Rear Coilover Question

[ReplicaR]

Yeah, I remember Stephen. He had that red GT with the trickflow combo. He should remember me as well, and I think he was on this forum as well, along with his brother, who also has a 5.0 SN95

 

[slow90coupe]

Since people have trouble envisioning the drop brackets, I'll make a little writeup. I received my drop brackets today and put them on my fox.

How they look. Very nice pieces.





When going to install, you're going to run into issues with the upper hole. It needs to be enlarged a lot and the bottom will need slight modification as well.



I attempted to install them, but there was a gap at the top when you tighten them down. I had to add 2 washers between the bracket and rear end on the bottom hole to make them mount flush.

This is how they look before the washers (note how the shock hits the bolt and won't line up.)



And after the washers.



I can't tell if my car is going to be tucking tire a lot or not, but with no engine, trans, and half the interior in the car I have zero wheelgap as opposed to 6 inches before.

 

[302N20]

Which companies are those?

 

[slow90coupe]

UPR

 

[302N20]

Thanks for the photos.

 

[B.mad]

Yeah, I remember Stephen. He had that red GT with the trickflow combo. He should remember me as well, and I think he was on this forum as well, along with his brother, who also has a 5.0 SN95

yup thats him, the white supercharged one? or procharged?

 

[B.mad]

UPR

are you running a PHB?

 

[slow90coupe]

are you running a PHB?

Nope.

 

[B.mad]

Nope.

will these brackets work with the phb?

 

[mcglsr2]

will these brackets work with the phb?

I can't see how they would - the shocks mount to the PHB. If the mounts were lower, there would be interference between the shocks and the PHB. Plus, the PHB mounts where these brackets are - total conflict. One would have to come up with something very convoluted to make it work (if it even could), and then I wouldn't trust it...

 

[B.mad]

I can't see how they would - the shocks mount to the PHB. If the mounts were lower, there would be interference between the shocks and the PHB. Plus, the PHB mounts where these brackets are - total conflict. One would have to come up with something very convoluted to make it work (if it even could), and then I wouldn't trust it...

looks like i cant get to low :/

 

[mcglsr2]

looks like i cant get to low :/

I don't know, man. There's a couple things at play here:

• track cars in general are low to the ground; even cars that aren't full on race, a lot of them are pretty low. So it's obviously do-able. I personally haven't tried to go that low; however I suspect the low is do to the coil-over selection and then ride height adjustment. I mean, I bet I can just about put the fender on the rear tires with my current setup, and that's with 9" springs. If I went with a setup of 8 or even 7" springs, totally do-able.
• Having said the above, there's also a lot street cars that are super low, lower than some track cars; they are stanced or slammed - but their suspension is geared towards this, rather than out-and-out performance.

You kind of have competing goals here. On the one hand, the car is lowered for performance reasons: lower CG, less body roll, better weight transfer, etc. etc. On the other hand, the car is lowered purely for aesthetics. The vast majority of those cars aren't tracked, and if they were the handling would probably be sub-par.

What it sounds like to me is you want a track height for when you track, and then you want a "stanced/slammed" height for when you are cruising. You can either swap out your suspension before a track day (which sounds like balls to me), you can go bagged (you'd give up a little on the track but you'd have your height control), or you can get coil-overs that have the range you are looking for (raise the car/corner balance for track days, lower the height for the rest of the time).

Ultimately, unless the rest of the car is setup to take advantage of being super low (suspension geometry adjustments), you probably wouldn't want to do that on a track. So, yes, you could go as low as you want, but you will have to compromise in other areas you don't currently want to compromise.

tl;dr - no, you probably can't get as low as you want with a street/track setup without some recurring effort to swap between the two.

 

[B.mad]

I don't know, man. There's a couple things at play here:

• track cars in general are low to the ground; even cars that aren't full on race, a lot of them are pretty low. So it's obviously do-able. I personally haven't tried to go that low; however I suspect the low is do to the coil-over selection and then ride height adjustment. I mean, I bet I can just about put the fender on the rear tires with my current setup, and that's with 9" springs. If I went with a setup of 8 or even 7" springs, totally do-able.
• Having said the above, there's also a lot street cars that are super low, lower than some track cars; they are stanced or slammed - but their suspension is geared towards this, rather than out-and-out performance.

