DocVenture

I will be doing road driving exclusively. I really want a drastic improvement in handling, and sharp cornering. Willing to spend around $5,000. Not really sure what the best Mods and brands would be. Any suggestions?

lqdslvr

Check out this thread:

https://mustangforums.com/m_3402356/tm.htm

F1Fan put together a priority list and explanation for each, along with recommended brands. I have it book marked and copied. You'll want to scroll to the really long post with all the blue text.

DocVenture

Ok here's my plan so far. Please feel free to pick it apart and give suggestions:

Tokico D-SPEC Shocks
Eibach Pro Kit Springs
Steeda Rear Swaybar (Should I get the one with new endlinks or save the money?)
Steeda Adjustable Front Swaybar
Steeda Street Panhard Bar and Brace
BMR Camber bolts
BMR HD Boxes Subframe Connector
As yet to be determined Control Arm Relocation Kit

What do you think? Am I missing any must haves?

F1Fan

Hi Doc,

Based onthedescription of what you want this sounds like a daily driver with more serious handling performance capabilities on a budget. You know that to support a high performance suspension at this level you will need lighweight wheels probably 18x9 in the 20-25# range. I suggest 18x9's all around for thebetter balance the car will have andimproved tire life through rotation.

Most of the staggered wheel/tire combinationsI've driven were understeering pigs except for the carsthat had upgraded superchargers. If you have significantly more than 400+rwhpI think a staggered wheel/tire combination is an O.K. optionbut this will change your anti-roll bar needs.Is your car blown or N/A? Do youalready have 18x9's and dry summer tires say in a 255/45x18 size? I likecars to be lively and do not like over tired cars because they feel "dead" andyou cannot use throttle as easily to rotate the car. A lot of peoplethink that huge tires make a car faster but this is an old wives tale. Faster is finding the bettertrade-off between the time you can save in the corners with a wider, heavier wheel and tirevs. the extraaerodrag, increased track surface friction and parasitic drive trainlosses. Often times on the track a wider tire is no faster overall than a slightly narrower tire, both will have places where one is faster than the other. On the street the surface is not as good and the extra width is not always your friend because you cannot take advanatage of all the power available and most streets are dirty. Overall a high performance summer tire is about even with an ultra-high performanceall season tire (these are really only 3-season tires, theygenerally suck in any kind of snow and temps lower than 50 degrees),due to the ability of an all season tire to handle more varied surfaces and more water and dirt. You may gain some grip in steady state testing with a summer tire and certainly will have an edge on a race trackbut you will pay for it in much lower (50% and less),tire life and no better real world performance on the street over the best of the so called all season tires.

As far asI can figurea good summer/dry peformancetire in 255/45x18 offers the bestmid-point between almost all the things working against each otherincludingride. You could buy a wider wheel and tireandwhile it may help you off the line very slightly and sometimes in the cornersall of the rest of the timeall thatextra mass ofa heavier wheel and tire is working against you slowing your down and eating up gas due to the increasedrotating weight, extra aero drag and friction. The farther you get from this size the worse your overall performance will be just as the farther you get from the stock Mustang chassis the worseof you will be under more conditions. It's all a trade off and you have to decide how far you are willing to go to inprove your car's performance. Generally speaking the cost of improved handling, grip and speed are made in terms of ride, noise andinital cost and maintainence costs.

So on to your list.

For struts and rear dampers the best street dampers are going to be adjustable. D-Specs IMO arecurrently the best available productiondampers you can buy. They are double adjustable with a single adjuster. This means that the damping rate for bothrebound AND compression arechanged when you adjust the damping rate with the little ****. This allows the D-Specs to be usablefor many different applications on an S197 chassis with a wide variety of springs and suspension configurations. The only way to get a better adjustable damperis to buy a pair ofKoni double adjustable racing strutsand rear dampers. Unfortunately this will require theengineering and fabrication of the strut ears for mouting thefront spindles and strut bearings and fabrication of a rear damper mount on the chassis and axle side.This is clearly a better set of dampers but will also cost you at least $2,500 just for the dampers and fabrication work and you still need to have some springs designed and wound for you. The Tokico D-Specs at $550-$600 are a STEAL! For a dedicated sporty ride with some adjustability the nextchoice will be the new Koni Sport dampers. The Koni Sports at $700-$800 (approx.),will notoffer the same level of adjustability as the D-Spec dampersbecause they are only single adjustable (rebound only), and will not work as well for drag racing and the street ride will suffer some but the Koni sportswill no doubt offer comperable or superior performance and control for road raceand auto-X use.

Eibach Pro-Kit and Steeda Competition springs usevery similar spring rates. The differences are that the SteedaCompsare a linearrate spring and have a 0.5" higher ride height than the Pro-Kit progressive springs. Both are excellent but the Steeda springs will not require as much correction of the S197 chassis' geometry to correcthandling feel,roll center andanti-squat. Sportlines are just too low for anything but show use because the springs are sitting on the bumpstops at rest and this makes for an evil handling car on anything less than a billard table. No other usable ride height springs have spring ratesas high as the Eibach Pro-Kit and Steeda Competition springs. It has been my experience that linear springs are easier to find good damping rates for than progressive springs. YMMV but on the race track linear rate springsare the overwhelming choice and the requirements for street cars arenotvery different.

