said:
You couldn't be any more wrong. With the coil over setup, you can run a softer spring due to the change in wheel rate. In stock form, the suspension geometry sucks. To prevent the oustide wheel from going into positive camber during a turn, a stiffer spring is used to limit body roll. The reason why you have to run such a stiff spring on our cars is because we have a crappy wheel rate. Improving the wheel rate will improve the effectiveness of the spring which will allow you to run a softer spring to acheive the same effect.

This is correct. We are looking at a 300-350 spring on our system, where most everyone I know is running a 620lb spring on their cars (stock suspension). Moving the load from the upper control arm, down to the lower and closer to the ball joint, improves wheel rate over 50%.

Softer ride, better handling, and adjustable ride height...it's the best of both worlds.

LMan said:
Gram, I owe you those measurements. I will get them tonight!

No worries bro, we are waiting on parts still. I was told today that he will have a quote for us by Weds.

I then told him we want to have a working kit out for testing by the end of the month at the latest.

Just wanted to keep you guys up to date as much as possible.

Gram

Hack · Sep 4, 2004

Red Barchetta said:
You couldn't be any more wrong. With the coil over setup, you can run a softer spring due to the change in wheel rate. In stock form, the suspension geometry sucks. To prevent the oustide wheel from going into positive camber during a turn, a stiffer spring is used to limit body roll. The reason why you have to run such a stiff spring on our cars is because we have a crappy wheel rate. Improving the wheel rate will improve the effectiveness of the spring which will allow you to run a softer spring to acheive the same effect.

He may have worded it incorrectly, but in general performance vehicles need a higher wheel rate than street vehicles. That translates into a less comfortable ride, no matter what the actual spring stiffness is. You can't have a "living room couch" ride and great road racing performance at the same time, no matter what suspension you have in the car.

bnickel · Sep 4, 2004

Hack said:
He may have worded it incorrectly, but in general performance vehicles need a higher wheel rate than street vehicles. That translates into a less comfortable ride, no matter what the actual spring stiffness is. You can't have a "living room couch" ride and great road racing performance at the same time, no matter what suspension you have in the car.

actually you can't have "living room couch" comfortable but you can have a more comfortable ride than a completely stock stang and still be able to run circles around it on the track. but no you can't have what i call "continental comfort" and a race car at the same time. beleive it or not though with a bit of adjustment on the coilovers you can have both with the same car and the same suspension, just not both at the same time

dolfan87 · Sep 4, 2004

Hack said:
He may have worded it incorrectly, but in general performance vehicles need a higher wheel rate than street vehicles. That translates into a less comfortable ride, no matter what the actual spring stiffness is. You can't have a "living room couch" ride and great road racing performance at the same time, no matter what suspension you have in the car.

I never said living room couch ride. I said softer than a stock type suspension, with the 620lb springs.

How many people here have complained about their cars riding like 4x4 trucks with those springs and KYB shocks?

If you are going to hard core road race your Mustang, then a stiffer coil would be in the works anyway. But how easy is it to jack up the front of the car, unbolt the shocks, spin off the street coils, spin on the racing coils, bolt it all back up, and hit the track in about ten minutes.

87

mdjay · Sep 4, 2004

Red Barchetta said:
You couldn't be any more wrong. With the coil over setup, you can run a softer spring due to the change in wheel rate. In stock form, the suspension geometry sucks. To prevent the oustide wheel from going into positive camber during a turn, a stiffer spring is used to limit body roll. The reason why you have to run such a stiff spring on our cars is because we have a crappy wheel rate. Improving the wheel rate will improve the effectiveness of the spring which will allow you to run a softer spring to acheive the same effect.

While I agree to some point, that you can run a softer shock with the improved geometry, when you really want lay it down, you have to increase the spring rate. I watched Terry from TCP gradually tune the front and rear suspension on his small block fastback to 450-500-550 on the front. I forget what he did on the rear but he increased it as well past the production numbers and started trimming his lap times. I run a 450 on the front of my CO set-up at this time. However, I won't be putting the car on the track anytime soon so I'm not even in the tuning stage between the front an rear of the car.

mdjay · Sep 4, 2004

I went to see Mike Maier of Maier Racing last week and he took me for a spin in a SB 347 67 fastback he tuned. Keep in mind the car is set-up for a Vintage class so no roll cage subframes etc. The balance this car had and the lateral G's he could get out of this car was amazing! He was running slicks but they say he's beating big block vets around the track. Props to some of the guys out there (ie Historic) that can tune a suspension good and just drive the pants off of the car!

