Is this suspension setup too low?

stang&2Birds said:

Too low for what?

IMHO, it's your car, and you can modify as you want (as long as it's road safe ).

For looks, it's your call. You know what type of streets you'll be driving on.
For handling, that stance is horrible - period.
For the Quarter Mile, that stance is a beyond horrible.

There are a couple of benchmarks you can consider:
For handling do not lower a GT Stang more than 3/4" to 1"- without massive and major suspension changes (I'm talking $5K to even start).

For lowering, the proper way to lower the car is to keep the same amount of force required for maximum jounce (suspension compression). For ~1" drop, that means a spring rate ~700lbs/in - that's stiff. For a 1.5" drop, the spring rate is very harsh and most people would say not street-able. Lowering a GT more than 1.5" is a joke - really! But, people lower their Stang 3", 4", etc. IMHO, those people don't have a clue what they're talking about.

Note, the GT is already a lowered platform. Do a Google search, get a tape measure, look at other cars, leave me alone.

The stock height of a GT front fender is ~~27.25". Unless people spec a fender height, show a tape measure, or specify all four corners (they are never the same), they likely have a Stang that is lowered 3". Pretty cool since the max jounce (compression) is only ~3.5" (as spec'ed by Ford). So, you can see with a 3.5" jounce, why even a 2" drop is a joke, and purely for looks.

Also, people never seem to mention the "minor mods" (LMAO!) they did to get their wheels to fit. Or, they seem to quote some BS "tire size" and never mention the tire make, tire model, rim width, or offset. Rolling fender lips, caster/camber settings, pushing out the fender, changing/cutting the liner, etc are all common mods. Tire "sizes" are like pants/dress sizes. That's especially true for the Section-Width and the Tread-Width! Just look on tirerack to see what I'm talking about. So, the exact tires, and the mods made, make a difference on how well the tires fit inside the wheel wells.

The ?92/93? Stangs have minor fender liner mods, etc. Also, Ford did a number of minor moves to the firewall, and FCA mounting points, strut tower location, over the Fox years. Yea, they are "minor", until you have zero clearance between yout tire and somthing else, then those "minor" mods don't seem so minor.

So... be careful about any setup used by someone else. Add in the POS Fox tolerances, and anything other than 100% stock becomes an adventure. But, IMHO, anyone that has a 20+ year old car and is looking to modify it, is not looking for a car to "buy it off the Dealer floor, drive it, and forget about it".


For Handling:
You'll also want CC plates, and a bumpsteer kit. IMHO, get only MM stuff. There have been a ton of threads on the quailty of stuff from other vendors. Maximum Motorsports has a real engineer, and he uses real engineering software (and it's not cheap either!). Steeda is also good. But, lately Steeda has been more towards profit, aftermarket, and we want the best performance figures for the BS magazine tests (because that is what sells cars!).


BTW, to avoid another huge p*****sing match, I'm not going to post any in this thread. So, please don't take my lack of replies as my acceptance or admittance to anything else that is posted in this thread. If you weren't in the Services, I wouldn't have bothered.

Good Luck!

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