You kind of have competing goals here. On the one hand, the car is lowered for performance reasons: lower CG, less body roll, better weight transfer, etc. etc. On the other hand, the car is lowered purely for aesthetics. The vast majority of those cars aren't tracked, and if they were the handling would probably be sub-par.

What it sounds like to me is you want a track height for when you track, and then you want a "stanced/slammed" height for when you are cruising. You can either swap out your suspension before a track day (which sounds like balls to me), you can go bagged (you'd give up a little on the track but you'd have your height control), or you can get coil-overs that have the range you are looking for (raise the car/corner balance for track days, lower the height for the rest of the time).

Ultimately, unless the rest of the car is setup to take advantage of being super low (suspension geometry adjustments), you probably wouldn't want to do that on a track. So, yes, you could go as low as you want, but you will have to compromise in other areas you don't currently want to compromise.

tl;dr - no, you probably can't get as low as you want with a street/track setup without some recurring effort to swap between the two.

I am going to go pretty low all around, and yes i want to get the coilover set up. I am going to do a full suspension rehaul from the shocks/coils to the k-member to the 3 link conversion(phb and TA) to chassis bracing. Set up with some good brakes and good tires, upgraded diff and eventually more power, i have the set up i want in mind, i can PM you everything see what you think if youd like. The ride height in the front isnt my issue because the racecraft drop spindles can solve that issue, its the rear that i have issues with. the confllict being to really the ride height in relation to the front. and cant be too low without bottoming out the shock, which will defeat the purpose of having good shocks and good spring rates. Although i dont want it slammed. i do want it low. maybe .05-1" of wheel gap, so thats roughly a 3-4 in drop all around?

I think the H&R SS springs with no isos stance is pretty good, if i can get it to that ride height or maybe .5" lower with CO's, ill be satifised

 

[Jack Hidley]

I just happened to stumble across this thread, so I know I'm a bit late to the conversation, but there are some things here that need to be straightened out.

The OP of the thread, Ferocious, contacted us by e-mail. He asked:

"Hello MM,

I have a quick tech question for you guys. I am currently running coilovers on the front of my 96 Mustang GT and plan on adding coilovers to the rear as well. I currently have a 10" 300# spring up front. What would you recommend for the rear as far as rate and length? I was thinking 10" 250#.. The car is a street car, driven a couple times a month to local car meets and shows. The car is VERY low. About 3.5" lower than factory so I do wish to retain some ride quality in the process.

Any advice is appreciated."

I'd like to point out that I've left out the OP's e-mail address from the above quote. I really wish he had done that with my e-mail that he posted. (It's gone now, along with my phone number, as I asked the moderator to remove them.)

After some back and forth e-mail with the OP to get more information about his car, I responded with:

"In the rear I would use a 175lbs/in x 11" x 2.25" coilover spring. This will be a good match to the front spring that is in the car currently.

Your current rear shocks can't be used with a coilover kit. The shock eyelet is only friction welded to the shock housing. This can break when loaded with the full vehicle weight. Because of this, we do not manufacture a coilover kit for this shock. We do have kits available for Koni and Bilstein shocks.

Sincerely,
Jack Hidley
Maximum Motorsports Tech Support"

That is the final communication I've had with the OP.

The OP currently had Tokico shocks in the rear of his car.

The OP then installs some unknown rate 10" x 2.5" springs on Strange shocks, which he never told us. Out of the three spring parameters I gave him, he MIGHT have followed one of them. I'll bet money the spring is not 175lbs/in, so he probably followed none of them.

Of course the shock matters here. What is the spring mounted to? The shock. How could it not affect the ride height or many other aspects of the function?

Look at the location of the bottom of the threaded sleeve on the Strange shock below:

The bottom of the sleeve is about 1.5" above the top of the axle tube.

Now compare this to the location of the threaded sleeve on a Bilstein shock:

The bottom of the threaded sleeve is slightly below the center of the axle tube. At least 3" lower than on the Strange shock. Even with the incorrect spring, the car could be 3" lower than it ended up.

I normally never criticize people in public like this, but in this case I'm making an extreme exception. The OP sent us a tech e-mail, never intending to purchase any products from us. He purchased the wrong parts. Some of which are attempted copies of our products (theft). Then criticizes our tech support in public, editing out part of my response so he doesn't look dumb, while posting my phone number and e-mail address so it can get picked up by all of the web crawlers.

If I wasn't such a nice guy, I'd be posting all of his information here.