Man oh man! Although not competively, I have road raced cars, street bikes, you name it. I use to give myself quite a bit of credit for driving ability until last week. He redefined that presumption...

Hack · Sep 4, 2004

dolfan87 said:
I never said living room couch ride. I said softer than a stock type suspension, with the 620lb springs.

How many people here have complained about their cars riding like 4x4 trucks with those springs and KYB shocks?

If you are going to hard core road race your Mustang, then a stiffer coil would be in the works anyway. But how easy is it to jack up the front of the car, unbolt the shocks, spin off the street coils, spin on the racing coils, bolt it all back up, and hit the track in about ten minutes.

87

I love the idea of being able to adjust the ride height and switch from performance to street. It's a neat idea. It occurs to me that the stance of the car would be.. odd perhaps after either raising or lowering the front. I guess if you were only moving the ride height an inch or two, the stance could look fine either way. I'm too lazy to do that kinda stuff anyhoo. I probably will set my suspension about as stiff as I can live with at the lowest height that allows - and that's it.

I've said this before - I want a coil over in my car eventually.

Red Barchetta · Sep 4, 2004

mdjay said:
While I agree to some point, that you can run a softer shock with the improved geometry, when you really want lay it down, you have to increase the spring rate. I watched Terry from TCP gradually tune the front and rear suspension on his small block fastback to 450-500-550 on the front. I forget what he did on the rear but he increased it as well past the production numbers and started trimming his lap times. I run a 450 on the front of my CO set-up at this time. However, I won't be putting the car on the track anytime soon so I'm not even in the tuning stage between the front an rear of the car.

I think you meant to say softer spring, not shock. When you really want to lay it down, you don't necessarily want to increase the spring rate; you want to increase the roll stiffness. Increasing the spring rate will do this, however, it doesn't let the wheel follow the irregularities in the track as well as a softer spring would in addition to reducing the amount of suspension travel. The best way to increase roll stiffness is to increase the size or effectiveness of the stabilizer bar. Obviously, there's more to it than just this, so please don't take this as me advocating to go slap a fat stabilizer bar on your car and leave the stock springs. It's all about tuning and how everything works together. However, conventional theory is run as soft a spring as you can allowing full suspension travel without having the car bottoming out and then adjust roll stiffness using a stabilizer bar.

Using Terry as an example can be misleading as they ran very little suspension travel with that car, most likely due to it being lowered so much. In doing so, they needed a stiffer spring to prevent the car from bottoming out. Unfortunatley, Terry was never able to fully sort the car out before the engine blew. Last I heard, the car was sold to some company other than Chassis Works when TCP went belly up.

mdjay · Sep 5, 2004

I agree with much of what you say, there is a lot more going on than just the springs. Tuning is critical.

Terry was beginning to beat the Griggs car all around. He made them go out and get a new motor. Then he burned his own. It would have been nice to see Terry fiinish the season for some resolve.

PS I love Rush!

fast shelby · Sep 8, 2004

Has anybody tried this suspension in their car? http://www.rcmotorsports.net/
Believe it or not, I am shoe horning in a 427 small block that is going to push out close to 1000 hp in my 67 stang. I am looking for a suspension that will take the abuse.

jerry S · Sep 8, 2004

I have a question

fast shelby said:
Has anybody tried this suspension in their car? http://www.rcmotorsports.net/
Believe it or not, I am shoe horning in a 427 small block that is going to push out close to 1000 hp in my 67 stang. I am looking for a suspension that will take the abuse.

I didn't look through the whole on-line catalog but from what I saw, their front ends are MII suspensions. I assume you are stroking a 351W or a 390. Unless they offer other front end kits, I don't see how you will fit your motor in that engine bay using a MII based suspension.

slackr · Sep 8, 2004

jerry S said:
I didn't look through the whole on-line catalog but from what I saw, their front ends are MII suspensions. I assume you are stroking a 351W or a 390. Unless they offer other front end kits, I don't see how you will fit your motor in that engine bay using a MII based suspension.

67 Mustangs came w/390s and fit tight, but they fit... 351w is a smaller animal and fits better than the FE...
He said a 427 small block which would be the stroked 351.
Typically w/the MII suspension, you can remove the shock towers and you can fit a modular in there... a physically bigger engine than the FE.
The prospects are realistic, but the suspension install (from what I've read) is quite the undertaking.

LMan · Sep 8, 2004

friend of mine has a 427W in his '68. Its a stroked 351, so no fitment issues.

Global West or TCP?

Red Barchetta

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Hack

bnickel

dolfan87

mdjay

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Hack

Red Barchetta

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