SD05GT

I recently had a Saleen Suspension kit installed on my 05 GT and I am very pleased with the results. I bought the kit brand new from stage 3 motorsports for $649.00. It included Shocks, Struts, Springs, and a Front Sway bar. I find the car to handle much better than a stock handeling GT. The car sits about an inch lower and has a more agressive look to it. One of the biggest benefits to the kit is little to no body roll around corners now. I was also pleased to find out that my installer was able to allign the car without camber plates. I thought I was going to run in to allignment problems but the allignment is spot on.

GOOD JOB SALEEN ON A REASONABLE KIT THAT IMPROVES THE WAY OUR CARS HANDLE.

Texotic

Wait, bit comes with a bigger front bar and nothing for the rear? That thing must understeer like a B.

Legion5

the bigger tires on the rear might have something to say about that but actually the comment about understeering isn't true at all. The saleen front is actually much stiffer in it's dampers in some dimensions so the stiffer roll bar doesn't cause understeer. Anyways the car doesn't understeer and in fact it lets go more cleanly at the limit so it's even better balanced.

besides the fact that you corner faster than almost every Ferrari on smaller tires.

Texotic

hmmm. I guess I just find it odd that they do not include a new rear sway. Seems like making the front more stiff without doing anything out back will cause understeer regardless. Granted, I've never tried the kit, so I don't have much room to talk. I'll take your word for it.

SD05GT

Yeah I don't feel any under steer at all. I've had it on for a few days now and it feels great. I'm taking local turns a lot faster than I used to. I also notice little to no wheel hop. I still might invest in control arms in the future but for what the kit included, it made a world of difference!

Norm Peterson

Without any numbers for bar diameter(s) and spring rates I doubt that it's possible to determine whether the kit as a whole adds steady-state understeer or dials a little of it out.

I also don't see how stiffening the low speed damping in the front shocks, which tends to increase understeer during the transients, can compensate for additional steady-state understeer that the any stiffer front bar will give. I'm assuming that the Saleen front bar really is stiffer, since I can't find enough useful data for it.

I can see where a little more rear shock could loosen the transients and where a little more front bar would eventually take over as the roll became fully developed to give a mild "push" (that would probably give an initially nimble but progressively stable "feel" to the cornering as a whole). Maybe the Saleen rear springs are relatively stiffer compared to the OE springs than the fronts are. But without numbers, I'm just guessing and I won't claim to be any better at doing that than the next guy.

Where did "bigger tires on the rear " come from? Unless there's some off-thread knowledge involved, all I see is mention of a GT.


SD05GT - there's a lot going on here. For example, it is entirely possible that you now have slightly greater negative camber than before, but they could still bring it within the OE range. Just another instance of there not being enough information available on which to base a thoughtful opinion.

In "normal" to moderately hard street cornering, these cars don't necessarily understeer all that heavily to begin with, and it's pretty easy to steer them with the throttle (and you've got a lot more of that available than I do). Just so you know, my GT came with a little over -1° front wheel camber. Haven't measured much else.

"Understeer" is actually something that you can put a number on, and it has an SAE definition. Maybe several definitions. Although I have no way of knowing how hard your cornering comparisons actually were, I'm pretty sure that they were below 0.7 lateral g (quite possibly below 0.6). My point here is NOT to criticize your driving. It's to be able to mention that when you aren't operating the car much past where the tires behave in linear fashion you can't easily distinguish between slightly different amounts of understeer, so your opinion will tend to get confused by the reduced amount of roll.

Again, don't let that bother you. The car probably does behave more linearly up to higher levels and it will be a little quicker to take a set. That generally makes it easier to drive hard, at least up to the point that should cover 99.999% of your street driving. About all I can add here is that no matter how hard you drive or have driven on the street, even autocrossing comes in at a whole 'nother level (and you'll likely find that your hard street driving hasn't taught you much more than maybe not being afraid of a little tire noise or that you might expect some tail-happiness if you get on the throttle a little too hard while you're still cornering).


Norm

03fridge

I don't know the spring rates, but the Saleen front bar is 35MM.

Legion5

taller rear tires... they create oversteer and Saleen installs those on the car so if the stock GT tires result in some understeer then going up a size in the rear will fix that. This is an often forgotten dimension of tuning but it works.

By front I meant rear dampening, which I noticed as being very obvious because Saleen's stock tires are actually softer in the rear by being a higher profile they have to be but when combined with the suspension they're harsher than the front over bumps so it immediately stands out that it has a stiffer rear bump setting. I would edit the post to replace the word but then what you wrote would make no sense at all, oh well.

The stable feel to the cornering you describe Norm is actually very accurate, I don't like the GT's ride by comparison. The Saleen feels like a small rocket ship and the GT feels like a Toyota Camry, it doesn't handle. Case to go with all that, I spun out a Mustang GT rental car in Road Atlanta on turn 8 of the short course after I drove Saleen back to back with it which was to easily blame on the lack of stability stock. With the GT half the time you feel like you're standing still and the other you feel like you're about to crash. With the Saleen you always feel the same which is much better.

The only thing I can find on the springs is what's written on them "Racecraft 146988" which i don't understand as anything.

Norm Peterson

Makes sense. Assuming a taller OD means that the rear RC moves up, and the taller profile makes for greater rear tire lateral and (for lack of a better term) torsional compliance.

Tell ya what - if you edit your post, I'll edit mine. Just let me know.

I couldn't find much, other than that they're specific-rate springs. So no progression playing games with the lateral load treansfer distribution.

Norm

SD05GT

wow you guys got into technical stuff with numbers! haha. It feels a lot better thats all I know!