I don't think you're going to notice much of a difference between stock and tubular control arms. The only reason I recommend the pieces from ORP is because John takes the (Moog) upper control arms apart, deburrs them, and tack welds the caps on to keep them from moving.

Yes, tubular control arms are 'cool,' but they're not going to make a huge difference in handling until you get the car onto the track.

 

But what about coil over? Even the opentracker stuff (would go full roller) with the steering upgrades and brakes I'm right back into the price range of what a complete coil over system would cost me. I'm looking at the exact setup NoReins is doing now with her car.

The question is, will it handle better then an opentracker full roller setup with the borgenson steering and a brake swap?

Its a coupe, it has no collector value and I'm not a mustang purist...at least not with the coupe.

 

That's the route I took. I replaced with all new front end stock suspension.

 

I think you need to look at it from a different perspective. What is the point of going to a coil over if your rear is still loose as a goose. Build the front and rear up equally to the dollar amount you can afford. You will never have the best handling car out there. You simply don't have the dough, none of us do.

With that in mind, get the most you can afford and drive it to the best of your ability. I gotta scoff a little at race track suspension for a garage queen or a car with show paint. I can respect a car with coil overs, paint chips and rub marks on the fender well. Don't really care what the paint looks like on a car like that.

I digress.

Until you have driven a car with the basic mods you don't know what you are missing. It's like analog tv to 720 hd. The coil over may be 1080 but you don't care because that tv was too damn expensive. The difference between stock and cheap mods is that drastic.

If you are handy and own a welder you can do the following:

plan A
make your own roller perches
make your own strut rods (dazecars has a writeup and I made my own set-that writeup is on vintage mustang)
manual steering with a power steering box
pick your front disc brake kit, theres a lot to choose from
1" shelby drop
1" sway
rebuild your own control arms
620 springs
5 leaf mideye springs
good shocks
This plan is affordable and it works well.

Plan B
switch to a GW or street or track UCA with their recommended drop
unisteer manual rack-yeah you will lose turning radius but that only matters if you are trying to park between two cars-which I never do, I park far away from others.
2003 ish cobra brakes, try shopping craigslist.
better shocks

It would take you many hours of track time to out drive plan B.

 

If I say I can dump $50K into the car does it change the conversation? Just because I can doesn't mean it makes a whole lot of sense. It's part of what I'm trying to figure out. The car will be a daily driver while it may or may not take a spin on the track.

I was looking at the streetortrack stage5 kit with Blisteins, was also looking at full roller (uca, lca etc) opentracker with Blisteins. When I got done pricing it with the steering and brakes the price was about equal to the coil over from R&C like NoReins did. Actually it was more if I went power r&p. I wasn't expecting this so I went ahead and did all the body work and paint. Now that I see the cost is the same I'm going to have to protect a lot of new paint to work on the suspension, if I go the coil over route. Bad planning I may or may not do the rear, we'll see when I get to that point.

I'm not looking for the cheapest kit nor am I looking to spend without reason. I'm really just looking for an opinion on something like streetortrack stage 5 vs a coil over setup like NoReins is doing. Either one of those 2 setups will be in the car before the end of the year, just a matter of which one.

 

Pulled the trigger this morning. Rod and Custom RC107 coil over with 2" drop spindles, power rack, 12" Wilwood 4 piston calipers with cross drilled rotors.

 

yeahh buddy! Good choice.

 

Thats what I did too. I would like to have a roller idler arm (non power steering), and roller spring perches.

 

I just don't see the point to all the fance suspension stuff for a street car / cruiser etc. If it is actually going to be raced at the track, then that could be a different story.

 

I understand this comment, however I think he said previously that this will be his son's car. He may not want his son to have stock suspension because of handling issues, and maybe he would want to take it around the track a couple times. That is why we went this route. I plan to drive my car more than it sits so I wanted something that would handle like a "newer" car. The beauty of this kit is you get rack and pinion (power), disc brakes, the ability to adjust ride height, and it will handle like a new car. When you add up replacing the stock suspension with something decent, adding rack and pinion and disc brakes, the price comes pretty close to this kit maybe even more depending which r&p you choose and you still don't have coil overs. Plussss it just looks coooooool.