Scott H.

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andrewmp6

The bias ply tires are about good for traction as slicks in the rain.The handling is ok if you understand the limits of the car but theres a lot of bolt on things you can do to make it handle like its on rails.Your wallet is the only limit on the early mustangs.

Daze

The single biggest factor between a good handling car with a good feel is the alignment. As long as you DO NOT use Ford's specs and set it with performance settings you can have a really god handling car. The second single biggest improvement to a classic Mustang, is improving the camber curve and the UCA drop fixes that. Third biggest improvement is roller spring perches. These three things with a bone stock car will make it handle very well. Also what a person ads to there car can make handling worse not better. I have seen so many times where Mustang owners want to improve the handling of their car so they get the stiffest springs they can find. That is fine for the track, but for a street car driven in the real world where there are things like bumps and potholes that is crazy. A stiff spring mustang will drive like a tank!!! Long and the short of it, to answer your question can a mustang with stock componants handle well?? yes it can handle very well. Do most no, not at all.

racin66coupe

daze, do roller perches REALLY ake it handle that well?? everyone says they do, but i guess, how? less friction?

Daze

Let me put it like this. A Mustang handles best with its suspension in the position it was in when it was aligned. With that said one solution is to add really stiff springs so the suspension does not move very much and stays close to the aligned position. This comes with the unwanted price of pore ride quality and sort of puts a bandaide on the issue. Roller spring perches help eliminate the issue, speeding up suspension response time and reducing suspension flex. If you look at a stock set of spring perches they do not pivot easily this cause undo flex in other suspension parts and is much slower in response time. Suspension is designed to move so if you allow it to smoothly do its job as quickly as possible you will have much better ride and handling quality. The proof is in the pudding. I have sold hundreds of perches and Opentracker has sold thousands and all the reviews are the same the perches make a huge difference!!! They are wonderful for a all performance car and they are wonderful for a stock car I have personally put them on both and seen a vast improvement in handling.

gooser

ok daze, what's a uca?

Adrenolin

Upper Control Arm, or UCA drop AKA Shelby Drop, or Arning drop... check out Daze's page on it.

Edit: Daze.. I'm looking at your Unfitted Master Kit and just wanted to clarify something. Its the inside that needs to be honed out in order to fit the bearings correct? Basically clamp the journals and using a brake hone and drill to hone them out. Pretty much the same as honing out the block cylinder walls right?

Thanks.

Aussie66Fastback

Upper control arm.

the shelby drop relocates the mounting points of the UCA an inch lower (or can be more).
what it does is change the tyre angle with the road on cornering.

stock UCA placement means the outside tyre and bottom of the wheel tends to tuck under the car causing understeer in cornering.

lowered inner pivot point means the bottom of the outside wheel pushes out on cornering keepingthe tyre inbetter contact with the road.

Shelby did it on the early GT350s. Ford considered it as a standard. Many say they dropped it because of costs. I say they dropped it to limit the carto lower cornering speeds for safety among the masses.

2bav8

With a little work, as Daze has mentioned a classic Mustang can handle pretty good.
Roller spring perches, strut rods with heim joints go a long way to improving grip and ride quality.

gooser

thanks guys. a lot of information on daze's page.