Notice the way the driver is dressed (lower left in video #1) and the use of ALL of an 8000 rpm tach.

Video #2 is just plain scary.


You'd probably run coilovers and tubular arms if you were building up a serious C-Prepared autocross car as well. But if that was the case, the question wouldn't be about deciding between coilovers/tubular vs stock(ish).


Norm

 

Vid 1 was on a 911 GT3, gives you an idea of how you have to drive to actually utilize all of your car. Vid 2 was a Suburu Impreza I think, dude got knocked out for a few seconds.

Modified stock suspension while it rides stiffer, can still control a powerful car, and you need to be pushing really hard on competition tires to actually benefit from the use of the coil over conversions. Most cars on a high performance street tire will overload the tire before they overload the suspension.

 

theres no way of saying this without sounding ungratefull or arrogant but
thing is those vids arent even 65 mustangs there modern carsso i cant relate to it. any chance of some vids showing early cars with slighty modded early suspension and coil over or strut suspension so i/we can see the difference.

while were talking vids heres some random vids of what road racing is in u.k
with old fords. i bought the 65fb as i wanted something between a nimble uk ford that i have like videos and a muscle car

enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvtjRnUQ2SA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyBQZcu9I1w

and this is funny

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBsmG7mO3Dc&feature=fvsr

 

Rally is different than road or street racing, but somewhat similar. And whether or not those cars are new or old doesn't matter, all that matters is the performance level. The purpose of those videos is to illustrate the performance level you'd be at to make spending money on a coil over conversion a worthwhile investment.

If you want to see something old, this is a 67 Mustang running modified stock suspension, not even a tubular setup, but running factory configuration with a coil-over shock mounted in the near-stock configuration. This car would eat the 911 GT3 from the first video alive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIKz2M0Uao8

 

well those videos are on uk roads not 40 foot wide mostly straights that go into the horizon we have road rallys tarmac rallys and forest rallys these are road cars from 68- 80 with factory srut suspension often but not allways modded to coil overs i know what these cars are like with mac struts so i can relate to that wich is why i was wondering if it works well on the early mustang.

watching some completly different car doesnt really tell me anything BUT your right iv no intentions of doing 140 mph as iv now seen in some mustang videos lol and if as you say a slightly (but coil over!) modded std car can keep on/eat? the first video car then that is clearly plenty of grip/handling. be good to see lap times to back this up as my freinds would be very cynical


would be good to see an early mustang put through its paces on a road course like in my videos personaly i doubt it could touch those 4 cyl escorts wich is a shame as that would be the perfect mustang imo


so then it apears this 67 set up is best of both worlds? so where could i get just the coil over shock and brackets to mount on a 65 or just the brackets and il try to source coilovers with similar rates from something else

thanks again

 

I think the bottom line as far as struts vs SLA is concerned is that while struts are technically inferior in some respects, differences between the two arrangements (assuming roughly equal levels of development and sorting) don't really show up until the cars are being pushed pretty hard. But since struts are not quite as good geometrically or perhaps in terms of damper 'stiction', it's a step backward to swap them in where a SLA previously existed.

For a dragstrip car that needs more room for a wider engine - well, that's a different story entirely. Cornering at 10 mph onto the return road requires very little in the way of good suspension behavior beyond not letting the front wheels fall off.

The differences between a SLA with tubular members vs modified OE is possibly smaller. After all, geometrically it really doesn't matter what's in between the various pivot points as long as the pivots themselves are in the right places. Aside from any possibility that a tubular arrangement can be made to physically fit where a modified stamped OE arrangement with identical geometry will not, any differences between tubular and stamped are structural/stiffness and 'unsprung mass' in nature.

There are several separate sources of little tire/wheel movements that generally aren't favorable to handling precision. Bushing compliance is the one that more people know a little about, but brackets deflect and the arms themselves are not "perfectly rigid". But again, you have to be wringing the car out pretty damn hard for these differences to show up and (generally) pretty sensitive to be aware of them.


Even though it sounds and looks impressive to have coilovers or tubular arms installed on your car, there is no 'magical handling improvement' in merely having them there. It still comes down to the tuning that you do with them, aka "the devil is in the details". How much spring/damper/sta-bar swapping do you honestly expect to be doing once you get everything bolted together the first time?


Norm

 

Car and Driver just ran an article involving lapping at VIR, and they got a stock 3500-lb 2010 Mustang GT (with the Track Pack) above 125 mph. Sam Stano (whom I know personally) has been winning most everything in sight with respect to SCCA F Stock in a Shelby GT (the normally aspirated Shelby) for two or three years now. Sam's a member here, and he's posted a couple of autocross videos over in the S197 Handling forum. A few other members have posted track day videos. Some of these videos (Sam's in particular) have lateral acceleration data displayed. As far as I know, none of these cars have either coilovers or tubular arms, although the S197 does have front struts. Match those performances and you won't need to make any apologies.

