daveco47

I am looking into installing longtubes on my 97 Cobra vert it has a set of lowering springs 1.5 approx. and i put a set of 18 in wheels on it. What is the difficulty level for this upgrade? Is this a shop job or can a shade tree mech handle this job? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks David

Mustang3GT07

I had a shop do my longtubes install, but they are manageable yourself if you have the time and patience. Install time/difficulty also goes based on how good of a brand of longtubes you bought. Only longtubes I would buy would be ARH and Kooks. Lowering springs are a pretty straight forward install and very doable yourself.

SVTeeshirt

long tubes.... people argue that you don't NEED to remove your k-member on 4 valve cars but anyone who has actually done it will reccomend it, as well as jacking the engine up half a foot or so.

Blackvenom01

ya dude you can do it yourself but like svttee said the easiest way to do it in my experience is drop the k member....it does take quite some time and a good amount of patience and while you do the headers just go ahead and do the springs cause your taking them off anyways

daveco47

Thanks for the info it is very helpful. The car already has the springs on it i was just checking to make sure there were no clearance issues! Thanks again David

Mustang3GT07

Which brand of longtubes did you/are you gonna buy?

Blackvenom01

ya your fine clearance wise...when you turn its gonna rub but thats normal for basically any mustang out there lol

uberstang1

I just did my long tubes over the winter, i did a tubular k member as well so that solved the debate on dropping it. I'm currently removing long tubes on a friends 2v. I tried removing one header with the k frame in but decided to drop the k frame instead. The amount of time it takes to remove the studs with the minimal clearance from the top just is almost a waste of time, dropping a k-member really isnt that long or hard of a project and could be done in an hour or two if things go smooth and you have the proper tools. If you plan on dropping the k member I picked up a engine support bar from harbor freight for about 40$ which sits on the fender frame rails and uses two hooks/chains which u can attack to the motor (i used the 12mm bolt underneath each coil pack] and you can raise or lower the motor at will by simply twisting the hooks up or down.

thunderhorse

just remember that with LTs you'll be scraping like crazy. On stock height, my GT would scrape from time to time just because of the LTs. My cobra has shorties, but it's also lowered about 1.75", and that too scrapes on speed bumps and stuff like that. it's an awful sound... just giving you a heads up :P

JC316

I have eibach sportlines and LT headers. I rarely scrape. Now my old 96 GT would always scrape with stock manifolds.