There's no reason an IRS would have a worse ride quality than a live unless the bushings/components are hosed. An IRS has far more pivot points, bushings and mounts than a Live setup and any of them failing means vibration/misalignment.

That aside, it can be easily argued that a crap IRS is superior to the best Live axle in all respects other than on the strip.

 

I think you'd need to know more about things like pitch behavior.


For ride quality and mild to moderate driving, yes (unless it's truly horrible).

But as far as "superiority of a crap IRS" for performance up toward the limit goes, don't believe it. For hard driving, an IRS also needs to be well thought out and well tuned.


Norm

 

Exactly. The 11's added a bit more bracing. I believe they incorporate the x-brace from the 05-10' vert models and maybe some other bracing or added material here and there but it's the same damn chassis. Granted if I got out of my car when it was stock and into one setup like mine is now I would be completely blown away but with simply better dampers, springs and swaybars the car becomes much, much better handling.

And my car is as tight and rattle free as the day I drove it off the lot so no worries there. Well built car.

 

I wouldn't speak for Sam Strano but in this ariticle he actually points to the shelby as the 'better handling' car (granted the shelby had the frpp handling kit standard). He drove the shelby to numerous wins in f-stock.

http://straightpipemagazine.com/archives/463