Wilwood Forged Spindles

[69gmachine]

Wilwood just came out with a MII based forged steering knuckle with a 2" drop and a removable steering arm. It uses the same spindle pin as the 70 and up Mustangs (Mustang II). Although they advertise the steering arm can be mounted for rear steer, it's way too high to work well with our early cars.

Now if someone were to make an adapter to lower it about 2.5" it ought to be perfect for the rack and pinion folks. It has an 11 degree SIA, which is about 3 degrees more than our cars, and one degree less than a stock MII spindle. It's .4125 shorter than our early spindles (over 1/2" taller than stock MII), but it should work fine if you lowered your upper A arm at least an inch. A lot of folks have lowered them well over an inch (mine are 1 1/2). A 17x9" wheel would fit no problem. Probably be able to make a 16x9" wheel work too although I haven't seen any in that size.

I don't know why everyone wants to make such a radical drop. I think Degins' 1.5 inch drop is plenty. If I could wish one into existence, I'd want the least amount of drop that allows it to fit safely inside the wheel.

 

[Helmantel]

The spindle pin of those spindles sits 4.30" higher than the bottom of the spindle, where this distance is only 1.25" on a stock vintage Mustang spindle. This means that the spindles by themselves result in a rather radical 3" drop.

On an otherwise stock suspension with new, stock lenght springs, this may give a nice ride height, but with an upper A arm drop and shorter springs, the ride height will become really low.

As you mentioned, you would also need a different steering arm for a vintage Mustang rear steer application. Or use a very long bumpsteer corrector stud, but that would result in a rather flexible construction: not great for steering feel and strenght may be marginal too.

With a bit of tinkering, I think they can be made to work though.

 

[70vert]

MII spindle - bad Ackermann, bad camber curve, no caster?

Isn't the Mustang II front suspension mainly for cruising and street rods? Every serious discussion I have seen on the MII doesn't compare it favorably to a "Shelby Drop" vintage mustang front suspension. That, and it mounts and delivers loads to the wrong place - the front frame rails - and doesn't use the shock towers, an integral part of the structure that, when properly braced, does its' job pretty well.

The whole Mustang II front suspension thing seems to be an attempt to move the Hot Rod aftermarket over to the Mustang. The arms are too short, the roll center seems too low - and we already have a high roll center in the back, compounding the problem.

I'd say wait for Degins spindle. We already have an outstanding foundation in our front suspension - arguably, with a few tweaks, better than any stock Mustang front suspension - and doing those tweaks or going with a coilover front that is similar in geometry to the original + Shelby drop - seems to be the way to go.

 

[69gmachine]

It's not necessary to use the whole Mustang II setup, so all the MII related geometry becomes moot. The distance from the centerline of the pin to the bottom of the ball joint mount on the early spindles is just a bit over 1.5 inches. I may send them an email begging them to produce a steering arm that would have teh right geometry for the early cars. I'll probably buy a set of Degin's spindles anyway, because hopefully they're closer to production than a part I'm just wishing for.

 

[wicked93gs]

so installing 2" drop spindles will lower the car 3"? in that case presumably using a stock dimension mustang II spindle would only lower the car 1"...but stock MII spindles are somewhat shorter than wilwoods new spindles, necessitating a 1.5" shelby style drop to compensate, probably lowering the car by 2" or so in the end with stock height springs, if thats too low you can use different thickness insulators or shims to bring the height back up to what you want, this is my plan for spindles anyway, all so I can get front steer for my rear sump pan, and I'll still be able to use opentracker products for the rest of the suspension(oh and as an added bonus I'll have a lot of options for big brake kits(quite a few made for the MII spindles) though I may end up using wilwoods spindles and a 1" shim to bring it back up, dont know yet, since I havent been able to find a price on wilwood's spindles