MustangFirstCar

Yeah my friend's 95 cobra slides all over when braking in the rain.

aode08

15-20 is slow enough

aode08

Well, Im going to change all the brake fluid to synthetic as well, ran out of money. Crap has been in there since 1990 lol.

I did Front pads,front calipers,front rotors,front brake lines, rear shoes, rear drums,rear shocks, rear lateral shocks, rear cylinders with all new hardware, 4 new tires, new sway links and bushings, replaced the engine and transmission mounts, then alignment lol.

Same result,of unstabilty and folks that have the 93 and on with the disc setup , tells me that setup has the same results with sliding all over or just losing control braking or not.

ZPounds07GT

I have had mine spin out on me twice in the rain, TC never activated, from what I could tell. Both instances were because I reacted instead of thinking and hit the gas a little harder in the middle of making a turn onto another road and the back end whipped right around. I had to let off the gas to keep it from getting any further. This was when my tires were almost bald.

Now I have new tires and it has still tried to break loose in the rain on turns with little effort. In other words, regardless of what it is, it will break loose if it's rear wheel drive. This is basically a stock car I'm talking about (only exhaust and CAI).

wayne613

Rain = fine
Wipers on high could be faster for the true downpours, but even when the nasty ones in recent years have hit it's been as good as what others have. I have yet to have any true spin-out issues, braking, or even cornering ones. This is with 4.10's.

Sleet/snow....
There's just no getting around the fact it's RWD, and not much weight back there. I need to be far more careful than I would be with say an SUV. Although with the Goodyear all-weathers I'm sporting, it's more par for the course. If I was in Ohio, MI, or the like I'd probably get an extra set of actual winter tires and rims if I had to use the car as a daily driver there. I've still gotten around in our blizzards, but I won't lie, it's a bitch. God help me when I finally get around to lowering springs to even the stance out. Likely be stuck no matter what after 3+ inches.

This is the only car I have, and I had a previous 06 GT before this one, so over half a decade now of extreme weather with an S197 as the daily-driver. I won't say it's ideal, but I'm guessing still far better than the foxbody. My experience is limited there however to my HS days when a friend had a 4 banger hand-me-down of that variety.

The TCS I actually modded to default to off via a relay. I don't personally find it helpful. I suppose if I was >400HP, then it might be of more benefit, as I could half-gun it in 2nd/3rd and possibly break the back-end loose with this gearing. But as an only lightly modded GT, it only saves me from a dead or near-dead stop if I try to get too far into it. I never in the past had a situation where it might have kicked in from a turn kick-out. In fact, to me, in winter, it's far more of a hindrance. With All seasons on I find it near impossible NOT to have some minor rear spinning with decent snow down from a dead stop, which then the TCS kicks in and kills the forward momentum you were starting to get. And then the cussing begins...

Norm Peterson

What alignment specs?

What is the "etc." in the suspension overhaul? What I'm looking for are things that intentionally "loosen" the OE handling. Sometimes, you can dial out too much of the OE understeer, though I suspect you already know that.


There is a reason that rain setups are somewhat softer than dry setups. Especially if you're a "point and shoot" driver, it's entirely possible to load the tires too quickly and they'll slide instead of gripping.


I have an '08 GT, and I've really only found one situation where an unexpected amount of caution was required. That involved the OE tires (235/50-18 BFG KDWS) and accelerating mid-corner, and the car wasn't nearly as sensitive with 255/45 Goodyear Asymmetrics on 9.5" wide wheels and EVERYTHING ELSE left the same.

About here I'll repeat the thing about "point and shoot" driving. I know these cars come OE biased a little more toward planting your right foot than carrying momentum through the corners and squeezing into the throttle as grip permits. But you can - and should - learn to drive momentum-style.


I've found it to be nearly worthless. Less than worthless if you value the ability to find out how slippery the going is by having trouble getting it moving (as opposed to later finding out that it's having trouble stopping or steering). If it matters, I've got the FRPP tune, which is one of the milder ones (but may have loosened up some of the traction control nanny-behavior). So I shut it off, every single time.


This one is really hard to answer in meaningful fashion. All I can say is that I rarely need to use the fast setting.


Norm

Norm Peterson

I'm still not sure what you're trying to describe here. Or what "soft" means to you vs what it means to me.

But I'll strongly suggest that braking + cornering in what may well be a tailhappy car is a combination that you might try to avoid. The details of your suspension tuning matter.


Here's my view of the S197 in a nutshell.

I drive pretty hard a good bit of the time on my morning commute and on a couple of stretches on the way home. Hard cornering and hard braking, but I squeeze into the brakes and only rarely get into the ABS. The car just seems to go where I want it to. Then again, I've got 48+ years of driving that has always been oriented toward sports cars and cornering under my belt, which might count for something here. I found the S197 an easy car to get used to, once I got past the turn-in response being clearly better than anything else I'd been driving.


Norm

STANGmole

...depends on how fast you got up to that 20 mph speed. I could spin out like crazy on wet pavement if I drove my car like I stole it, but under cautious (non performance) driving with good tires it's NOT a problem (and wasn't a problem with my Fox body GT either).

The only time I ever spun out in my Fox GT (and this was in Oregon where it rains 99.9% of the time) was going up a steep hill at 15mph in light snow.

rdsx18

I can't say I have ever had any problems at all in the rain. I never use TCS, ever because it sucks *****. You start to spin and get going, then it kicks in and you lose it all. The only time I really have to be careful is when I go over a bridge with the grated steel roadway. Those things get really slippery in the rain. I guess it all depends on how you drive though. I am cautious in the rain, and do fine. My buddy on the other hand mashes the brakes all the time, and wonders why his rotors warp and why he can't stop in the rain.

lazyboy31614@aol.com

My S197 in the rain has always been controlled so long as you know how to use the throttle in a safe/smart manor. My car has a different suspension though and nt555's for the rain. I have Nt05Rs for racing and I would never consider using them in the rain ever. Even with my power level, it might take a bit more thinking about that next turn or how much throttle to use, but it's still very manageable. Braking in the rain has never been a problem, even back when I had stock brakes, always slowed down straight.