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Aaron Luptak

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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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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.

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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.

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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.

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wvonkessler
Thanks nubby. Still trying to figger out what the best front suspension would be. Would be nice if the self professed expert here would give his .02.

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wvonkessler
64-66, then 67-68. Chassis is similar, sheet metal is not.

If nubby would repost, that would be great. Plan would be to build it with a better suspension and drivetrain, but classic looks. 107" wheelbase and 2500 lbs. nothing extraneous, just fun.

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wvonkessler





Input welcome.

Wilson