Your opinion of best rear arms for stock height, daily/road trip SN95's ?

[shovel]

Like the title says, I've got two SN95's (GT and not) and I'm refreshing them both. They're stock height and that's not changing, they're on KYB shocks and I'm not particularly in the mood to get drastic with a IRS swap or 3-link swap.

Both of them are weekend/road trip cars I don't do donuts or track days. If there's an opportunity to make them feel more modern I'll take it and I'll spend... arm money anyway. Who's got the good stuff for this kind of use?

 

[RAU03MACH]

You want to lower it at a reasonable cost
Is what I'm thinking

 

[Warhorse Racing]

There are many different aftermarket upper & lower control arms available, and you'll probably get varying opinions about which brand is best. For most applications, the bushings are a key factor. Good rear control arms with good bushings will add composure and consistency to your rear suspension. The upper control arms help mitigate side-to-side movement and eliminate the "nervous" feeling in the rear end; the lowers help improve traction when launching or rolling on the throttle out of a corner. You'll see more benefits from the rear upper control arms than the lowers for daily driving. But your lowers are in need of changing, so an upgrade isn't a bad idea.

I'm not a fan of entry-level rear control arms with 2-piece poly bushings. I have used Steeda rear upper & lower control arms with 3-piece poly bushings on a couple of my autocross cars and they've performed very well. I know you're not racing your car, but durability is a concern with entry-level control arm bushings.

The Steeda rear control arms also come with poly upper differential housing bushings that are a big improvement over the OEM rubber bushings. Here's a link to the 99-04 kit; they also make a 79-98 kit. Steeda recommends using adjustable rear upper control arms on 1997-1/2 to 1998 models.

Steeda Mustang Rear Upper & Lower Control Arm Kit (1999-2004), 555-2002

Looking to improve performance or just rebuild yourSN95 Ford Mustang stock rear suspension? This cost effective upgrade is exactly what you need!

www.steeda.com

You can also check out J&M rear upper & lower control arms. They are slightly less expensive, and they feature 3-piece poly bushings.

Some of the information in this video might also help you. It covers the Steeda aluminum rear upper & lower control arms and provides some install tips.

 

[badass98svt]

Tried and true Maximum Motorsports lowers and OEM uppers with new bushings.

Heavy Duty Control Arms

 

[Wood's 5.0]

I have Steeda uppers and Lowers in mine and am 100% satisfied.

 

[95opal]

Another vote for steeda arms

 

[shovel]

The hard 1 or 2 piece bushings are what I was hoping to avoid, I've seen a few videos about that and it makes perfect sense that the arms need some range of motion to allow smooth vertical suspension movement and it's not hard to assume units with spherical bearings won't be as comfortable in a road tripper.
So among the units with 3 piece bushings is there any reason to believe J&M would be less durable than Maximum Motorsports or Steeda?

The cost difference is more than lunch and I'm not on enough of a diet to worry about five pounds when the axle they're tied to weighs hundreds.

 

[Warhorse Racing]

The hard 1 or 2 piece bushings are what I was hoping to avoid, I've seen a few videos about that and it makes perfect sense that the arms need some range of motion to allow smooth vertical suspension movement and it's not hard to assume units with spherical bearings won't be as comfortable in a road tripper.
So among the units with 3 piece bushings is there any reason to believe J&M would be less durable than Maximum Motorsports or Steeda?

The cost difference is more than lunch and I'm not on enough of a diet to worry about five pounds when the axle they're tied to weighs hundreds.

Spherical bushings will add NVH; they aren't the best option for your application. I included a video about the Steeda aluminum arms because the bushing design and installation process is the same as the steel arms. You can use steel Steeda arms for your build (they are less expensive). I haven't personally used the J&M arms, but I have used some of their other parts and found them to be very good quality for the price.

 

[Musturd]

If my car didn’t have steedas I’d probably go with j&m’s

 

[cobrajeff96]

I can't recommend a lateral suspension component enough here, really for any SRA car. I'm convinced through experience and the opinion of true experts out there that only stock rubber to spherical should be used on a stock-style geometry, and never poly or delrin. There is just too much unwanted movement in the rear on stock geometry, really in the planes of movement that the UCAs allow.

If the car had either a panhard bar better yet a watt's link, then you can run any type of bushing you want. The car will handle better and have more comfortable ride quality, guaranteed. You can certainly eliminate the UCAs entirely in those cases, quad shocks too.

 

[Snorky]

Tried and true Maximum Motorsports lowers and OEM uppers with new bushings.

