Help Please! Rear suspension

[Rogera13]

96 GT. Hotchkiss upper and lower control arms, Ford racing 200/300 specific weight lowering springs. Eighbach sway bar MM pan hard bar and KYB AGX shocks. My problem is the rear is no lower, when you push on a rear corner you get very little movement (stiff) when autocrossing I continuously blow the rear tires off. I get now weight transfer to speak of on launch. It was suggested today that my control arms may be binding. Any other suggestions? Things I need to look at with this setup? Thanks i advance

 

[ReplicaR]

A couple of things you should take a look at is the bushings in the upper control arms and your differential. Most likely what I think is happening is that you are lifting the rear inside tire just a bit, to the point where you lose traction. The reason for that is the combination of your control arms and panhard bar. The panhard bar and mustang style 4 link (upper control arms at an angle) do not really work very well with each other. Panhard has one motion ratio with a bit of a side to side swing, while 4 link moves slightly differently, and together these motions aren't working well. The only way to run panhard bar with 4 link, is to have the stock upper, and on top of that, the bushings in the uppers will take one hell of the beating. When I took mine off to replace with torque arm, the upper bushings were toast. If you want decent suspension articulation, you will most likely have to do either of the following two:

1. Replace Hotchkis uppers with stock uppers
2. Remove / disconnect the panhard bar.

The best choice in my book is to get torque arm, but that's a whole different step.

 

[Rogera13]

A couple of things you should take a look at is the bushings in the upper control arms and your differential. Most likely what I think is happening is that you are lifting the rear inside tire just a bit, to the point where you lose traction. The reason for that is the combination of your control arms and panhard bar. The panhard bar and mustang style 4 link (upper control arms at an angle) do not really work very well with each other. Panhard has one motion ratio with a bit of a side to side swing, while 4 link moves slightly differently, and together these motions aren't working well. The only way to run panhard bar with 4 link, is to have the stock upper, and on top of that, the bushings in the uppers will take one hell of the beating. When I took mine off to replace with torque arm, the upper bushings were toast. If you want decent suspension articulation, you will most likely have to do either of the following two:

1. Replace Hotchkis uppers with stock uppers
2. Remove / disconnect the panhard bar.

The best choice in my book is to get torque arm, but that's a whole different step.

Thanks for the advice. I originally did the control arms and springs and shocks. Had the problem and added panhard bar which didn't help and may now be worse. Torque arm not gonna happen right now but maybe in the future. Would adding the spherical bushings to the control arms I have help or even changing to the UPR adjustable with spherical bushing or just track down some factory ones? Thanks again

 

[ReplicaR]

Sperical bushings may give you articulation, but it's still a different motion. You literally need a very soft upper control arm bushing in order to have it deflect and have the PHB move around the way it wants to. Put stock uppers back in, and you will probably see better traction.