mustang 2 front suspension

It's easy I've done this before.

I purchased a Heidts kit and did some reinforcement of my own.

I haven't seen any online place that tells you step by step for a mustang but it's pretty much straight forward.

I'm currently installing a coil over suspension from Rod & Custom Motorsports in South Carolina. The quality of the parts is high and the customer support is great. For is a major project. You'll have to change your oil pan to accomodate the cross member and modify your steering.

http://www.rcmotorsports.net/

Also, check out the tech articles in Mustangs and Fords for installations of both R&C and Heidt's mustang ii front suspensions.

Good Luck,
Kent

RiceRomper45.0 said:

im wanting to switch to a mustang 2 front suspension anyone know and sites with info or can tell me what all will be involved im plannin to ground up resto soo for second time im gettin tired of the car and need some new projects

Click to expand...

why are you wanting to do a MII conversion?? STock setup is better for daily driving and racing.

Whats involved:
pull front suspension/brakes/spindles/steering
clean it all up
cut out shock towers
MEASURE
MEASURE
MEASURE
tack weld crossmember in place
measure some more
Weld the crossmember in place and the hats
then assemble the front end again.


Not that hard but you better trust whoever is doing the welding. Measure 10 times if you have to, the crossmember needs to be square with the frame

I agree with xoxbxfx - unless the front frame rails and shock towers are rusted beyond repair (my situation) I would leave the original suspension and engine support system in place.

Kent

xoxbxfx said:

Why do you want to do a MII conversion?? The stock setup is better for daily driving and racing.

Click to expand...

(Edited for grammar.)



Is this your personal opinion from experience, or are you just regurgitating information you have been told?

My guess is the latter.

your telling me a worm box is better than a rack.......lol.

the bump steer you get from granada conversion sucks ass.....

with a MII suspension no bumpsteer disc brakes and straight as can be steering with the rack.

I've used both stock and MII. (I can personally attest to the superior handling of the latter.)
I'm also installing the RC Motorsports conversion (the same as Kent is using). I will have all the extra parts from my original M II set-up- ( brakes, spindles, upper & lower control arms, adjustable coil-overs, rack, ect.) in a week or two. LMK if you or anyone is interested, as I will not need them after the install.

Fostang said:

your telling me a worm box is better than a rack.......lol.

the bump steer you get from granada conversion sucks ass.....

with a MII suspension no bumpsteer disc brakes and straight as can be steering with the rack.

Click to expand...

Fostang, you forgot negative camber gain instead of POSITIVE camber gain in a turn. Shelby mod or not.

I suppose xoxbxfx belives bias-ply tires handle better than radials tires too?

Now if you use The TCP and Global West parts for the best handleing WITHOUT cutting up your car, I can understand. But in the end your choice will be what it is...a compromise.

Actually with the R & C Motorsport kits, you don't have to "cut-up" your car, other than removing the towers.

Sundance said:

Fostang, you forgot negative camber gain instead of POSITIVE camber gain in a turn. Shelby mod or not.

I suppose xoxbxfx belives bias-ply tires handle better than radials tires too?

Now if you use The TCP and Global West parts for the best handleing WITHOUT cutting up your car, I can understand. But in the end your choice will be what it is...a compromise.

Click to expand...

make what jokes you want, but if you looks stock type setups (TCP/Global West/Fat Man) are way better for handling. THe MII suspension setup is weak all by itself. It was origionally designed to ahve struts and still have the same type concept as our classic stangs. The new strutless suspension setups are much weaker and cannot handle waht an upgraded stock setup could. I personally ahve seen damaged MII setups where the crossmembers give and leave you sitting on 1/2 your frame. Im not a total idiot. Mustang II suspensions are great with a strut. People went to strutless to convert hotrod old school suspensions into somethign more modern and stronger. When I say stronger, Im talking 30's suspension technology, not 60's.

If you decide to do a MII swap, talk to fostang... do the extra bracing like he did on his suspension. He knows as well as I why you need the extra support.

Like I have said before, I have installed many of these kits, the first one has to be as much as 10 years ago and I have never seen or encountered any problems and some of these kits are in cars that hang the front tires at the track and yes those cars have foward support bars on them but not all of them do and I have never seen a failure of any sort. I think it basiclly comes down to personal taste on what you like or dont.

yes sir, just a quick reinforcment.

2 more gussets, the tube that holds the bolt welded all around, and that area boxed in with a connection to the tube also welded.

xoxbxfx said:

make what jokes you want, but if you looks stock type setups (TCP/Global West/Fat Man) are way better for handling. THe MII suspension setup is weak all by itself. It was origionally designed to ahve struts and still have the same type concept as our classic stangs. The new strutless suspension setups are much weaker and cannot handle waht an upgraded stock setup could. I personally ahve seen damaged MII setups where the crossmembers give and leave you sitting on 1/2 your frame. Im not a total idiot. Mustang II suspensions are great with a strut. People went to strutless to convert hotrod old school suspensions into somethign more modern and stronger. When I say stronger, Im talking 30's suspension technology, not 60's.

If you decide to do a MII swap, talk to fostang... do the extra bracing like he did on his suspension. He knows as well as I why you need the extra support.

Click to expand...

xoxbxfx, Thanks for seeing my humor.

