Road course suspension and alignment
 

Jazzer I know you currently have a great suspension guide, jsut looking for personal experience with different products :) I'm sure you will chime in with great knowledge!

So I'm not a complete noob, I have ran a couple track days on a road course in my 2005 s2000 that I am now selling. I understand the fact that without a lot of money the stang will not handle near as well. But still I would like to start saving to do some suspension work to cure my itch for better handling and braking. The car is a mostly stock 95 GT. The PO replaced the rear control arms (Pretty sure upper and lower) with blue oval industries with the horrible urethane bushings that I have heard should be avoided.Eventually I will replace them with some MM control arms. The stock front control arms now have 186k on them so I am replacing the ball joints with moog units and the bushings with pro thane. It has been lowered by the PO with eibach pro line springs and is need of an alignment. It also has KYB shocks/struts but am unsure of the valving.

The car also still has rear quad shocks installed with 315 tires out back and I think 265 or something in front. Still has the factory strut tower bar but does not have CC plates yet. It has prothane tranny and engine mounts. The brakes and calipers have been replaced with stock units and the car has 3.27 rear gear.

I am needing to get it aligned. It won't be seeing the track or auto x for a couple years unless I come into some money lol. What is a decent handling alignment setup to run on these cars? Rear and front toe have been very important on my S2000 as it's sensitive to these settings. What should I run on the stang? Also, seeing as how I will be upgrading (possibly to full coil over is what I prefer) down the road, can I get a decent alignment with just the eibach camber bolts that I have read such good reviews on? Just looking to play around a little on mountain roads till I get money to build the car up better.

Also, what are some good proven suspension setups for these cars? I am thinking down the road running MM coil overs with a pan hard bar. I have sub frame connectors that still need to be installed. Do these make a big difference in handling? If not I will delay getting them installed for now as the car needs some other work.

Also what is a good budget brake setup? I was lucky on my s2k to only run carbotech pads and stock rotors. Of course it needed cooling ducts to really shine. any help is appreciated! I want to show up my buddy at the track inhis s2k later for making fun of me for coming back to the Mustang world :) Thanks guys!

Wow.... lots of questions :D

Appears your ULTIMATE goals are a track car and your budget is gonna get higher than you plan currently.... this I guarantee! You are best to look for a complete suspension kit, IMO. It is very hard to piecemeal a complete system that works well together and not spend lots of time/money to get there. In such a case, I like the Grip Boxes from MM.

Brakes ~ Depending on how far you want to go on open-track, the Brakes Upgrade guide will get you a long way. If you are gonna push the track use hard, you will need to go well beyond.

What say you?

Jazzer :)

Always helpful Jazzer :) I have a baby on the way and am separating from the military due to medical reasons, this is the main reason for the limited budget. It could be 2-4 years before I am able to have extra income but who knows what the future holds. I honestly will be lucky to do 2-4 track days a year once I am actually able to get the car prepped nicely.

I guess what I should be asking is, in the mean time what can I do to make the car more fun and safe to drive just while doing some spirited mountain driving (safely of course, I know how to control myself lol). After some research it seems the camber bolts would work fine for my setup. However, should I break the bank and get MM CC plates? They seem to offer a lot of advantages. Also, are there any other things I can do on the cheap to make the car better in the corners? Obviously just looking for small tweaks or budget parts to tide over my hunger for corners.

Any cheap sway bars that work nicely on this chassis? What is a good alignment that will be more aggressive but not wear tires really quick? I was running -2.5 camber front and 2.9 rear on my s2k with 6.5 caster and 0 toe front and 1/16 toe in rear. Just not sure where to go with this car. I KNOW in the long run where I should go, but I guess I should focus on the car not being a complete cornering turd for the time being.

You'll only be able to do front end adjusting since it'a a solid rear axle. A neg 1 degree camber seems to suit many for a street car that will still bite in a corner. I've gone as much as neg 2 on the track without need to go further with my set up.

Once you go coil overs you'll have a lot more to play with.

Thanks for the reply lilroush. I am for sure going to miss the coil overs on my s2k lol. But one of these days I will be able to have better handling. Does 1.5 neg camber give much more bit to the front end? How much more drastic would tire wear be on these cars? I also have no idea what to set toe at. Is toe in the rear even adjustable on these cars or is there pretty much nothing at all? The sucks if you can't dial rear toe to meet your style lol.

At -1.5° camber, your average daily cornering pretty much has to be a good bit harder than how average traffic deals with the same twisty bits. Either that or you need to take in an autocross at least once a month.

If you're going to run a PHB or Watts link for axle lateral location, lose the splayed upper arms and install either a torque arm (what the 3rd & 4th gen Camaros and Firebirds ran) or a true 3rd link (like the current S197 Mustang). In my opinion, a good 3-link arrangement is slightly superior, but there are some pretty quick torque arm cars too.

Sorry, but with a stick axle there are no easily accomplished methods of altering whatever camber and toe settings that the thing was born with. Note that I didn't say "impossible", and I'll suggest that maybe down the road a few years you might do something if you get really serious. The one thing that you can do is get the thrust angle measured and corrected if necessary (this will require adjustable-length rear LCAs at minimum).


Norm

I'll be honest, the mountain roads here are desert mountain roads and in the s2k taking it easy I would still average say 50+ in a 25mph curve. That's whay I am curious about alignment specs as it's a great cheap way to liven the car up a bit. I honestly only run hard when there is no traffic and you can literally sit for an hour and never see a car. Don't want people thinking I'm a jerk on the roads, that was the other s2k drivers I did some drives with. There is a difference between having some clean fun and being an ass on the roads lol.

For autox I guess I am still having a hard time to get into it. I know I just need to get into it and give it a shot I have just been putting it off due to lack of interest vs the road course thing. But either way it will be a while before I can do anything other than spirited drives lol.

I really need to do much more research on the PHB and TQ arm. It seems like a not too expensive way to add some stability to the car where it counts most.

I won't have the car till friday but how bad do you guys think it will handle as is? Stock front lowers with prothane bushings and moog BJs. (ha I said BJs) and blue oval insdustries rears with those dreaded urethane bushings pro kit eibach springs and kyb shocks and struts with MM camber plater and fresh new moog outter tie rods? Hopefully at least well enough to feel fun.

So what front end specs do you guys suggest? I plan to align the car soon on H&R super sports so just curious.

Can't help with the front end, but if you need new Carbotech pads I will be happy to help you.