2000GT4.6

You have stated this over and over again, but as I have stated over and over again neither myself nor any other forum member that has upgraded the UCAs has had these issues.

Going from the stock stuff to the full syspension, even with my setup (not exactly a handling setup with the fox 4 cyl springs and roush drag racing rears) it still handles x10 better than it did before. I think your getting information from people that are going with 3 link setups etc and acutally road raicing the car, but what your talking about has little/nothing to do with a street/drag racing car.

Road racing (on a track) is one thing, but on the open (public) roads your not going to be able to tell the difference. The traction (from the pavement) is simply not there, and if your pushing your car hard enough on open streets to notice something like this you arn't going to come back and post about it... cause your gonna go face first into a carload of crumb munchers and mommy in the 5200 pound SUV

Aereon

and as I have said, I am glad neither you nor anyone else have had problems, it still does not mean that it is not a problem. I am not telling people to get rid of the stock 4 link.. just don't upgrade to aftermarket uca's. And I have retracted my suggestion of getting rid of the 4 link on street car's, I am only trying to clear up the mentality that aftermarket is better just because it is aftermarket.. It's like people thuroughly disproving/disbelieving homemade spacers then buying one from steeda or roush, just because it's from steeda or roush. I am sorry to have stepped on any toes. Just throwing in what little knowledge I do have.

LetThePoniesRunFree

Check out the pics in my gallery. I'm running the Bullitt springs/struts/shocks/sway bars on my DD. I also have Granatelli upper/lower rear ca's. They have urethane bushings but are the 3 piece style so bind up is suppose to be limited.I'm running well over 400rwhp without any problems what-so-ever in the handling dept. for what I usethe carfor. The Bullitt set-up is WAY better than what the GT comes with from the factory. Does it have it's limits? Hell yes, but I have to push the car way beyond what is safe and saneon public streets to get to those limits. Visually I would like my car to have a lower stance but every time I scrape my chin spoiler I thank goodness I don't have shorter springs.

For the price, go for it.

2000GT4.6

All I am saying is that I have not heard of anyone ever having an issue with the UCAs after acutally doing the install. There are a LOT of forum members that have done this mod and been happy with the results.

I cannot say for 100 percent sure that doing the UCAs helped the handling/launch of the car, as I did my entire suspension all at once, but there have been no negitive effects on the car that I can tell. I have tried throwing the car around a few turns with the shocks/struts set to 8/8 (STIFF) and have had no issues with loosing traction or anything else, the ride feels about the same (unless you have the shocks/struts set to stiff/loose) and it doesn't make any strange noises.

The upper arms are no doubt more stiff with aftermarket ones than the stockers, and thats the entire idea, to take flex out of the drivetrain so you put more to the ground. Even with the stock arms the side to side movement is so small I cannot see how changing out to stiffer bushings and stiffer arms is going to effect suspension on a typical street car that much. Perhaps on a road racing situation where you need 110 percent of availble traction and are constantly throwing the car into turn after turn you would see problems, but I don't see how its going to apply on a street car.

Its just my .002 cents, but with a suspension mod if it didn't work people wouldn't buy it. I can see people doing it with stupid stuff like spacers etc, but control arms are a bit more serious (and pricey if you get the fancy steeda etc ones). If it didn't work, big companys like salleen/roush/steeda wouldn't sell them or equip them on their factory built cars. .

Aereon

people will buy them if its from a name brand company.. this is gonna go off on a tangent but shoes are shoes, you can get payless shoes with similar quality as some of the nike branded shoes that go for 50-100 but at payless you spend 10.. people will still buy nike because nike is nike.. psychology has a lot to play in this. People will buy uca's like people buy turbonators, factory built cars are equiped with uca's but their geometry is different than that of a mustangs rear.
I agree with you that the point is to put more down to the ground and minimize axle movement, but what happens when your in a turn? those stiffer uca's will be less accomodating if say, you had to swerve.
These are not my pictures but they are what I can find atm,

http://www.miracerros.com/mustang/t_suspension.htm#Rear
This does a pretty good job of summing it up.

