Shelby Drop, tire wear?

Dejavu · Jun 16, 2006

Just starting to tear apart the front end on my 66. I know my handling will imrpove with the "drop" but is there a significant change in tire wear?
Thanks,
Fred

Ronstang · Jun 16, 2006

You will only get more wear if you have it aligned improperly. You should be able to get back to 0 degrees camber and toe is easy to adjust correctly. Caster is a setting that does not affect wear. If you can't get back to 0 degrees camber then you have some issues with sagging shock towers or other damage you need to address.

washMO66 · Jun 16, 2006

I didn't notice any unusual tire wear after I did mine. Get an alignment.

65 fastback · Jun 16, 2006

The "Shelby" drop will not affect tire wear, with the proper alignment.

Tim

19stang66 · Jun 16, 2006

If you had sagging shock towers and did the shelby drop and got it aligned but are now installing a monte carlo bar to spread the shock towers back out, will that affect the alignment at all?

bnickel · Jun 16, 2006

19stang66 said:
If you had sagging shock towers and did the shelby drop and got it aligned but are now installing a monte carlo bar to spread the shock towers back out, will that affect the alignment at all?

yes.

19stang66 · Jun 16, 2006

*****, more money to spend. Will it be off so much as to where I cant drive it to a shop?

bnickel · Jun 16, 2006

19stang66 said:
*****, more money to spend. Will it be off so much as to where I cant drive it to a shop?

you should be able to get it to the shop fine. it's kind of rare for towers to sag so bad that the car can't be driven after installing a monte carlo bar. if it's bad enough to keep you from driving to the alignment shop it's very likely that it would even have bee correctly aligned before.

if the towers haven't sagged too bad it's possible that it won't even need an alignment but i wouldn't chance it personally.

19stang66 · Jun 16, 2006

I'll drive it to my unlces shop. He aligned it once and he said he cant even get other cars to align as good as mine did. So i'll have him check it to make sure. Thanks.

rbohm · Jun 17, 2006

after you have the suspension aligned, you might even see slightly better tire wear than before as the tires will be more vertical in the corners, and you will have more of the tire in contact with the road than before.

Hack · Jun 17, 2006

rbohm said:
after you have the suspension aligned, you might even see slightly better tire wear than before as the tires will be more vertical in the corners, and you will have more of the tire in contact with the road than before.

Yes, that's right. My understanding is the Shelby drop improves cornering in two ways.
1. Lowers the car for a lower center of gravity - pretty obvious to most people that this helps corner faster.
2. Changes the angle of the upper A-arm so that you get more camber gain in cornering. What this does is keeps the tire more vertical as rbohm said. The change in suspension geometry keeps more of the tire on the ground, so it improves tire wear.

However, all that goes out the window if you're anything like me. After doing a drop on my car I dive into corners as fast as I can make myself do it. The car performs better than my nerve will make me drive. So I think I get a little more tire wear than before, because I'm driving the Indy 500 on every cloverleaf. It's well worth it IMO.

Dejavu · Jun 18, 2006

Thanks guys, I am in the process of removing all the front end suspension parts and will drill my front end for the drop before I prime and paint.

rbohm · Jun 19, 2006

Hack said:
The car performs better than my nerve will make me drive.

that line reminds of an article i read on a auto writer who drove a new GT-350 through some canyons once. he basically felt the car was laughing at his pittful attempts to drive the car anywhere near its limits.

65mistress · Jun 19, 2006

Hack said:
The car performs better than my nerve will make me drive. So I think I get a little more tire wear than before, because I'm driving the Indy 500 on every cloverleaf.

This is a classic quote.

Shelby Drop, tire wear?

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