OBR13N

Gentlemen,

First post so I just wanted to start it with a hello, and thanks for the help I've gotten so far from just lurking around.

I ended up coming across a used set-up on craigslist for a crazy cheap price, knowing it was overkill, but couldn't pass it up. The car it will be going on is a 2011 V6/M6 coupe that will see 2-4 track days a year.

Currently on the car:

UMI lower control arms
UMI adjustable panhard bar
Shelby panhard brace
2011 GT front sway bar
Ford Racing strut tower brace

Currently sitting in the garage waiting to go on:

Ground Control Coilover kit including camber plates at 600F/300R spring rates
Koni dual adjustment front shocks and single adjustment rear shocks
BMR Upper control arm mount
BMR Poly Diff Housing Bushing
UMI Adjustable Upper control arm
UMI Lower control arm relocation brackets
Hotchkis Front and Rear adjustable sway bars

I will be using 18x9.5 +45mm wheels wrapped in 275/40/18 NT05s.

I am fully aware that the suspension waiting to go on is overkill for the car but like I said the price was FAR too good to pass up. The yellows came from Ground Control valved for the current spring rates.

My real questions are as follows:

Should I look into softer spring rates for the car?
What do you guys have for a street/track alignment?
Should I use the Hotchkis bars or keep the ones on there now?
Any starting pointers for setting up the Koni's as far as bump/rebound?

Thanks for help in advance guys and sorry for the very newbie questions regarding the suspension for the car.

-Anthony

draxxus131

I don't mean to barge in and thread jack you, but where did you find Koni Dual Adjustables???? Especially for the mustang!

draxxus131

Set the shocks for neutral point and just go from there, you will dial them in easier for your driving style. Also the spring rates should be just fine, I would think anything over 600 for the front would be overkill considering your bay sports a V6. The sway bars on the car are pretty good from the factory already, but you did say "OVERKILL" so why not just get the Hotchkis!?

OBR13N

I go the dual adjustable struts with the ground control kit. All of these parts are parts I have waiting to go onto the car. Thanks for the advice! I was worried about the spring rates being high and wanting to change them but then remembered that the koni's are valved for them so I'm gonna rock them like this first. Thanks again!

draxxus131

I hope your not thinking that adjusting the height/ simultaneous reb/comp is considered 2-way adjust-ability. A true 2-way coilover allows you to control rebound/compression independently from one another. So as far as I know Koni does not make that for GC.

OBR13N

I understand what you're saying, I am able to adjust ride height AND I can adjust rebound and compression independently of each other. I am only able to do this to the struts though and not the shocks.

jayman33

Dude, you're forgetting a watts link.

Norm Peterson

By "current", do you mean the OE springs or the GC springs? There's quite a lot of difference.


Depends on the car's usage and the road quality if you see much street driving.


About -1.8° front camber. For street only with springs that are as stiff as you posted, you might actually need slightly less than that and you may want to experiment. For competition, test and tune is your friend.


Bars are easy enough to swap separately. You might want to drive around a bit with just the new springs and dampers, as it'll be easier to make handling comparisons and give your bar decisions better direction.

FWIW, I have not chased down those bars to see if they're adjustable or not, and I'd strongly suggest getting adjustable bars. It's not immediately clear how the GC springs are going to shift the handling balance or how much less bar the car might be happy with, with those springs.


The usual suggestion as start full soft and stiffen from there. But with that much spring and not knowing what the damping is for you might need to start a little higher. It'll still be better to start with not enough damping, though. There's a Koni shock tuning guide available if you search around the 'net, that you'd ignore the bump damping part of and go straight to the rebound damping section.


Norm

OBR13N

Sorry for the confusion, by "current" I meant the GC springs. The car will see a lot more road then track but I do have plans to track the car 2-4 times this year and hopefully will be out there much more year after year. One thing that I was hoping to avoid was changing the rates on them as the Yellows are currently valved to match the 600/300 spring rates the GC's have.


Thank you for the suggestion, Norm. Any other words of wisdom as far as caster/toe? Factory settings?

The Hotchkis bars are in fact adjustable. The front (38.1mm) is 4 way adjustable and the rear (25.4mm) is 3 way adjustable. I have read in a few other threads that most think that these are far too big, especially for my intended use. I figured they might be, but because they came with the rest of it I would give them a go and start off on at least the lowest settings.

Norm, and everyone else, thanks again for the help with everything. Ill search around on the net for the tuning guide, any reason as to why I should be ignoring the bump section and going straight to the rebound? Or is that because I need to start adjusting rebound before starting on bump?

I knew going into this that what I had was way more then what I actually needed but because I got everything together it was hard to turn down. I also figured that this was a learn as you go but I cannot thank you guys enough for at least helping me get started.

-Anthony

Norm Peterson

A few people are running half a degree more positive caster than stock (which is already at +7.1° ±0.75°). Changing caster brings with it a somewhat greater chance that you'll need or want to bumpsteer the car. For a dual-purpose set it and forget it toe setting I'd look at some but not more than 1/32" toe in. Yeah, that's an old-school kind of number, and I think it's somewhere around +0.05°. I'm not really in favor of 0.00° toe, since toe will vary either + or - from there and could make the car little less relaxing to drive under certain road conditions. If/when you get serious enough about the track settings, you'll be swapping between camber settings which will cause changes in toe.

You ignore the bump section because single adjustable Koni yellows don't have a bump adjustment unless you somehow had that feature added as part of the revalve.

For double adjustables, you'd set the bump damping first.

I think you can still find that guide somewhere on the Koni site, but if you can't I probably have a text copy of it somewhere.


Norm