Koni sports in conjunction with Boss 302 springs?

[NoTicket]

You have just made my day sir.

 

[Mustang259]

Good info and thanks to Sky Render and Terry for response, I am going to stay the course and continue to save up funds for coil overs.

 

[2013DIBGT]

We haven't done any of the ball joint/bump steer corrections on our car.Cheers,

Thanks for the info.

 

[GT_350]

Yes, many people do this without noticeable bad affects but I've seen things break on other cars, so I avoid it unless it is a caged car with tubes that tie into the upper shock mount. Going to the coilover might have some advantages in roll vs bump spring rates, but again, without beefing up the upper shock mount I'm not willing to risk it.

Terry,

I asked this question may times, "can the rear upper shock mount handle a coilover". No one could answer, don't do it, because it might fail..........I just installed a set of SACHS FR500S dampers......

I know you go all over and have seen way more than I, have you seen a S197 chassis fail?

I been kicking around installing a back half roll bar, built like a FR500C/S or a Boss 302R/S.

 

[kcbrown]

I've since gotten a chance to drive a car with KW v3 coilovers and the standard springs that those coilovers come with.

The ride quality is excellent for the available bump travel (the car was lowered 1.6 inches relative to stock). However, the spring is apparently a "progressive" spring in both front and rear, and the suspension doesn't do all that well over one of the bumps that I traverse on my drive to work. In the front, it goes into the stiffer region of the spring, and feels like the spring rate quadruples or something -- it gets much stiffer. The rear absorbed the bump (possibly with the same stiffening effect as I felt in the front -- not sure) but then launched into the air on rebound, which suggests to me that the rebound damping wasn't sufficient. That's a harder thing to get right when you're dealing with a progressive spring, if I'm not mistaken, and because the rear didn't feel bouncy over smaller bumps, my suspicion is that the rebound was dialed in reasonably well for the milder region of the spring in the rear.

The stock suspension handles that bump much better, probably in large part due to having a greater amount of available bump travel.

I've been unable to determine what the KW v3 spring rates are in their low-compression region, but the people on allfordmustangs.com that I've been talking to speculate that the fronts are in the 300+ pounds/inch region in their relatively uncompressed state. If that's the case, then 300 lbs/in or so is not enough spring to properly handle the bump I hit with 1.6" less bump travel than stock.

That experience convinces me that coilovers are very capable of yielding a comfortable ride as long as you have enough suspension travel to work with, even with spring rates of roughly 2x that of stock (but that presumes that we're right about the KW's spring rates).

An additional requirement is that I can't lower my car more than perhaps 1/2" to 3/4" relative to stock (it's a GT with the track package), because of my driveway. I would like to lower the car some because it currently looks like a 4x4. Frankly, my opinion is that the GT500 stance is pretty much perfect from an aesthetic perspective, and that's the stance I'd like to achieve. No lower than that.

Can I lower the car by only half an inch relative to stock with coilovers, without sacrificing all or nearly all of the available extension travel? Which coilovers would allow me to lower the car by so little, particularly while keeping the bump travel up and the damper more or less centered when the car's suspension is loaded only by the weight of the car (i.e., centered, or nearly so, at static ride height)?

 

[2013kAB]

so with a shorter strut and lowering springs, is the overall quality of ride better or is it just that you're not bottoming out when you go over a bump that would require more travel than available?

also, in the case of a stock 2013 GT non-brembo, 18" wheels, the bare-bones version, with all the nose-dive under hard braking with pirelli all seasons, is the front suspension compressing so much that you end up on the bump stops?

thanks,

 

[NoTicket]

I don't think you would end up on the bumpstops under braking, unless you hit a bump.

I am sort of resurrecting this thread for 2 reasons.

I want to know:

Do Boss springs seat properly on the 2011+ style struts?

Where do you buy stock Boss or Laguna Seca springs?

 

[kcbrown]

I would expect the springs to seat properly on the 2011+ style struts, but I'm not positive of that.

You can buy the springs from, e.g., Tousley Ford.

Here's the link to the message I wrote on allfordmustangs that details the springs: http://www.allfordmustangs.com/foru...55d-rear-springs-impressions.html#post5293977


And its contents:

OK, so the deal is that the front Boss 302 springs are CR33 5310-V found here: 2013 FORD Mustang Parts - AutoNation Ford White Bear Lake Parts (previously Tousley Ford Parts)

The Laguna Seca front springs are marked CR33 5310-T on that same page.


The rear Boss 302 springs are the ones marked CR33VA: 2013 Ford Mustang Parts - AutoNation Ford White Bear Lake Parts (previously Tousley Ford Parts)

The rear Laguna Seca ones are the ones marked CR33TA: 2013 Ford Mustang Parts - AutoNation Ford White Bear Lake Parts (previously Tousley Ford Parts)


The rear springs are about $20 apiece, as are the front springs, for a total of $80 for all 4 corners. That's astoundingly good...


This is all information that I've verified with the guys at Tousley. It's not a guess.

I'm likely to go straight for coilovers myself, as long as I can get the (quite minimal: 3/4 inch at most, and more likely 1/2 inch) amount of lowering I want.