BTW, if anyone would like to find out the proper way to select a coilover spring, see the links below.

http://forums.corral.net/forums/7165850-post12.html

http://forums.corral.net/forums/8716081-post50.html

Sincerely,
Jack Hidley
Maximum Motorsports Tech Support

 

[Ferocious]

It's alright my dude. My car is tucking tire, rubbing 24/7, and clearing the road of pavement reflectors now. I would say the suspension is dialed in. This thread wasn't made to bash you, it was made because I needed an answer within a day as to why it looked like a monster truck, hence why I didn't bother talking about you until someone asked why I didn't email MM. Nothing I said in this thread was meant to put MM or you down and if one of my posts made it seem that way, I apologize. Also, I believe I went with a spring length of 10" and 200# rate for the rears. I had them on for 2 hours so I don't have any proof or seem to have written the spring rates anywhere. Anyways, sorry for posting your email address and phone number (though I can't see where I did that... old thread ¯\_(ツ)_/¯). Sorry for taking your expertise for granted.

 

[95opal]

I just happened to stumble across this thread, so I know I'm a bit late to the conversation, but there are some things here that need to be straightened out.

The OP of the thread, Ferocious, contacted us by e-mail. He asked:

"Hello MM,

I have a quick tech question for you guys. I am currently running coilovers on the front of my 96 Mustang GT and plan on adding coilovers to the rear as well. I currently have a 10" 300# spring up front. What would you recommend for the rear as far as rate and length? I was thinking 10" 250#.. The car is a street car, driven a couple times a month to local car meets and shows. The car is VERY low. About 3.5" lower than factory so I do wish to retain some ride quality in the process.

Any advice is appreciated."

I'd like to point out that I've left out the OP's e-mail address from the above quote. I really wish he had done that with my e-mail that he posted. (It's gone now, along with my phone number, as I asked the moderator to remove them.)

After some back and forth e-mail with the OP to get more information about his car, I responded with:

"In the rear I would use a 175lbs/in x 11" x 2.25" coilover spring. This will be a good match to the front spring that is in the car currently.

Your current rear shocks can't be used with a coilover kit. The shock eyelet is only friction welded to the shock housing. This can break when loaded with the full vehicle weight. Because of this, we do not manufacture a coilover kit for this shock. We do have kits available for Koni and Bilstein shocks.

Sincerely,
Jack Hidley
Maximum Motorsports Tech Support"

That is the final communication I've had with the OP.

The OP currently had Tokico shocks in the rear of his car.

The OP then installs some unknown rate 10" x 2.5" springs on Strange shocks, which he never told us. Out of the three spring parameters I gave him, he MIGHT have followed one of them. I'll bet money the spring is not 175lbs/in, so he probably followed none of them.

Of course the shock matters here. What is the spring mounted to? The shock. How could it not affect the ride height or many other aspects of the function?

Look at the location of the bottom of the threaded sleeve on the Strange shock below:

The bottom of the sleeve is about 1.5" above the top of the axle tube.

Now compare this to the location of the threaded sleeve on a Bilstein shock:

The bottom of the threaded sleeve is slightly below the center of the axle tube. At least 3" lower than on the Strange shock. Even with the incorrect spring, the car could be 3" lower than it ended up.

I normally never criticize people in public like this, but in this case I'm making an extreme exception. The OP sent us a tech e-mail, never intending to purchase any products from us. He purchased the wrong parts. Some of which are attempted copies of our products (theft). Then criticizes our tech support in public, editing out part of my response so he doesn't look dumb, while posting my phone number and e-mail address so it can get picked up by all of the web crawlers.

If I wasn't such a nice guy, I'd be posting all of his information here.

BTW, if anyone would like to find out the proper way to select a coilover spring, see the links below.

http://forums.corral.net/forums/7165850-post12.html

http://forums.corral.net/forums/8716081-post50.html

Sincerely,
Jack Hidley
Maximum Motorsports Tech Support

Thanks for chiming in and clearing the air. Your customer service is second to none as are your products. Even with the excellent customer service you provide, some people just cant be helped as there limited to one way thinking and after all is said and done I believe the OP's final post shows how useless his suspension turned out. Should have took your advise lol

 

[Ferocious]

Thanks for chiming in and clearing the air. Your customer service is second to none as are your products. Even with the excellent customer service you provide, some people just cant be helped as there limited to one way thinking and after all is said and done I believe the OP's final post shows how useless his suspension turned out. Should have took your advise lol

Thank you for the kind words Opal. Keep building your super cool show car and I'll keep driving my street sweeping pos.