BTW, the "line" at autocross doesn't have anywhere near 40' width to play with either. Gates don't have to be any wider than 15', and if the course was so tightly defined that you couldn't ever be out of that 15' any driver who is any good wouldn't be out there anyway. IMO the autocross videos are more comparable to the narrow road rallying.


At last fall's SCCA Solo Nationals, the winning C Prepared car was a 1960's Mustang. Heavily modified, but it ran times that were more than competitive as compared to Modified category Mini's, which I'm guessing are more similar to the Escorts than they are different. Even the E Street Prepared pony cars weren't much off the pace. It can be done.


Norm

 

The stock 60's Mustang suspension is generally a superior type of suspension over struts(SLA is what is used on most modern sports cars). The reason for struts is that they're less complex, less money(for the complete suspension package) and occupy less space, which is why they've become the mainstay of most standard production automobiles for decades. Very few sports cars today use struts, though they can be made to work well. The 911's since around 1990 have been front strut suspension, so it can be made to work, but the problem is you have to have all the mounting and geometry VERY well sorted....which means converting a 60's Mustang to struts(which would be entirely a custom setup) would in all likelihood kill the handling capability due to the limitations of what you have to work with. Boxed and modified stock suspension isn't going to start deflecting until you're pushing a lot of power through a car running competition tires.

And if you plan on doing Tarmac Rally, then you're going to be sliding around so much that the tires won't ever grip enough to start flexing the control arms around....you overload the tires before you overload the suspension.

Keep in mind, the money would be better invested in a dry sump lubrication system for the engine that in tubular suspension.You'll run the oil pickup dry in a SBF wet sump oiling system and fry the engine before you overload the factory type suspension.

Tubular is nice, but not necessary in most cases. Personally, I'd spend $7,000 on a dry sump oiling system before I spent $2,500 on a coilover conversion.

Just run whatever year suspension you have....there's not a major difference between the years and it's not worth converting one year Mustang to another year suspension(arguably, it's advantageous to switch a 67 Mustang to ANOTHER year, due to some of the 67 only parts being harder to find but that's not really necessary), it's all the same configuration. Stock control arms, or heavy duty replacement arms(like stock but a bit beefier) boxed in, with good bushings or bearing conversion, good springs and shocks(you could convert to a coilover if you like, but the only advantage that really gives is adjustable ride height). Then invest in good tires and at least a large t-sump style RR oil pan with trap door baffles and an Accusump. Like I said, the oiling system will crap out on you before the suspension.

And as far as the 4cyl Escorts, the smaller 4 banger cars tend to make the best rally cars since you don't need huge amounts of power...and they're small and light, making them handier on the tight sliding roads in rallys.

 

I'm sure that Ill be flamed for this, but one of the best mods that you can do is to add an adjustable rear sway bar. These old mustangs are nose heavy and understreer something fierce. Adding big bars and stiffer springs up front only makes them push worse.

To get them to handle well you must add roll resistance at the rear of the car to balance them.

This can be done with stiffer springs or by affecting the rear roll center or CG - lowering, panhard bar, watts link. But the easiest and cheapest solution is an adjustable rear bar.

This will allow you to tune for neutral handling, which will result in the highest cornering forces for a given setup.

Don't take my word for it, Herb Adams classic book Chassis Engineering explains it very, very well.

Good luck...

 

"Neutral" may well give you the highest steady-state cornering results, but it can also be too loose transitionally, and it's difficult to add much throttle until you're well past the apex. I suspect that "neutral" is somewhat variable with speed, due to the greater forward traction requrement (in order to maintain higher speeds) bleeding off some of the ultimate lateral capability. Friction circle (ellipse) stuff.

What you need to do to loosen the handling depends on what the cause of the 'push' is. On most 1960's cars, it's the front geometry that does not recover enough camber in roll, together with insufficient roll stiffness. What you need to do first is help the front end stick better, not throw away rear grip to get down to the level of the poorer front end grip. A rear bar will reduce roll slightly, but it is not one of the more effective methods of doing so.

Only after fixing front grip should you go after balancing things with a rear bar, making it the last thing that you tweak. I'm not saying that you don't use one, only that you get around to it last and choose it to suit all the other things.

Be careful with any rear roll center tweaking with a leaf sprung axle. It's easily possible to add roll stiffness while you're doing so, which would change whatever rear bar size. And it tends to vary with ride height, which tends to make the car less consistent-feeling.


Keep your eyes open at the bookstores this spring or maybe early summer for a handling book that's oriented toward the older muscle cars. Guy named Savitske is putting something together.


Norm