My problem with mustangs is....they are not built right to begin with..hence why we have to mod the crap out of them! Installing a 3.73 gear vs a 3.31 /3.55 on the ford assembly line would have cost em... nothing. An adjustable PHB vs oem junk woulda cost em a few $ more. If ford was on the ball, they coulda offered a watts link as an option.
The small difference in price between the failure prone, semi useless oem traction lok differential vs an eaton tru-trac is well worth it. $200 more for a differential..that actually works..and is maintenance free.
The oem 2 piece DS is another abortion. Check out what your local dealer wants for a replacement...aprx $1200+. I installed a DSS-DS.... one piece DS. It has a CV joint at axle end, 3.5" diam main shaft, 900 hp rated. With the CV joint, pinion angle is not critical at all. Zero vibration at 150 mph on the dyno in 4th gear @ 6 krpm...with a 3.31 rear gear. Why ford is using a 2 piece steel clunker....with cxr bearing is beyond me.
Baffles me why Ford doesn't either (A) build em right to begin with..or (B) offer some of this stuff as an option. I see that ford offers the Torsen as an option on the 13-14 GT-500's....and folks buy it. Why Ford used a long gone obsolete M-122 blower from 07-12 on the GT-500 is another one. The TVS-2300 blower was used by Roush back in 08. Ford finally figures it out in the 13-14 GT-500's...along with a CF DS. The De-gas bottle is still way too small in the 07-14 cars.
Did you really think before you posted this??? NONE of the parts you mentioned are "failure-prone" for 99.99% of the people that buy and drive Mustangs. The 38-year old mother of two with a V6 'vert is NOT going to explode her diff or notice "left to right handling inconsistencies" on her way to the local convenience store to get a loaf of bread. Nor is she going to notice driveline vibrations from a two piece shaft. What she WILL notice is the gas-mileage hit going from a 3.31 to a 3.73 rear gear. Face it: those of us that WOULD notice that stuff, and feel a need to correct it via aftermarket parts and non-standard alignment angles represent such a TINY percentage of overall Mustang sales, that it's pointless to cater to us. As for Ford doing it wrong, GM (Government Motors) went bankrupt and needed a bail-out to stay alive. Chrysler has gone bankrupt at least twice, maybe three times. And you think Ford is doing it wrong? Seriously? 90+% of the people that own Shelby GT500 or Boss302 Mustangs drive them on weekends to "Cars And Coffee" and spend countless hours researching the latest advancements in Carnuba Wax technology. Do you really think they care whether the blower on their GT500 is a Roots-type or a TVS? All they care about is the cool whine, and the fact that they have a serialized number plaque on the strut tower.
Finally: Now the de-gas bottle is too small???? Where are you getting THAT from? Yes, I have a Canton tank on my car, but not for capacity, since it's the same size. I run endurance races, near peak RPM for HOURS on end, and have no cooling issues.... WTF are you talking about?
Fast forward to the 2015 mustang. Now has IRS. Since it's now a world wide platform car...and knowing that Europeans etc won't buy a solid axle car with fubar PHB setup, they switched to the real deal.
No, actually, the original Mustang prototype (1964!) had an IRS, but was changed to a stick-axle for production when it pushed the price beyond Ford's target. Also, the Mustang had an IRS in 2003-2004 for the Terminators... And the drag racers (who outnumber the corner-carvers probably 10:1 or more) scoured the junkyards looking for solid axles to swap in. Failed experiment. The American car buying public could care less about an IRS, unless they get wheel-hop "racing" stoplight to stoplight... If you total up all the actual S197-based
race car builds in the world, it'll probably be under 1500. Now, compare that to the production figures from 2005 to current, and you'll see why Ford doesn't offer a bunch of finicky low-volume options to enthusiasts like us. That means dealer training, parts inventory, warranty claims (I took my Watts and T2-equipped car to the strip with DOT drag radials, and after the diff exploded, the rear end slammed into the center curb, at the lights and broke my propeller bolt! Warranty!!!), and NVH issues when a Soccer Mom checked the hi-po option boxes not knowing what they were... That's the real world.
OK, back to the main issue. Take a good look at the JDM pix #1..with oem phb. LF is a mile off the ground vs the RF. Pix #2 has em both the same distance above the ground. What happened ?
Jimbo
Um, drastically increased roll-stiffness from a MASSIVE rear anti-roll bar? And, once the run was done, they probably took the turn-off to the return road at around 2mph to avoid understeer...
Also, who CARES what makes the drag car launch straight? It's a different discipline with different goals than corner-carving. Take a drag car, swap the front wheels out for something with some meat on it, and it'll still fall over it's own front end trying to take a corner at a road course or autocross track. Take a road-racer, bolt on skinnies and slicks, and it'll be lucky to get out of the 13's... Suspension design for the two are about as completely different as you can get.