 

[95opal]

Nothing I said in this thread was meant to put MM or you down .

Oriely \/

Maybe Jack was smoking that good stuff.
.

I just happened to stumble across this thread, so I know I'm a bit late to the conversation, but there are some things here that need to be straightened out.

The OP of the thread, Ferocious, contacted us by e-mail. He asked:

"Hello MM,

I have a quick tech question for you guys. I am currently running coilovers on the front of my 96 Mustang GT and plan on adding coilovers to the rear as well. I currently have a 10" 300# spring up front. What would you recommend for the rear as far as rate and length? I was thinking 10" 250#.. The car is a street car, driven a couple times a month to local car meets and shows. The car is VERY low. About 3.5" lower than factory so I do wish to retain some ride quality in the process.

Any advice is appreciated."

I'd like to point out that I've left out the OP's e-mail address from the above quote. I really wish he had done that with my e-mail that he posted. (It's gone now, along with my phone number, as I asked the moderator to remove them.)

After some back and forth e-mail with the OP to get more information about his car, I responded with:

"In the rear I would use a 175lbs/in x 11" x 2.25" coilover spring. This will be a good match to the front spring that is in the car currently.

Your current rear shocks can't be used with a coilover kit. The shock eyelet is only friction welded to the shock housing. This can break when loaded with the full vehicle weight. Because of this, we do not manufacture a coilover kit for this shock. We do have kits available for Koni and Bilstein shocks.

Sincerely,
Jack Hidley
Maximum Motorsports Tech Support"

That is the final communication I've had with the OP.

The OP currently had Tokico shocks in the rear of his car.

The OP then installs some unknown rate 10" x 2.5" springs on Strange shocks, which he never told us. Out of the three spring parameters I gave him, he MIGHT have followed one of them. I'll bet money the spring is not 175lbs/in, so he probably followed none of them.

Of course the shock matters here. What is the spring mounted to? The shock. How could it not affect the ride height or many other aspects of the function?

Look at the location of the bottom of the threaded sleeve on the Strange shock below:

The bottom of the sleeve is about 1.5" above the top of the axle tube.

Now compare this to the location of the threaded sleeve on a Bilstein shock:

The bottom of the threaded sleeve is slightly below the center of the axle tube. At least 3" lower than on the Strange shock. Even with the incorrect spring, the car could be 3" lower than it ended up.

I normally never criticize people in public like this, but in this case I'm making an extreme exception. The OP sent us a tech e-mail, never intending to purchase any products from us. He purchased the wrong parts. Some of which are attempted copies of our products (theft). Then criticizes our tech support in public, editing out part of my response so he doesn't look dumb, while posting my phone number and e-mail address so it can get picked up by all of the web crawlers.

If I wasn't such a nice guy, I'd be posting all of his information here.

BTW, if anyone would like to find out the proper way to select a coilover spring, see the links below.

http://forums.corral.net/forums/7165850-post12.html

http://forums.corral.net/forums/8716081-post50.html

Sincerely,
Jack Hidley
Maximum Motorsports Tech Support

It's alright my dude. My car is tucking tire, rubbing 24/7, and clearing the road of pavement reflectors now

/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\\/\/\/\/\/\/\\//\/\/\/\/\//\/\\/\/\

Thanks for chiming in and clearing the air. Your customer service is second to none as are your products. Even with the excellent customer service you provide, some people just cant be helped as there limited to one way thinking and after all is said and done I believe the OP's final post shows how useless his suspension turned out. Should have took your advise lol

Thank you for the kind words Opal. Keep building your super cool show car and I'll keep driving my street sweeping pos.

After 6 years on the site I would think you would know that I don't pull punches , I don't, sugar coat shit, and I don't nut swing. I simply call it like I see it. Its black or its white theres no in between.
From this thread its plain to see whats what it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out.

 

[Ferocious]

You think I said he was "smoking that good stuff" to put him down? Maybe I should heed your advise and not sugar coat things because you seem to be blinded by the darkness.



Speaking of darkness




HAIL SATAN





Anyways, I apologized for any words I said that may have upset him and the post where his email/# were posted were deleted. So I think this problem has been resolved. My car is also at the height I want it so this thread is of no use to me anymore.


Toodles.