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

[bennylava]

Plus you need oval wheels because lowering the car only reduces the gap at the top of the tire, you still have 100% of the gap in front of and behind the tire. So you need wheels and tires that are (American) football shaped to fill in the gap all around.

View attachment 45677

Why would the car need to be be lowered that much though... nothing like that happens with a nice set of Eibach lowering springs. You'd never notice it. It only lowers the car 1", maybe 1.25"

But now that you mention it, that image shows that it probably looks a lot better than if the gap was the exact same all the way around the wheel. Imagine how off the car would look, if the fender closed the gap on both sides in that image. It would look like the car was originally a flying car from the future and they put some wheels on it.

That's not unique to mustangs either, if you slam a car the gaps will look that way. You see it a lot at car shows on those ultra lowered 1960's cars that people like to fix up. Nobody really complains about it, but we're into the realm of pure opinion here.

 

[shovel]

Imagine how off the car would look, if the fender closed the gap on both sides in that image. It would look like the car was originally a flying car from the future and they put some wheels on it.

flying car from the future

 

[cobrajeff96]

Dude, no. Either the suspension would have to be like that of a lumber truck or those tires be rubbing to the point of extreme danger. Assuming the suspension has almost no travel here, the ride would be so hard you'd probably piss foam after just short a trip down the street to the grocery store. Or it's a full on drag car. Either way, no thank you. Jesus, are those snow tires? lol

 

[shovel]

Dude, no. Either the suspension would have to be like that of a lumber truck or those tires be rubbing to the point of extreme danger. Assuming the suspension has almost no travel here, the ride would be so hard you'd probably piss foam after just short a trip down the street to the grocery store. Or it's a full on drag car. Either way, no thank you. Jesus, are those snow tires? lol

* Suspension was stock (fully refreshed with kyb's, new arms front/rear, new oem isolators,etc) and rode like a cloud because it was stock, with full stock travel + tons of sidewall

* the only place it rubbed was against the 2.5" catback, even on dirt roads & even when steering. Did not rub on the body or fender liners. I did not go baja driving because I did not want to punch a strut through the hood, so it's possible at extreme compression it would rub - but it never did where and how I drove it. I had to use 5mm spacers in front to clear the brakes, but I had to use the same 5mm spacers on those wheels on the Jeep they usually lived on.

* I did the swap because I noticed my Jeep had the same lug spacing & a large enough hub bore to clear the Mustang and it seemed like too silly an idea to pass up. Those tires were on there for like 3 days purely to fool around with no intention of making it permanent. The Jeep looked hilarious on Cobra 17's. The tires are 235/75r15 all-terrains on 1993 jeep zj 15x7 wheels.


* From my perspective it is actual insanity to freak out over completely normal air between the tire and body that Ford said was there on purpose... to the point of sometimes spending more money than the cost of the car to make the car ride terribly, then complain that the car rides terribly.. but somehow the ugliness of the wheel center not matching the fender arch is OK? I'm being serious here if we had ten thousand lifetimes to talk about this I would not come an inch closer to understanding why wheel gap at top bad, wheel gap in front and back good.

 

[joemomma]

Man I thought that was Photoshop! LOL.

 

[PNW Mike]

As I read all of this, I can't help but be amused. many of us spend tons of money to make our rides what we want, regardless of how silly others may think the changes are. I know plenty of people (like my dad) who don't understand why in the world anyone would change parts, or even install a different engine "only" to get more power, as if more power wasn't a good enough reason all on its own!

The appearance and ride height of our cars is just another part of customizing them, and if folks want to spend a ton of money to make their lowered Mustang ride and handle better, great. If you like it at stock ride height, awesome. The (likely apocryphal) quote "in matters of taste, the customer is always right" applies here. I'd rather talk tech about how to enable you to enjoy your Mustang more and be glad someone else is enjoying and customizing their Mustang.

For me, a 1" drop on my '97 makes it look oh so much better. If you like yours at stock height - I'm happy for you. Others want their car slammed so low speedbumps look like mountains. Others do insane things like turn Mustangs into lifted 4x4 off road beasts. And... now that I've looked up pictures of 4x4 lifted Mustangs, they are oddly awesome and intriguing to me, though not enough to turn mine into a 4x4; I have a Suburban for that.

 

[shovel]

Yeah I don't care if somebody lowers their car for cosmetic purposes. OP asked about improving the suspension, if he just wanted to lower the car to lower it a set of ebay coilovers will give you the same visual appearance as a set of spindles.

Cars are not solid objects so our intuition about the stability of solid objects is of little value. If you lower a dining table to a coffee table height it will be harder to flip over because tables don't have suspension and tables don't tend to have velocity and weight transfer under their purview.

 

[bennylava]

Yeah I don't care if somebody lowers their car for cosmetic purposes. OP asked about improving the suspension, if he just wanted to lower the car to lower it a set of ebay coilovers will give you the same visual appearance as a set of spindles.

Cars are not solid objects so our intuition about the stability of solid objects is of little value. If you lower a dining table to a coffee table height it will be harder to flip over because tables don't have suspension and tables don't tend to have velocity and weight transfer under their purview.

As long as the coilovers are a reputable brand. I always warn people about a bad experience I had with that. Summit racing had to pay my labor cost (over $200 at the time) because they sold Intrax brand lowering springs to me. Chinese as hell I guess, because in 3 weeks they had completely collapsed. Every coil was touching. But I was only 18, teens gonna make teen mistakes.

Now I know to go with big names in suspension, like Eibach or Bilstein. Preferably the thing Maximum Motorsports is selling.

Loved my old Eibachs, they beautified the car while improving handling. They'll probably be selling that spring set for SN95's 30 years from now.

 

[ttocs]

everybody love maximum motorsports, well everyone that counts anyway.

drink

 

[PNW Mike]

MM sells a variety of quality name brand stuff (Koni, etc.), but they also sell a lot of stuff that they design/engineer/manufacture themselves. I believe that's all done in the USA.

 

[cobrajeff96]

MM, Kenny Brown, Griggs, Steeda, and some others I can't remember are all top tier outlets. If they don't make it, they incorporate components that are themselves top tier. Worth it for sure.

 

[ttocs]

Having seen the production facility at ridetech I can put them up in the premium brands as far as I am concerned. They were using some components from fox on the shockwaves and I got to see them put them together and was very impressed with the production area. I worked in manufacturing for a few years as well as in some shops to recognize that they had their crap together. Made in the USA as well, just an hour north of me.