Heavy Duty Control Arms

I too am a big fan of the HD lowers and stock uppers. ON Red car I am ditching the upper and lower poly arms for hd lowers and stock uppers.

 

[shovel]

I can't recommend a lateral suspension component enough here, really for any SRA car. I'm convinced through experience and the opinion of true experts out there that only stock rubber to spherical should be used on a stock-style geometry, and never poly or delrin. There is just too much unwanted movement in the rear on stock geometry, really in the planes of movement that the UCAs allow.

If the car had either a panhard bar better yet a watt's link, then you can run any type of bushing you want. The car will handle better and have more comfortable ride quality, guaranteed. You can certainly eliminate the UCAs entirely in those cases, quad shocks too.

I'm not in disagreement about that, obviously 5th gen Mustangs went to a panhard for a reason but that puts me on the path of ok why not go a step further and IRS swap then... I could "just another couple hundred bucks" myself into credit card debt pretty fast.
Arms are where I'm going to have to draw the line on this one.

 

[cobrajeff96]

Yea, IRS is king of course, but it's a question of money as you said. You could easily get an SRA to be quite nice though. I did that for a few years and I was quite happy with the Watts Link + other stuff back there.

 

[Warhorse Racing]

There are many different ways to make these cars handle better. But it is worth noting that you can get your car to handle better without a PB/TA, Watt's link or an IRS swap. My 1992 GT and my 2000 GT (before the IRS swap) both used Steeda upper & lower control arms and a $150 Steeda adjustable rear sway bar (along with other mods), and they were able to compete with (and beat) cars with more mods (that cost a lot more money). I didn't win every time, but I did well with a "budget" suspension setup. My 1992 GT and my 2000 GT do not have coil-overs or aftermarket K-members. I've never had an issue with quadra-bind using the Steeda upper & lower control arms. Quadra-bind is a real thing, but it's very common for people to make their cars too low or too stiff, then say the handling problems are due to quadra-bind.

I promise not to keep posting Fox videos on this thread, but I was told the setup on this car would never be competitive. You can see how it handles on the runs, and how it stacks up against newer cars in the results.

 

[shovel]

Quadra-bind is a real thing, but it's very common for people to make their cars too low or too stiff, then say the handling problems are due to quadra-bind.

Lower or different springs aren't going to be a factor for me as I'm not lowering it or changing springs, and both cars have new KYB shocks/struts. Truly the only thing these cars will do under my ownership is stack up as many miles as possible on highways and country roads for personal enjoyment I'm not competing with anyone, drag racing, putting down crazy horsepower, doing donuts or pursuing any cosmetic goals which involve suspension.


So I'm refreshing the suspension purely out of age and if stock is the right answer I can just put stock replacement arms in it but if premium aftermarket arms/bushings can make curves more confident without making weathered asphalt more frustrating, well that's worth doing.

 

[Musturd]

There are many different ways to make these cars handle better. But it is worth noting that you can get your car to handle better without a PB/TA, Watt's link or an IRS swap. My 1992 GT and my 2000 GT (before the IRS swap) both used Steeda upper & lower control arms and a $150 Steeda adjustable rear sway bar (along with other mods), and they were able to compete with (and beat) cars with more mods (that cost a lot more money). I didn't win every time, but I did well with a "budget" suspension setup. My 1992 GT and my 2000 GT do not have coil-overs or aftermarket K-members. I've never had an issue with quadra-bind using the Steeda upper & lower control arms. Quadra-bind is a real thing, but it's very common for people to make their cars too low or too stiff, then say the handling problems are due to quadra-bind.

I promise not to keep posting Fox videos on this thread, but I was told the setup on this car would never be competitive. You can see how it handles on the runs, and how it stacks up against newer cars in the results.

There are many different ways to make these cars handle better. But it is worth noting that you can get your car to handle better without a PB/TA, Watt's link or an IRS swap. My 1992 GT and my 2000 GT (before the IRS swap) both used Steeda upper & lower control arms and a $150 Steeda adjustable rear sway bar (along with other mods), and they were able to compete with (and beat) cars with more mods (that cost a lot more money). I didn't win every time, but I did well with a "budget" suspension setup. My 1992 GT and my 2000 GT do not have coil-overs or aftermarket K-members. I've never had an issue with quadra-bind using the Steeda upper & lower control arms. Quadra-bind is a real thing, but it's very common for people to make their cars too low or too stiff, then say the handling problems are due to quadra-bind.

I promise not to keep posting Fox videos on this thread, but I was told the setup on this car would never be competitive. You can see how it handles on the runs, and how it stacks up against newer cars in the results.

Same setup as my car the steeda stuff just works .