The Steeda anti-roll bars are a treat, high quality and well executed. The fronts are adjustable and the rearrate is fixed by bar diameter. Steeda offers two rear anti-roll bars, the regular catalog bar and the sometimes in and sometimes out of catalog Competition bar which isabout 1.5mm larger than the catalog anti-roll bar. When usedwith the Pro-Kit or Competition springs the standard anti-roll bars are well balanced with same size tires all around. With a staggered tire setup the Competition bar may be needed to get enough rear roll stiffness to make the rear end work right. Eibach's anti-roll bars are sold by FRPPas thefactory Fordperformanceanti-roll bar. These are also very good anti-roll bars and are very similar to the regular Steeda anti-roll bars with similar excellent hardware but the Eibach rear bar is almost 2mm smaller than the standard Steeda anti-roll bar. This is why the Eibach/FRPP equipped cars understeercompared with Steeda cars. Both are excellent and the understeer can be dialed out by using the softest setting on the front bar of the Eibach/FRPP bar.

Yourchoice ofthe Steeda adjustable Panhard bar and the matching stiffener brace is an excellent one. Steeda uses superior4130 alloy

RodeoFlyer

It's been my experience that a set of Hoosier R6's in 275/35/18 are the best mod

don't forget to upgrade your brakes

DocVenture

Thanks F1Fan that was extremely helpful. I'll definately rework my list useing your advice. I have been looking at new wheels and tires also. I haven't seen much I like in a 18x9. I'm leaning toward an 18x9.5 or 18x8.5. What do you think?

The car isn't supercharged at this point. I'm looking at adding a Whipple next summer. It's going in next week for a full JBA exhaust. Then I'm going to start ordering suspension. I want it glued to the road before I start adding HP.

I'm leaning toward the GT-500 LCAs for the front. Do I need to replace the rest of the Control Arms?

F1Fan

HiRodeo,

LOL! Hoosier R6'sthat's a good one! Brakes? Don't get me started!

Cheers!

F1Fan

Hi DocV,

Something to consider is the influence that rim width has on ride and sidewall stiffness. As you approach the minimum and maximum rim widths the sidewalls are less supported and more supported respectively. The less support the sidewalls have the softer the sidewalls will be and less responsive the tires will be. The upside of less support and softer sidewalls is improved ride. You have to decide which you value more, steering response or ride comfort. My suggestion of a 255/45x18 tire on a 9" wide rim is sort of middle of the road but favoring response. If you like a wheel design that is 9.5" widea 255/45x18 tire willhave a very stiff sidewall, be very responsive and have a harsher ride. If youhave to have a 9.5" rim and want to get more to the soft end of the middleagain look into a 275/40x18 for a softer ride but at the cost ofsluggish steering response andincreased sidewall rollover which causes tire howl at normal tire pressures. The KEYto picking a good wheel and tire combination is to find a wheel size that will offer you the widest possible range of tire choices with a 27" tall tire plus or minusa tenth inch or two. This gives you the tire sizechoices I've listed. Part of the equation is that the chassis ride heights thatspring makers publish are based on a 27" tall tire.So far so goodbutwhen you buya wide, low profile tire you can so easily andincorrectly end up with 25" or 26" tall tires and a car that is no longer just 1.5" lower but now it is 2.5" lower and causing major chassis scrapage through every driveway and ramp you must manuver through. Do a bit of reseach and try to find only 27" tall tires and stick withthem, it is a balance just like the car's handling between wheel design wants, what your goals and usage is and what tires are available. For a performance car you may need to give up some style and ride to get the grip and handling performance you desire. If style is more important you are going to have to accept some lesser tires to keep the tire size compromise happy.

If you are certain that you will have a car with significantly more than 400+rwhp you may want to considerrunning 9.5-10 wide rims and tires large enough to fit. AFAIK the only way to get wheels wider than 10" tofitINSIDE the wheel wells (they mustfit inside the wheel wells or you will look like anasshat from the 60's with tires sticking outside the fender line of his pickup truck), is to buy a custom made multi-piece wheel.Yup, big bucks sounless you are willing to burn$2-$3k on wheels to get the perfect offset to squeeze 11.5" wide wheels and tires inside the wells just buy 9" or 9.5" wide wheels. Like I said,wide is cool looking but not necessarily the fastest way to tire a car especially a road and track focused car.

JBA's long tubes withthe bigger 3" collectors and JBA's catted H-pipe when used withJBA's stainless steel rear mufflers is classic rock waiting to happen when you hammer the throttles. They are great sounding andmake as much power as anylong tube setup on the market and beats most of them for sound. JBA's long tube system is fully tuckedupABOVE the chassis frame rails. This is as good as it gets, stick with it.

You don't really need the FRPP front control arms. But you really do need to install the Steeda Comp UCA/UCA mount kit and should do the GT500 rear LCA's even if you don'tget blown down the road. Install the FRPP GT500rear LCA's and be ready for the blower and if you choose not to get blown no harmdone as you will get a slight improvement in rear axle control.

Hope this helps!

DocVenture

Ok here's my new list:

Eibach Pro-Kit Lowering Springs
Tokico D-Spec Wide-Range Adjustable Shocks & Struts
BMR Fabrication Lower Control Arms(found a good deal)
Camber Adjustment Bolt Kit
Steeda Bumpsteer Kit
Steeda Front Control Arm Relocation Kit
Steeda Front Swaybar
Steeda G-Trac Brace
SteedaStreet Panhard Bar and Heavy Duty Brace
Steeda Heavy Duty Rear Swaybar w/ Endlinks
Steeda Lower Trailing Arm Relocation Brackets
Steeda Competition Front Swaybar Endlinks
5zigen Fn01r-c 18x9.5 22lbs with a 255/45x18 tire

PonyGT2005

What about replacing the panhard and brace with a watts link? Anyone running a watts on their car? I've been thinking about it for a while.