From my standpoint not touching your uca's is better than wasting your money on aftermarket ones. There are actually some guys on c-c.com that do drag as well, and from what I've gathered and hypothesized, the rear suspension of a mustang is a good comprimise, cost/performance wise for a daily driver, but if your looking at better times, whether at an open track or on a strip, your gonna hafta find a way to optimise your rear suspension setup in order for you to run at your best. And the stock 4 link, short of relocating the mounting points of the UCA's to the chassis, will only hinder your car's performance.

You don't have to agree, I am only offering what I've learned from researching how to make my car perform better.

2000GT4.6

From your link:

Its just not a concern on anything but a road race car. The suspension bind that is possible only happens on a car that can acutally hold the road hard enough to make it do so. Your typical street tire/stock style supension car simply cannot offer that kind of control and handling style traction to permit the suspension to move enough that its nessicarry.

Regardless of all this, who would want to road race a car, take it seriosly (seriously enough that the car handles well enough to cause the problems) and even leave the 8.8 in place? With the availbilty of nearly free IRS setups from almost any cobra owner you would be a fool to acutally stay with the stock 8.8 setup (or even a 3 link/5 link etc) when you can go IRS and have an independant rear that will handle uneven surfaces thru a turn.

Your simply reading too much into it. Having upper control arms is superior to the stock ones from a drag racing standpoint, and from a street driven standpoint it improves launch traction without comprimsing streetably or achivable handling traction.

So far as not being able to achive acceptable performance from the 4 link setup with just aftermarket parts, your way off there. I would call 1.6 and 1.5 60' times pretty acceptable on a street driven car, and thats easily achivable with even the setup I have (with the proper tire). Hell, MDvaldosta went 1.6s and 1.5s on MT slicks with a VERY cheap setup (fox monroe shocks in the back, adjustables in the front, blue oval (150 a set) uca/lca's and foxbody 4cyl shocks).

2000GT4.6

Considering you can do everything in the bullit suspension other than the swaybars for under 500 bucks, and end up having adjustable (and far superior) shocks/struts I don't see it as much of a deal. It is a good compromise for handling vs launch traction, but a good spring/shock/strut combo with adjustable shocks/struts would be far better.

Aereon

I think your reading way too much into it, I am simply offering that aftermarket uca's are worthless, those track times can be atributed to many different factors. Yes, you can go with an irs setup, is it ideal, no. The ford IRS is far from perfected. It has taken a friend of mine close to 20 hours on the weekend just to make it somewhat more reliable than the crap the stock irs is. I am not here to debate any form of misinformation that company's like steeda would like you to believe. Call MM and Griggs, that have engineers working and studying the rear kinematics of a mustang and see what they have to say about buying aftermarket uca's to improve the car's launch/handling. I am simply offering another side to the subject.

how many young mustang gt owners have you seen drive like a granny.. There are those that drive like they are supposed to and in their case you can have the most heavy duty uca in there and it wouldnt matter much, if you took corners at the recommended speeds that even a pinto could navigate.

andrewmp6

aereon has a point any car can wheel hop if pushed to hard .best way to learn what you and the car can do handling wise auto cross drag racing is best to try on like a test and tune day

2000GT4.6

I dunno what else to say. Personal experence simply proves what your saying is wrong. It doesn't hurt performance in any way (for a drag/street car), it stiffens the rearend signficiatnly, and it helps with launch.

Its just been done to many times with absolutly no negitive results for what your saying to be true. I can accept that companys would build a part that does nothing, but this is simply not the case in this situation. Salleen/roush etc etc would not bother putting them on the cars they sell if it was not helping (why waste the money, and its not like they would charge less for the same car without the UCAs).

Simply put, they improve performance in a straight line and don't hinder handling (at all from what I can tell) significantly on anything but a all out circut track car.

The aftermarket UCAs allow you to remove the quad shocks (if notthing else drop weight and allow a wider tire to be used), improve launch, lighten the car (if you buy the really $$ ones that are aluminum) and reduce wheelhop. If your out there pushing the car to 10 10ths of its capabilty on a road course you MIGHT have a problem with the UCAs compared to the stockers... but probably not.