Piraya33

Hello everyone. It has been a long time since I have posted anything on here due to running out of money. Anyways, my 65' Coupe 289/C4 has been laid up in the garage for a few months now due to the front suspension being 40yr old crap. I just got some money to throw its way and I need some advice.

The car is a daily driver and I never go to the strip or road race track with it. I was wondering what the best thing I can do for my front suspension would be?

1) Rebuild the original suspension with new parts and replace all the rubber bushings with poly bushings. What is the best place to get these remanned parts from? Should I do this rebuild myself or have a shop do it? How much would a shop charge?

2) Replace the front suspension with a Mustang II kit. How much labor would a shop charge to do this?

3) Replace the front suspension with a bolt on coil-over kit (TCP, Global West, etc...).

Please keep in mind that it is a daily driver that is never raced or pushed to it's limits. Thanks for any information that you guys can give me!

Starfury

IMO, there's nothing wrong with a properly set up stock style suspension.

Inspect your current suspension (or have it professionally inspected) to see what needs to be replaced. Assuming it needs just about everything replaced, here's what I'd recommend:

A pair of roller coil spring saddles from Day @ DazeCars
540lb 1" drop springs from Opentracker (or M+, because I've heard Opentracker is backordered)
Stock UCA's and LCA's (rubber bushings)
Shelby drop for the UCA's
Edelbrock shocks
Rubber upper coil insulators
Rubber strut rod bushings (absolutely no poly here)
15/16" front sway bar, no rear bar
New steering parts (except for center link)
Roller idler from OpenTracker

That's basically what I'm running, and I love the way my car handles. I drive it hard, too.

tx65coupe

My opinion would be to just rebuild the factory suspension, since you don't race it.

Mine is going to be a cruiser and might go to the drag races a few times for fun, but I just rebuilt all the factory front suspension. I did it my self in the garage over the weekend a couple months ago. Its not really that hard.

I got 1 inch front drop springs and upgraded the front sway bar to a larger one and added a rear sway bar. I got an export brace, monte carlo bar and subframe connectors for handling and to protect the car from body flex.


The Mustang II setup is nice, but costs a lot more. In my opinion its not really needed. A friend of mine has this setup on his car. It does handle nicely.

I can't comment on the coilover stuff. I've never messed with that.

Deviousfred

I say stick with mostly stock style parts. No need to throw any extra money into anything fancy like tubular control arms if you don't plan on leaning real hard into the car. The poly bushing subject is a hot topic around here. I personally have never had a single problem with poly bushing on my car and I have a lot of them. Either way, any new suspension you put into your car will be leaps better than the 40+ year old stuff as you mentioned.

Semper Fi

chewy1234

What about poly on the sway bar? Would rubber be better for a street ride. I was told that rubber coil insulators won't work with the 540 coil springs.

silverblue66

I have stock style suspension with 620lb coils, 1 1/8in front sway bar, performance 4leaf std eye rear sprigs, kyb gas-a-just shocks all around and am goint to put a 3/4 rear sway bar soon. very happy with the ride and handling on my dd. but its a little front happy and i am hopping the rear sway will help because all the systems with similar componants come with one.

Kip

Starfury

Sway bars don't generally squeak much, so poly is ok there.

Rubber isolators work just fine with 540lb springs (I have them). Why wouldn't they?

tx65coupe

Make sure the D bushings have some of the silcone I think it is grease smeared on them if using poly. They can and will squeak.

Most of my car's suspension is poly.

JamesW

Same thought here as the others. An updated stock suspension will be fine. You can either rebuild your UCA or buy replacements. I'm running almost the exact front as Starfury, but with KYB GR2 shocks and 620 springs

chewy1234

In the M+ catalog is says that their 620's wont work with rubber insulators.