Seriously, dude, you need to widen your worldview a bit and think through some of these claims and assertions you're making. If the "build quality" of the Mustang is really that disgusting to you, I would suggest you sell yours and get a "proper" car that has no build issues. 911GT3 comes to mind, as does the Ferrari 458 Challenge car. Both have IRS, neither has a PHB, and both are fast, in capable hands. Best of all, the only mods you have to do to them are bolt on tires. They are, however, just a
wee bit more expensive than a Mustang.
Sheizasosay: I'm finding this alternately hilarious and troubling...
ANNNDDDD while I was writing the above, more pablum was exploded onto this thread...
Pentalab said:
No wonder your front brakes are getting a work out ! That back end rise is unacceptable imo, you can stuff a log in there. You have oem springs and stock ride height...that's why. I can just see myself flying down the hwy, then having to slam on the brakes and swerving hard to the left/right...or same deal on an on/off ramp, twisty bit etc. We get a lot of deer etc on our roads.
God, where do I start? Rear-end rise under braking, in and of itself, means nothing. What DOES matter is load transfer. You WANT load transfer in a braking situation! Load increases tire grip (to a point), and with more grip, you can brake harder, decelerating quicker. For the track set, with nice big sticky tires up front, we already have as much front braking grip as we need, and can trigger ABS at the drop of a hat, so we want to reduce forward load transfer to let the rear brakes work more to increase our net braking. Question: What was the reason that you were "flying down the highway" and had to "slam on your brakes, swerving to the left/right?" Not paying attention to your surroundings? Not driving defensively? Driving like an ass-hat? Shooting for a Darwin Award?
The LAST thing I want or need is the back end going sky high..while flying around corners. So yeah, the oem springs ARE fubar. Throw in some rain, or going down hill..and now you have a real mess on your hands.
Wow. Just wow. You really have no concept of vehicle dynamics, do you? the only way to get the back end going sky high is under severe, threshold braking, which is NEVER done in a corner! Braking is done in a straight line, perhaps a bit of trail-braking through the turn-in phase, but once you hit apex, it's power-on. You are advocating lowering the car, which blows the roll center underground up front, and induces roll-steer in the rear, and then pontificate about how unsafe the stock suspension is in the rain? I've raced door-to-door in the rain, and would RATHER have a stock (soft, compliant) setup under the car than my full-on track setup, which is optimized for dry conditions... And what does going down hill have to do with rear-end lift? Load transfer is load transfer, all the downhill thing does is reduce net braking capability. Period.
Mine is lowered 1" front + back with the Roush street/race suspension kit,..springs/shocks /F+R sway bars etc, etc. (I use the middle holes on the BMR LCA relocate brackets). Slam on the brakes...and front end doesn't nose dive any more. Back end doesn't lift either. It essentially brakes flat. If I sit on top of either front wheel well, it doesn't deflect. It's stiff. Front + rear stb's, rear BMR tunnel brace, a pair of welded in steeda triangular sub frame connector's..and a BMR A arm brace.... + a pair of steeda front sway bar mount braces complete the stiffening. ( it already came with the Ford K arm brace)
No comment... anything I could say about this would make me sound like a dick... No, wait. You are aware, right, that the S197 STOCK chassis has more torsional rigidity than a Lamborghini Murcialago, right? And you felt that it needed more?
Of course with the car lowered 1", the oem LCA's are at the wrong angle. With the oem PHB in there, the axle was shifted 3/4" to the driver's side. End result was... the oem LCA's were trashed, they are being bent over 3/4" towards the driver's side. Fix for that was BMR UCA + uca mount, BMR lca's and BMR lca relocate brackets...+ the BMR adjustable PHB + brace. Problems solved. No more back end wobbling about at the top end of 2nd gear. I got my traction back..and then some.
BMR adjustable PHB + brace were later replaced with the WL watts link + eaton tru-trac. The difference between bone stock when car 1st purchased....and after all the above myriad of mods is literally like night and day. The oem suspension is dangerous imo.
Did you buy the car new, or pre-beat-upon? Yes, the OE suspension is bad for corner-carving work, but it's not THAT bad. OEM LCA's trashed? That sounds like abuse. There's more than enough bushing compliance in there to handle small mis-alignments, even assuming the axle WAS offset 3/4" from the
chassis centerline, which I doubt. FWIW, the FR500S was equipped with GT500 rear LCAs, which are just stock pieces with
slightly stiffer rubber bushings. They work fine, and don't fail like you're describing. Now, I can show you pix of what happens to poly bushings after a handful of track days... The Shelby GTs use the stock rears, with lowering springs from the factory, and don't seem to eat them. There's something else going on here.
I think No Ticket may have the gist of it... Exactly how much open-track and/or autocross experience do you have?
