Old Mustang Mental Masturbation

Thank you John. The next questions I have are:

(1) what would be the most painless way to convert the front to struts long enough to be effective? Assume I know nothing about strut suspension geometry. Should I spec an available conversion kit but without the short travel struts that will be inevitably specced with it? If it is a short travel spec, how do I reengineer to long travel? If no kit, what knuckles and other fabrication? I assume the escort type struts could be used.

(2) there are readily available 4 link kits, but with significantly shorter upper links. If I go with the traditional parallel long links used for rally, where do I source the front chassis bracket, how do I determine the length of the links and whether I put them inside or outside the frame rails, how do I build the links and with what hardware and wherefrom and same regarding mounting them and the shocks to the axle?

I have other questions, but these are the initial ones.

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"Talk about drugs. Driving a car like that, going that fast, it’s like all the drugs at once." - Tommy Byrne

"Now, Pinky, if by any chance you are captured during this mission, remember you are Gunther Heindriksen from Appenzell. You moved to Grindelwald to drive the cog train to Murren. Can you repeat that?" - The Brain

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wvonkessler
Thank you John. The next questions I have are:

(1) what would be the most painless way to convert the front to struts long enough to be effective? Assume I know nothing about strut suspension geometry. Should I spec an available conversion kit but without the short travel struts that will be inevitably specced with it? If it is a short travel spec, how do I reengineer to long travel? If no kit, what knuckles and other fabrication? I assume the escort type struts could be used.

(2) there are readily available 4 link kits, but with significantly shorter upper links. If I go with the traditional parallel long links used for rally, where do I source the front chassis bracket, how do I determine the length of the links and whether I put them inside or outside the frame rails, how do I build the links and with what hardware and wherefrom and same regarding mounting them and the shocks to the axle?

I have other questions, but these are the initial ones.

If all y'alls is still up I just Peee 'em-ed ya so gimme a call.

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

See above - bung a Volvo front end in it.

Why Volvo? Because it's simple and they were made more or less the same for decades.

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Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing)
1978
Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.

Quote
Pete
See above - bung a Volvo front end in it.

Why Volvo? Because it's simple and they were made more or less the same for decades.

Naw, later Moose-angst went to strut mounting that are like Dubya Arsey cars and they have options with good brakes cheeper...

So some Moose-angst later spindle./hubs/brakes
Some quicker version of some Moose-angst rack if its quick enough
Some yumme struts with 8.8" travel.

Some kinda links to attach knuckle to crossmember and a tension rod or compression strut..

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

The Mustang stuff is shit. The geometry is utter, absolute garbage. It is as if the Ford people in charge of the Fox body had a meeting and asked, how high can we make the ball joint? And the engineers worked and worked and worked their asses off until they came up with a ball joint so high, and the steering geometry so flawed, that the suspension didn't do anything right until you made it so stiff that it didn't move anymore. Which isn't "doing things right" but rather "kept from doing things wrong".

70% of the Fox body suspension aftermarket that isn't low and slow is unfucking the front end. The rest is in unfucking the rear end.

If all you want out of a Fox front end is the right bolt pattern, hell then just bung a FC RX-7 front end under it. Much better/stronger than the Fox junk for just a little more work.

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Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing)
1978
Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2015 08:49PM by Pete.

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Pete
The Mustang stuff is shit. The geometry is utter, absolute garbage. It is as if the Ford people in charge of the Fox body had a meeting and asked, how high can we make the ball joint? And the engineers worked and worked and worked their asses off until they came up with a ball joint so high, and the steering geometry so flawed, that the suspension didn't do anything right until you made it so stiff that it didn't move anymore. Which isn't "doing things right" but rather "kept from doing things wrong".

70% of the Fox body suspension aftermarket that isn't low and slow is unfucking the front end. The rest is in unfucking the rear end.

If all you want out of a Fox front end is the right bolt pattern, hell then just bung a FC RX-7 front end under it. Much better/stronger than the Fox junk for just a little more work.

I've only done a little reading on it, but my impression was that the gen after the Fox (SN95?) solved a lot of those issues, with nearly the same mounting points - and is old enough at this point that it's not really any more expensive than the fox body stuff.

But I could be wrong?

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KF7RWG
http://www.utahrallygroup.com

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Aaron Luptak

Quote
Pete
The Mustang stuff is shit. The geometry is utter, absolute garbage. It is as if the Ford people in charge of the Fox body had a meeting and asked, how high can we make the ball joint? And the engineers worked and worked and worked their asses off until they came up with a ball joint so high, and the steering geometry so flawed, that the suspension didn't do anything right until you made it so stiff that it didn't move anymore. Which isn't "doing things right" but rather "kept from doing things wrong".

70% of the Fox body suspension aftermarket that isn't low and slow is unfucking the front end. The rest is in unfucking the rear end.

If all you want out of a Fox front end is the right bolt pattern, hell then just bung a FC RX-7 front end under it. Much better/stronger than the Fox junk for just a little more work.

I've only done a little reading on it, but my impression was that the gen after the Fox (SN95?) solved a lot of those issues, with nearly the same mounting points - and is old enough at this point that it's not really any more expensive than the fox body stuff.

But I could be wrong?

Not wrong, the front suspension can be tweeked to preform well with little cost. The rear is a
fucking nightmare. They didn't call it the quadrabind for shits and giggles...

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SteveL
This is the point in the killing spree when you really should turn the gun on yourself

Hey guys, i have a 67 iv been toying with making into a rally car, duncan from the 2009 i think it was, east africa rally used toyota truck control arms for the front and mounted long travel shocks to the lower, i think he had 2 on each side, the rear he had a baja style trailing arm i think its called with the toyota rerend but even he said that car was hard to win with, too heavy, thats why he used a capri next time.