For a while I've been wanting to drop my car and now I'm finally going ahead but apparently it's more than springs that are needed. I want to lower my car but I want to do it right, maybe not to a race car suspension but to something that wont cause me problems later on. Can someone point me in the right direction with what I'll be needing.

Spring,Struts,Pan Hard bar,Camber?????


Thanks alot

 

Agleon

If you do a search forBy Author = F1Fan and then sort in descending date order you'll find enough information to keep you reading for hours.

 

Technically the only thing needed to lower the car is a set of lowering springs. This is especially true if the drop is around 1" (like the Steeda ultralights).

I personally recommend aftermarket dampers but they aren't a must have...at least not right away. I have seen posts that tell of the stock dampers wearing out quickly with lowering springs due to the higher spring rates (stiffer than stock). However, good dampers like Tokico D-specs or Koni's do work really well with lowering springs.

If you drop the car less than 1.5 inch you probably won't need an adjustable PH bar to re-center the rear end. Yes, lowering the car will cause the rear end to shift slightly to the left. But depending on the width of your rear tires this probably won't be noticeble. At any rate, if you do find you need a new PH bar it can be added later.

Lowering the car will make the tops of the front tires lean in towards the car, this is negative camber. The more you lower, the more this will become an issue.The problem is tire wear on the inside edge. However, there are guys out there who have lowered their cars and not adjusted the camberfor over 20K miles without undue wear. From the factory the car has no real camber adjustability. Therefore, if this is a concern you should get some sort of camber adjustment device: bolts, shims or plates. I recommend the adjustable camber plates because they double as the strut mounts and cure two problems at once: camber adjustment plus popping and noise so common to the stock upper sturt mounts.

So in summary: you can get away with just springs (note that the stock sturt mounts are one time use items according to Ford) if you are doing a modest drop, up to 1.5 inch or so. However a better approach is springs, dampers and camber plates. The rest of the stuff can be added later if you find a need for it (PH bar, UCA, LCA, etc)

 

Keep in mind that once you gain some camber adjustability you can tune that setting to suit your driving. The harder your normal cornering gets, the more negative you can (and probably should) set it while still getting fairly even wear. What you're doing is using the harder cornering to offset the slightly greater inside shoulder wear, as cornering generally abuses the outer half of the tire tread more severely.

Another search term that'll pull up a lot of hits is 'steeda sport springs'. Not that I'm particularly promoting any single supplier - I just happen to have that search going on in another window now, and you might get a slightly wider range of opinion.

Edited


Norm

 

I want to lower my car enough to make it look mean but not as much as the FRPP springs or as little as the Steeda Sport Springs.

 

I wanted the same thing. I wanted a little better handling by lowering and adding some stiffness, especially as I have a Vert. But as I said, "a little bit". I did not want to get to the point where the ride would be uncomfortable. So I decided to go with Steeda Ultralight springs & Pro Action struts, Eibach anti-sway bars. The Steeda springs only lower about 1", and I did not figure that I actually needed the adjustable shocks. And the anti-sway bars for more stiffness.

Haven't quite got them on yet though. They are sitting in my basement waiting on warmer weather and for me to get the energy to put them on.

 

I just done some steeda ultralites and love the new look

 

I'm looking atsprings, adjustable dampers and sway bars. Now I need to tack on strut mounts/caster camber platesfor $250-$300? Sheesh.[&:]

 

get the plates and worry about swaybars later.

you can get a front bar off of a v6 car to get rid of some understeer

 

I'm not seeing which setup the OP has at present. A V6 front bar would certainly tend to de-understeer a bit, if there are GT front and rear bars present. Seems to me that's a true conclusion, but maybe a step backward, if flat cornering and crisp turn-in are goals. My move (Steeda Sport springs) was to replace the GT rear bar with a slightly stiffer one (ADDCO 7/8"), and subsequently with one a bit stiffer than that (H&R 26mm). I really liked the predictability and the on-demand over- and under-steer with that setup. I now have the Steeda front bar (adjustable to 10% stiffer than the GT bar; also added the Steeda bracket braces) and it feels wonderful at the shortest-arm hole, but I have yet to make an autocross battlefield evaluation.

Unless the OP is going to be involved in competitive corner-turning, if there are GT front and rear bars in the current setup, 1-in drop springs and no other adjustments should be plenty good for a long time. There is a labor advantage to doing struts/shocks at the same time; again, barring competition, adjustables are not really worth the difference in cost.

Otherwise, everyone is right: but it's gonna be good whatever the OP does.