So_Cali

Just got my check from Uncle Sam and looking to put it towards my suspension. Now my cars my DD so I'm not looking for anything thats gonna roughen up my ride, just something thats gonna improve handling and make the twisties a little more fun, I'm lowered on a Pro-Kit with Tokico HP shocks and stuts. She handles pretty good but, I feel theres room for improvement.

I've been eyeing J&Ms Street LCAs and their Adj. Panhard Bar . I know I need the panhard since I'm lowered but, is the adjustability needed or would an unadjustable panhard be ok? I'm by no means a suspension expert so any input is greatly appreciated. Thanks

F1Fan

Just checking in with you here but what do you feel could be better about the way your car handles right now? You mention that you do not want "anything thats gonna roughen up" your ride. Do you mean ANY rougher and/or noisier?

Cheers!

marcuskeeler

Any suspension work you do to tighten the feel is going to 'roughen her up'.

It's about drawing a balance, you can only go so far until you start to severely compromise the ride and noise qualities. A panhard with Poly bushings or LCA's with same will both add more rigidity to the rear end and you're going to feel it, it's only a question of how much they push your tolerance to it, only you can say.

TBH, with regards to the LCA's and the P/B, they won't be making a huge difference to the handling anyway. The adj P/B is going to allow you to adjust the lateral placement of the rear end following the lowering (if it's even off), but it's still going to allow the rear end to float left and right under compression, it's utterly unavoidable with this setup. Sure, the poly bushings in it will help reduce the 'minor' float under sharp/impact compression a bit, but essentially swapping one P/B for another is rarely perceptible, despite what vendors will tell you.

The LCA's with poly bushings are a nice idea, they will help in the fight against wheel hop and also reduce twist of the rear end. the stock LCA's are pretty weakass...


There is no magic bullet setup for the Mustang here, the only way to achieve a super supple but sporty suspension is to drop coin on some Euro Exotica with electronically selectable suspension settings.

908ssp

I bought the J&M kit because it won't roughen up the ride the way the typical urethane bushing does. My kit came in yesterday so I haven't put it on yet but I did examine the parts. They are well made and present a powerful argument for their Poly-ball technology. If the loads on the arms were always perpendicular to the axis of the pivot urethane bushings would be fine but the back of a Mustang is not like that. Any time and that is most of the time one wheel moves and the other either doesn't or moves in the opposite direction the bush is now loaded in torsion. Urethane bushings don't move in torsion the rates go up astronomically compared to the stock rubber. Race cars don't use urethane for that very reason they use rod ball ends. The J&M replicates the freedom of the rod ball end but with a poly ball reducing the bind forces close to shock but reducing the compression and tension forces down to urethane levels.

F1Fan

J&M polyballs are pure marketing B.S. and I called HOT Parts/J&M Marketing on it three or four years ago on their own website. I posted the flaws with their so called "polyball design" on their website in the comment box. HOT Parts/J&M tried to argue their point with more marketing mumbo-jumbo which I proceeded to disassemble and prove as being more marketing B.S.. So next HOT PARTS/J&M proceeded to lock the thread and then removed the ability for people to leave comments on their products.

Being the nice guy that I really am I suggested that they license or simply purchase the only truly isolated spherical joint on the market the Currie Johnny Joint which has been proven in off road use for 10++ years or so. The J&M people took my advice and now offer what they call the "Extreme" joint on their LCAs and UCAs. But these are not cheap to make or buy and raise the cost quite a bit over their cheap simple poly bushing non-adjustable LCAs HOT Parts sells.

HTH!

So_Cali

In regards to handling I think she should be able to corner better than she does with my current mods, I dont think I mentioned that my car is a V6 so I'm not sure I need to worry about wheelhop as much as the GT owners . I'm looking for a tighter feeling suspension I guess you could say. I have a rear sway and it does help in the twistes, I'm just looking for something that will give me a "riding on rails" feel. Make sense? I can deal with some added noise if need be

DRock

Well neither LCA's or a PHB will give you the riding on rails feeling. You should probably get the PHB to re-center your axle though. If you dont want wheel hop then get a poly/rod end combo LCA. It will make a little more noise but in the end it straight helps. You could probably get a Watts link in th erear. You would probably notice that.

F1Fan

Oh, O.K. got it.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you need to dump those junk Tokico HP dampers and install Koni Sports or Tokico D-Specs. The biggest single issue the S197 chassis is the stock dampers are terrible. You had the right idea but you did not execute as well as you could have. Koni Sport or Tokico D-Specs are the ONLY conventional S197 dampers worth buying if handling is your primary goal. Steeda (custom Tokico D-Spec based internals) and Ground Control (custom Koni based cartridges) offer the best of the off the shelf affordable coilovers for the S197 chassis.

Coilovers are a fantastic option BUT only if you have the time and resources (money and equipment) to set them up right. Good coilovers offer ride height and spring rate flexibility that is just not available for a stock style strut/spring setup. Other than spring rate and ride height coilvers work just like the conventional Koni Sport or D-Spec dampers unless you are willing to spend a LOT more money for a Koni double adjustable race damper setup on the entry level end and a hella whole lot more money for custom AST or Koni double adjustable inverted race coilover setups. If you are going to spend this kind of money you would be better off buying an SLA front suspension.

