Lowering your 05/06 Mustang GT

[Norm Peterson]

Originally Posted by 06GTMustang I would have to put a lift kit or taller tires to lift the car itself, right? Pretty much. Norm

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[06GTMustang]

I got a question for yall. It may be an easy one or a stupid one. But when dealing with shocks and springs do they do different jobs? Or the same job? Or the same but different job at the same time? Lets say my car in a hard left turn (for example) sticks to the road well but has a lot of body roll. what should I change to help with the body roll? Shocks or springs? Or both? My car is all stock suspension and handles well but I'm looking for a little less body roll and I'm not wanting to lower the car too much due to going with side exhaust. Thanks for the input.

[Norm Peterson]

Both. As far as ground clearance is concerned,

Springs (and sta-bars/"swaybars") define how far the car rolls.

Struts and shocks mostly just affect how fast the car gets there. Really old/dead/soft/bad ones will let the car "overshoot" past the roll angle that the springs and bars would stop you at if you could sneak up on that roll angle very slowly (it's a momentum in roll thing).


Norm

[06GTMustang]

Cool..... thanks for the help...

[cagefightmma]

What is a good price to install a pro-kit?

[Ken04]

Originally Posted by colnago

Here's a question for the experts: I bought an 05 GT convertible last month. I didn't realize it at the time (the car came with Snoop Dogg-style 20" chrome rims which I replaced) but it's been lowered - about 1" in front and 2" in back. The dealer's got the car now and tells me it has aftermarket springs - brand unknown. I do know that the car is caught out by dips and humps on the freeway (I found that out last week at about 100 mph on the way to Las Vegas)...it feels as though the suspension is bottoming out and when it does- hang on! Otherwise the ride is fine, so my guess is its still on factory shocks. Should I get the dealer to replace the springs and bring it back to factory settings or replace the shocks? The car does look better lowered, no question.

lowered springs have to be stiffer since there's less travel and for a flatter cornering stance, so they overwhelm the shocks, both dampening and rebound. Some shocks and struts would help. When it bottomed was it in the front or in the rear ? It'll be quite a bit cheaper to do the rears of course. If it's been lowered and an adjustable panhard hard wasn't installed you may want to have someone check that the rear is positioned in the middle of the car. 1.5" of drop will kick your rear end over and bind up the U&L control arms.

[Ken04]

Originally Posted by 06GTMustang

I got a question for yall. It may be an easy one or a stupid one. But when dealing with shocks and springs do they do different jobs? Or the same job? Or the same but different job at the same time? Lets say my car in a hard left turn (for example) sticks to the road well but has a lot of body roll. what should I change to help with the body roll? Shocks or springs? Or both? My car is all stock suspension and handles well but I'm looking for a little less body roll and I'm not wanting to lower the car too much due to going with side exhaust. Thanks for the input.

the quick and easy answer; springs give you the cush, shocks limit their movement. A spring without a shock would be like a pogo stick. A shock limits how fast the spring compresses and how fast it springs back or rebounds. Checking worn shocks is easy. Push down on the front or rear of the car, if it pogos. You don't want your car to do that while driving. Body roll is more a function of springs and sway vars that shocks. Although shock can make a difference. The new philosophy is softer springs and stiffer sway bars. Your car goes into a corner, leans a bit, takes a set and turns. It's much easier on the car and driver than extremely stiff sprngs.

[Willie B.A.]

All, I'm a new guy to this site, just wanted to solicit opinions on the following package for aggressive street driving for a good friend of mine with a 2008 GT:

-Steeda sport springs
-D-spec's
-Solid lower rear control arms (crome-moly) poly bushings
-High quality caster camber plates
-Watts link
-7/8" rear swaybar with endlinks/poly bushings
-Stock front swaybar
-Quality STB

The car will not see a track so I do not believe a bump-steer kit, ball joint kit, control arm relocation bracket, or upper 3rd link are neccessy as he asked for the most performance for the buck. The car is otherwise stock. I purposely left out manufactures names with some parts as I don't want this to become about brands necessarily.

[Sleeper_08]

The Watt's link is probably overkill for street use. It can also add significant NVH. If he is driving on the street at the level that the Watt's link benefit is noticable then he is probably driving too fast for the street.

The STB is also felt by many to be for bling only. For me with very large front tires, 285s, and stiff suspension driven close to the limit, up to 1 G in corners, on a road course then I believe there is some benefit.

What wheel and tire upgrades have or are being done as tires significantly affect handling.

For best handling the poly/rod LCAs are a better choice but with an increase in NVH.

The LCA relocation brakets are probably required for the 1.25 drop from the Steeda Sport Springs, especially if the HP is more than stock.

[Norm Peterson]

Without knowing anything more, I'm incined to take a "wait and see" approach to rear LCA relocating brackets. Installing them will increase anti-squat and likely improve the launch. They will also change the axle roll steer toward, and possibly into, an oversteer effect. Noting Willie's location, I'd be at least a little hesitant to sacrifice handling for launch.

FWIW, it's probably possible to drill your own set of holes in the relo brackets at a point where you have more antisquat without driving the axle rollsteer into oversteer. You'd need to know where all of the other lowered pivot point locations actually end up, which might be good enough reason to do the lowering first so you can get the measurements to work with.

I generally agree with Sleeper in that STBs are of marginal performance benefit, particularly the two-point STBs. I'm sure they help against pure heave loading - think rally car sort of driving where the car goes airborne at times. Or at the dragstrip where the car is actuially strong enough and the track grippy enough to pull a wheelstand (what goes up must come back down).

That said, they do tend to provide NVH benefits (IIRC, some recent FWD Buicks used 2-point STBs as OE - not likely for performance there). And Porsche has used a 4-point arrangement involving ties back toward the A-pillars with "X" bracing in racing categories. Don't know how well you could fit something like that into a S197 though.


Norm