Video: Track-Ready Alignment For Your Fast Fox

Camber and toe are just as important to fast lap times as horsepower and torque.

We’re not exclusively about straight-line performance here at Mustang Forums. We like a good drag car as much as the next Mustang fanatic, but we like cars that can tear up a road course, too.

The Detroit Muscle crew on YouTube have been building a rowdy road-course-ready Fox for quite a while, now. In this episode, they’re dialing in their alignment for razor-sharp handling performance.

To accomplish that goal, they take their Project Sidewinder Mustang to Indianapolis-based setup wizard Bruce Raymond. “It’s always been a passion of mine. I’ve road raced for a long time.” That experience allows him to utilize his shop to get track toys handling their best.

They start by getting the Mustang on a state-of-the-art digital Hunter alignment rack. Once the car’s alignment is square, they have a good baseline to start making high-performance adjustments.

Fine Tuning the Suspension Setup

While the Project Sidewinder Mustang has been fitted with adjustable camber plates, there’s an issue. As host Marc Christ explains, “Just like their name suggests, these plates allow you to make adjustments to the caster and camber of the front suspension. The problem is, there’s not enough adjustment in those plates.”

Thankfully, the front A-arms feature an adjustable heim joint. Lengthening the arms gets Raymond the camber setting he’s after. Once the caster, camber, and toe is dialed in, they can adjust the coilovers for the proper ride height.

Using corner balancing scales, Raymond puts Christ in the car to make sure the Mustang is as close as possible to actual fighting weight. As it turns out, the car is almost perfectly balanced, with just about 50/50 weight distribution front and rear. Raymond is pleased. “For a production car, that’s awesome.”

It takes a careful hand and considerable experience to understand a good suspension setup. It’s a job that might be best left to the experts. However, understanding how it’s done provides deeper insight into your Mustang and how it works. With the right parts and the right driver, a Mustang can go head-to-head with the best sports cars Europe has to offer on the track.

Screengrabs: Detroit Muscle / YouTube

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Cameron Vanderhorst

Cam VanDerHorst has been a contributor to Internet Brands' Auto Group sites for over three years, with his byline appearing on Ford Truck Enthusiasts, Corvette Forum, JK Forum, and Harley-Davidson Forums, among others. In that time, he's also contributed to Autoweek, The Drive, and Scale Auto Magazine.
He bought his first car at age 14 -- a 1978 Ford Mustang II -- and since then he’s amassed an impressive and diverse collection of cars, trucks, and motorcycles, including a 1996 Ford Mustang SVT Mystic Cobra (#683) and a classic air-cooled Porsche 911.
In addition to writing about cars and wrenching on them in his spare time, he enjoys playing music (drums and ukulele), building model cars, and tending to his chickens.
You can follow Cam, his cars, his bikes, and his chickens at @camvanderhorst on Instagram.
When he's not busy working on his Harley-Davidson bike, the vastly experienced writer has covered an array of features, reviews, how-tos, op-eds and news stories for Internet Brands' Auto Group and is also a co-founder and co-host of the popular podcast Cammed & Tubbed.

Check him out on Instagram at: Camvanderhorst.

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