Anyway the S197 chassis suspension geometry was actually pretty good until you messed it up by lowering it so much. The Eibach Pro-Kit springs (also sold by Ford as their own sport springs) are right on the edge of too low for the chassis which causes the car to bottom out more often than it should. This is largely due to the relatively soft spring rates and large loss of ride height which Pro-Kit springs were designed to give. This is usually most noticable at the rear of the car but also happens a lot in front probably a lot more than you realize especialy with the Tokico HP dampers.

My suggestion would be to dump the cheap Tokico HPs, install Koni Sport or Tokico D-Spec dampers both are easily adjustable front and rear. Koni Sports will give you somewhat better control on the road course but you pay for it with a more limited useful range of damping and in lost ride quality day in day out with more harshness that cannot be adjusted out as is the case with D-Specs.

The ride with D-Specs will generally be better because they are actually internally a double adjustable using a single external adjuster. When you adjust a D-Spec damper you are not just altering the rebound damping rate (as on the Koni Sports) but also changing the compression damping rate as well. This D-Spec only feature offers more useful adjustment for a wider useful range of adjustment for cruising, long distance touring, road course and drag strip use but they cannot quite match the Koni Sports for pure body control on the road course. Both Koni Sports and D-Specs are very reliable and durable and will easily top 100K+ miles without much trouble.

Once you have your damper problem resolved I suggest doing basic upgrades to reduce compliance slightly but not go so far as installing all poly or poly rod-end terminations. Instead I suggest that you install GT500 front control arms, GT500 LCAs, GT500 strut mounts and a Steeda Comp/Street UCA/UCA mount kit to restore your rear axle's Instant Center and get back some of the lost launch grip that lowered rear ride height produces.

The OEM GT500 LCAs and strut mounts are very durable, very cheap, very quiet, very easy to get and very effective for moderate horsepower N/A engine cars. I also recommend the Steeda Comp/Street UCA/UCA mount kit for it's excellent axle control, much stronger UCA mount and improved rear suspension geometry when setup correctly.

I like the GT500's strut mounts and GT500 front control arms for the extra steering precision when used in the lighter non-GT500 cars due to the firmer rubber used and better bearing design of the strut mounts. The GT500 front control arms and GT500 strut mounts are also as quiet as the stock rubber mounts. The GT500 front control arms and LCAs are designed correctly for the S197 chassis and use a stiffer rubber which improves longitudinal axle location which improves steering and handling in hard corners.

I recommend replacing the UCA and using poly bushing only for the UCA because the S197's UCA is the control arm that has the greatest influence over the rear axle's location, wheel hop and geometry. The combination of the GT500's LCAs and Steeda Comp/Street UCA/UCA mount will eliminate wheel hop and improve rear axle steering control.

I recommend a Panhard bar brace and the matching adjustable Panhard bar with poly bushings on both ends. I like Steeda's chrome-moly bars and reinforcement because they are lighter and stiffer but any of the better higher steel alloy adjustable Panhard bars with the adjusters on the ENDS of the bar (not in the middle of the rod) and poly bushings will work just fine. Do not use rod-ends on your panhard bar or you will get a whole lot of road noise in the cabin. A stiff Panhard bar and brace improves cornering feel and precision tremendously.

Anybody who says that Panhard bar reinforcements and stiffer Panhard bars with poly bushings don't work hasn't driven a car with a good Panhard bar setup. If they have and they didn't feel a difference either they had a soft flexible panhard bar and/or bushings, cheap tires or they do not drive well enough to feel the difference. If the car has poor performing tires, wrong sized wheels for tire size or a cheap soft Panhard bar and PB brace they are right the Panhard bar will make no difference for them.

You should also check the amount of bumpsteer and if necessary install a Steeda or Baer Bumpsteer kit. These are cheap and easy to install and restore your car's stable steering even over bumps or road surface undulations in the turns and on the straights.

Last an excellent performance alignment is required for all of this stuff to give you their best. For a street car DD type performance handling you want about -1.0 to -1.25 degrees of negative camber. More is better for handling and front end grip but if you go much more than about -1.5 camber you will start to wear the inside tire more than the outside unless you are very aggressive in the corners all the time. You want the toe to be set at 0/0 or 1/16" max. total toe in with the suspension loaded. By loaded I mean that the car was rolled forward and back a few times to take out all of the steering slack so you can get an accurate toe setting. For a race car or HPDE you can go with more camber (and even 1/16" toe OUT where faster turn-in is wanted) but you will quickly see tire wear on your nice expensive front tires.

There is a LOT more you can do to the S197 chassis to crank up the grip and handling performance but past the items I've posted you are going to get into a lot more NVH and cabin noise.

HTH!

So_Cali

I'm trying to piece together a decent suspension on a budget. UMI has pretty good prices on their stuff and more people on here seem to have their stuff on their cars with good results... Should I go the aftermarket route or just try to find some GT500 parts? For the time being I may just end up going with some LCAs (Nonadjustable) with LCA relocation brackets and later, go with a single adjustable P/B with poly bushings.

Rubrignitz

Agreed with everything F1 said. If you go with UMI, check out their 'roto-joint' and poly combination parts. I'm running the Spohn 'delsphere' and poly which is a similar technology and now that I've replaced the hardware with 14mmx100 long shoulder bolts everything is very quiet back there even with 'semi rod-end' tech parts. I don't notice a lot of increased NVH and the feel of the rear suspension is night and day over the stock CA's and panhard. Much tighter and I don't feel the rear end moving left/right or shuddering over bumps like it did with the stock parts.