Is there anything that improves the suspension a lot but doesn't destroy ride quality?

[shovel]

I'm gonna just keep giving people aneurysms forever with my stock height Mustang.. that's just how they were built. It's how all sporty cars were built back when people bought a car to drive it.

What I find funny is people lower these things to get rid of the horrors of the wheel gap but they only get rid of it at the top of the wheel, they still have the same gap as ever in front of the wheel and behind it. What problem got solved? Now you gotta drive diagonal over speed bumps and you still got the gap.

 

[cobrajeff96]

Like I said, depends on how much money/time you throw at it.

Mine's lowered but not slammed. The thing kinda glides over bumps and is out cornering most of these Euro cars I encounter.

Granted, it's no Caddy over bumps. I think it has a good balance between comfort and sport (with no 4x4 look any way you look at it, lol).

The final piece of the puzzle is an SLA and then I'll be 100% done with suspension. If someone ever made a multi-link for the rear of an SN95, I'd retract that statement and put the money down....but it doesn't seem likely that someone will ever develop it.

 

[Terrorist 5.0]

Product of its time I guess, I don’t mind them the way they are

 

[Daryl]

^ what he said.

Yep. Ditto

 

[bennylava]

I agree with Shovel, I never have ever said “hey, the SN95’s look like a 4X4 with that ride height”, I never understood why everyone says that.

If anything, I think it’s just the front fender has a slightly larger than usual wheel well, causing that misconception.

Just my opinion of course, but it looks terrible. Lowering an SN95 by one inch seems to put them right there at perfection. It looks like the car came that way, like they did it right. Once I did that (back in my teen years) nobody questioned the look anymore.

Before that, most of my friends did. Naturally everyone would get to looking at each other's cars, and the ones who didn't own or know mustangs would inevitably say something like "Erm, is there something wrong"?

I never liked the look before that, but with the random comments, I decided it had to go! Eibachs solved the problem rather nicely, I must say.

 

[Terrorist 5.0]

Just my opinion of course, but it looks terrible. Lowering an SN95 by one inch seems to put them right there at perfection. It looks like the car came that way, like they did it right. Once I did that (back in my teen years) nobody questioned the look anymore.

Before that, most of my friends did. Naturally everyone would get to looking at each other's cars, and the ones who didn't own or know mustangs would inevitably say something like "Erm, is there something wrong"?

I never liked the look before that, but with the random comments, I decided it had to go! Eibachs solved the problem rather nicely, I must say.

My car is lowered about an inch as well, and I totally agree with you. The stock stance never bothered me much though. I like a comfy ride. Sometimes just taking the stang for a little walk in the park in comfort is nicer than full throttle gear jamming with a suspension that lets the car throw all its inputs at you.

 

[cobrajeff96]

An SN95 Mustang is the wrong car for comfort or any notion of it, even at stock ride height (which isn't just ugly.....it's fugly).

 

[ttocs]

they had to make them that high just to get over some of the speed bumps and the turn offs in az. Even at stock ride height there were some bumps it rubbed on(they take them pretty seriously there) and because they don't get rain often, but when they do it can really come down hard/fast the roads have a little move curve to them to allow the water to go to the side. I know on the turn in to my neighborhood I had to be careful how I entered it or it would scrap right in front of the back wheels.

I still say if you want a good ride and better performance, just dig out the checkbook and go air ride. I have not been sorry I did

 

[shovel]

Just done a preflight for a >3k mile road trip in a couple weeks. Bilsteins, 25mm sway bars at both ends, quad shocks and around 10k miles ago I replaced all the squishy bits front and rear. We've been taking this thing on interstate trips for 12 years and if it's uncomfortable I haven't noticed.

 

[95opal]

The real fix for sport handling is a change in geometry. Ford's design for the SN95 is to have the thing at basically 4x4 height in order to give it a liveable ride. Everything needs to be addressed (roll centers, roll couple, camber gain, basically everything) because the original design was 'good enough for the average customer'. Lowering the SN95 often creates more problems than it fixes. Unfortunately you have to put serious money into it to get it better in both aspects, comfort and performance.

^^^^ this
Don't expect to just throw cookie cutter parts at it.
Drop spindles, control arm relocation brackets, correct length and stiffness coil overs, watts link, torque arm, correct sway bars. Etc
Much more to suspension than a set of springs and shocks.

 

[white95]

^ what he said

 

[duh09]

Mo low is mo betta.

 

[ttocs]

right up till you find that AZ sized speed bump. I swear there were some I was afraid I would high center the car on them at stock height. Again advantage air ride, I fear no speed bumps now....

 

[wmfateam]

right up till you find that AZ sized speed bump. I swear there were some I was afraid I would high center the car on them at stock height. Again advantage air ride, I fear no speed bumps now....