I disagree that the TCP/Global West/Fat Man suspensions will handle better. Especialy the Fat Man kit or any other kit that replaces a double A-arm suspension for a strut.

Strut suspensions exist for only one purpose...they are cheap to design and build. Again with a strut suspension you get poor camber gain. Ask any serious road race fox body owner and they will all tell you the front suspension sucks. The only way to gain negative camber is to set static camber high...which causes tire wear and again is a compromise. Ironicly Fox body owners pay $uper big buck$ to convert to a MII esque double A-arm setup. (See Griggs racing.)

Now in the same breath you claim the TCP/Global West/Fat Man suspensions will handle better, but your arguement is that the MII suspensions are weak. Your arguement adds no weight on weither or not the stock suspension configuration can handle better then an MII suspension. These are unfortunately two completely differant arguements.

I can agree, and have seen problems where the LCA (lower control arm) rear mounting point has failed, But NOT on a Mustang. You also have to understand these kits are installed on trucks weighing almost twice as much as our Mustangs and live quite well.

In the one failure that I have seen it was a bad batch of bolts and not the crossmember at all.

The potential weakness in the crossmembers will be most prevelent in the Hiedt's and in the R&C kits 105 and 106.

http://www.heidts.com/heip32-2.htm
http://www.rcmotorsports.net/page4.html (105)
http://www.rcmotorsports.net/page5.html (106)

The reason these kits are more prone to failure is because the LCA bias is to the rear and they use the middle of the crossmember as the front mounting point. See Heidts and R&C 105 (discontinued and no longer available from R&C)

The 106 is a superior design over the 105. With both LCA mounting points mounted on the OUTSIDE of the crossmember. However the 106 still uses a modified/stock LCA geometry and is biased toward the rear of the car. If you currently own or purchase any of these kits, do as Fostang has and gusset the rear LCA mounting point from several angles.

If you look at the R&C's kit 107 there will be no problem in this area.

http://www.rcmotorsports.net/page6.html

The 107 kit has an A-arm that is centered on the crossmember and the extentions are only one inch on either side.

Most MII setups will have an extension on the rear of the crossmember that can be as far as four inches away from the crossmember. As you can imagine there is alot of torque that is applied to this small area. If you hollow out the center of the crossmember, you are only left with a thin metal ear to resist most of the torsion!

If A-arms make you uncomfortable, then look to Martz chassis for a strut version of the MII suspension for classic Mustangs.

http://www.martzchassis.net/mustangfrontinstall

Martz uses a strut rod in almost the same position as the stock Mustang, and locates the LCA using a double shear mounting points like stock.

Facinating fact; did you know that the stock Mustang engine mounts and lower control arms are only held by six spot welds??

Most of the negative comments you will hear about MII suspensions are echos of media and company propaganda and are unsubstantiated.

Anyway, my point in this very long reply is to reduce some of the generalizations people assume with MII suspensions.

In the above post I sound as if I belive the crossmember will fail if not modified as Fostang has done. I don't belive this to be true, rather I recomend to be better safe than sorry if you are concerned about failure.

re. mustang ii reinforcement

I'm installing the RC107 kit from R&C. Sundance makes a good case for not needing reinforcement. This weekend I put in the engine and transmission and cut and tacked in the motor mounts. The engine is going to come out to final weld the motor mounts and install the fender aprons and radiator support. This would be the ideal time to add reinforcement. Can someone post specific examples or recommendations?

Also, this may be a strange idea, but would there be a benefit to using shock towers with the lower bulge removed but retain the top shock mount section and then bolt this to an export brace?

Thanks,
Kent

A few points of clarification for newbies....

TCP and Global West do not sell "strut" type suspensions. They sell suspension pieces that replace the original control arms in modified locations similar to the Shelby drop. They do use a "strut rod", which is basically the front leg of the lower A-arm on a 65-73 Mustang. They are not related to MII pieces.

Griggs' setup is a complete replacement dual A-arm setup which is not directly related to the stock nor MII type suspensions.

Fatman Fabrications and RRS do sell "strut" type suspensions similar to the latemodel Fox Mustang. The Fatman system is at best a BLING BLING type system that might look cool but yield little or no gain in performance, IMHO.

A MII is a great way to shoe horn big iron/aluminum under the hood and might yield some handling improvements but requires major surgery and attention to detail.


Just my .02.

I am very soon going to repace the front sus. on my coupe,I to would like to see the modifications that have been added to the LCA area. Is the Heidits the same width (track/side to side)as the stock?? Also with the 2" drop that this comes with will this limit my wheel size? I have a set of 18" wheels for the car with 225/40/18 Dunlops.
Thanks MUCH!!
B

BB1966 said:

I am very soon going to repace the front sus. on my coupe,I to would like to see the modifications that have been added to the LCA area. Is the Heidits the same width (track/side to side)as the stock?? Also with the 2" drop that this comes with will this limit my wheel size? I have a set of 18" wheels for the car with 225/40/18 Dunlops.
Thanks MUCH!!
B

Click to expand...

I'm not using the 2" drop spindles on mine it's plenty low enough already without them.

I have managed to fit a set of 18x9 rims with 285 35's on it with the mustang II set up. I think I can still go wider and bigger with no problem.



I will see if I can find old picture of what I did on this car as far as reinforcement comes..

A pic of the LCA and your car w/the 18"s would be great.Thanks........