I have "rally notes" for places I can't go or I have to be in a certain lane or can only go one way here in AZ. Especially after lowering 1.5"

 

[ttocs]

I have "rally notes" for places I can't go or I have to be in a certain lane or can only go one way here in AZ. Especially after lowering 1.5"

I was at val vista/ray rd, got the house in 2001 when it was still dairy's everywhere. I wish I didn't have to leave. I had to go when the housing market was upside down, my old neighbors just sold for 4x what I paid for mine last year.

 

[bennylava]

they had to make them that high just to get over some of the speed bumps and the turn offs in az. Even at stock ride height there were some bumps it rubbed on(they take them pretty seriously there) and because they don't get rain often, but when they do it can really come down hard/fast the roads have a little move curve to them to allow the water to go to the side. I know on the turn in to my neighborhood I had to be careful how I entered it or it would scrap right in front of the back wheels.

I still say if you want a good ride and better performance, just dig out the checkbook and go air ride. I have not been sorry I did

I wanted to ask someone about that... Does anyone remember those old saturday shows like HorsePower TV? And "Trucks!" and Musclecar?

On one of those shows, they showed people racing with air bag suspension. The guy selling them said something like "Everyone thinks air bags are only for granny's luxury car, but you can race with them just fine". And they of course they showed him racing some old camaro (iirc) with the air bag suspension.

If true, that would seem to be the best of all worlds. Because you would apparently get a suspension upgrade that was worthy of being raced, while also gaining the benefit of a much softer ride when you weren't racing.

So I always wanted to talk to someone who had actually done it. All I've seen is people just buying everything off maximum motorsports and seemingly taking the car into horse and buggy status. But of course it handles way better.

 

[bennylava]

I'm gonna just keep giving people aneurysms forever with my stock height Mustang.. that's just how they were built. It's how all sporty cars were built back when people bought a car to drive it.

What I find funny is people lower these things to get rid of the horrors of the wheel gap but they only get rid of it at the top of the wheel, they still have the same gap as ever in front of the wheel and behind it. What problem got solved? Now you gotta drive diagonal over speed bumps and you still got the gap.

Many of us only lower the car 1 inch. What you're referring to sounds more like what we used to call "slammed". Thus I've never had the problems you're describing. I don't have any issue with bumps, and the car looks so much better. I certainly don't go diagonally over anything lol. If I had to do that, I wouldn't consider the car drivable. That would be more like a trailer queen imo

As for the front and rear gap, lowering it only 1 inch doesn't seem to highlight anything there. Maybe people are buying larger wheels, I dunno. They never looked funny, at least nobody ever talked about it. But they did talk about the 4x4 look of the stock height on some of the SN95's.

 

[ttocs]

I wanted to ask someone about that... Does anyone remember those old saturday shows like HorsePower TV? And "Trucks!" and Musclecar?

On one of those shows, they showed people racing with air bag suspension. The guy selling them said something like "Everyone thinks air bags are only for granny's luxury car, but you can race with them just fine". And they of course they showed him racing some old camaro (iirc) with the air bag suspension.

If true, that would seem to be the best of all worlds. Because you would apparently get a suspension upgrade that was worthy of being raced, while also gaining the benefit of a much softer ride when you weren't racing.

So I always wanted to talk to someone who had actually done it. All I've seen is people just buying everything off maximum motorsports and seemingly taking the car into horse and buggy status. But of course it handles way better.

I could not be happier with my setup. I have adjustable rebound/damping with them like you would hope to have with expensive coil overs to tune it yes it still has a nice soft ride. Now with that being said when ridetech runs cars in any SCCA stuff they use their coil overs. I am not sure what the advantage is exactly other than under extreme stress the springs are maybe more reliable.

 

[cobrajeff96]

You'd think actual race cars would have airbag suspension then, which none do!

Same kind of logic the 'fully built SRA' crowd seems to harp on all the time, with wild claims that their fully built SRA will outperform anything they encounter on-track. When you ask them if true supercars and hypercars ever use "fully built SRAs" you never get any reply.

The SRA has its place and it is only on a drag strip. I'm not discounting its ability on a road course but the fact is that a 'fully built IRS' will always outperform the 'fully built SRA'.

It's the same logic with suspension. You will never find the best performers using airbag suspension. I'm not discounting its utility; but a car with airbags can never hope to outperform a car with a properly engineered suspension system not using airbags.

 

[ttocs]

hardcore racing? No it is not the place for them but if you spend the majority of your time on the road then having it an inch with in its life for best track performance also isn't the best idea. As the topic says though a good bagged/performance system is a nice bridge between the two although it is certainly not the cheapest. It only hurts when you write the checks and it is smiles for miles after.