Ford Mustang Forums banner
721 - 740 of 1,272 Posts
I also have never read of a problem with interference with the upper control arm mounts. I went out and checked my car, driver side had about 3/8" clearance, passenger side I could pass my index finger between cradle and chassis (so about 3/4").

Jay
 
Discussion starter · #722 ·
I got it at harbor freight for $180 which isn't bad. It well worth the price considering it so far had made quick work of getting the cradle test fitted into the car. The only thing you have to do is raise the car up high enough to get it under the car with the cradle on it. The lift sits 9-1/4 inches off the ground so I had to lift the car up another couple inches so I could roll the cart with the cradle on it under the car. Also there is a handle that is on the back of the cart. I leave it unbolted so I can remove it when I roll the cart under the car.

I'm definitely running into more issues installing this IRS then I had planned. I didn't see the fuel line or upper control arm mount issues but I should be able to push through them this week. I want to start the assembly of the IRS by the end of the week. I really need to have the IRS installed before the end of the year so I have time for the other updates I want to get done on the car.
 
Discussion starter · #723 ·
I also have never read of a problem with interference with the upper control arm mounts. I went out and checked my car, driver side had about 3/8" clearance, passenger side I could pass my index finger between cradle and chassis (so about 3/4").

Jay
I know that's why I was kind of thrown off by it when I noticed the problem. Hopefully this isn't pointing to a deeper issue I can't see right now.
 
Discussion starter · #724 ·
The fight with the IRS cradle continues. I did some more reading and made some changes on how I'm installing the cradle. I removed the upper mounts from the car and bolted them to the cradle. I focused on getting the lower cradle mounts in with bolts installed. I got them into position then used a spud wrench to get everything aligned I was able to install the bolt but it wouldn't go all the way through.



The other side was the same issue. Not sure if other people have run into this problem. I decided to rotate the cradle so the upper mounts were against the frame which went good the only issue I have is the one bolt that should line up doesn't line up.





This could be due to fords crappy tolerances but I'm not sure. This turning out to be more of a project then I thought. I'm going to work on it more tonight to see if I can at least get the bolts through the lower mounts on the cradle.
 
Discussion starter · #725 ·
More work on the car last night I was able to easily get the lower bolts the rest of the way through. It just need a bit more alignment. When I got that done I lowered the rear of the cradle put the upper brackets on and swung up the rear of the cradle. Everything went up fine it aligned to the frame fine and the brackets sit flush on the frame rail. The only issue is the one old quad shock bolt that lines up does line up but the bracket doesn't go high enough up to get the bolt installed.

Now if I mount the bracket to the car first using that one bolt the bracket won't sit flush with the frame and sits a slight angle.









Now from the pictures you can see part of the problem is the metal that's spot welded to the frame rail. If I remove it the bracket might sit flush with the one bolt installed. But not sure I should be cutting that off considering that's part of the section the gas tank bolts to the car. I could cut it off and have a piece welded to it and attach it to the side of the frame rail. Plus I have never seen any other install where that had to remove the metal from the frame rail.

The other thing I could do is put the brackets on the cradle raise it into position mark everything get it all bolted up and the one inside either slot the bolt hole more to see if I can get it to a point where I can get a bolt into it or remove the nut in the frame rail slot the frame a bit and run a nut bolt through.

Either way should work just need to figure out the route I'm going to take so I can get this part done. I want to get this built so I can get it in the car fully assembled. I still need to figure out where I'm going to mount the fuel filter and run the lines.

I really thought this was going to go allot easier but I should have known better.
 
Maybe it's the years (decades) of commercial/industrial sheet metal work that helps me understand things don't need to line up perfectly to work out just fine. That's what clamps, jacks, drift pins, chain hoists, pry bars, and such things were made for! I see nothing you've shown that would deter me for a moment, but I will admit to a heavy handed approach when need be. Main thing is that the bracket is tight to the frame on both the side and bottom before marking and/or drilling the holes, using whatever methods required to make that happen. The last picture I'd clamp the bottom of that bracket to the frame, draw it up tight, take a 12mm bit, run it up through the bracket, and drill enough of the holes to get centers located. The urethane bushings in the cradle will give enough to allow slight misalignment issues, you can turn the bolts in and let the threads pull them in if you can get them started into the mounting holes.

Jay
 
I looked it over more last night and I can't move the lines back anymore then they already are right now. I think my best bet is to either cut the end off and add a tube nut and replace the last part of the fuel line with steel braided line or just replace all the line with steel braided line. If I do the first one I will most likely remove the lines from the car to cut and put the ends on. I want to make sure they are as clean as possible since this will be after the filter.

I figure what I will do is cut this straight section in the middle and possibly use a 45 degree adapter to kick the lines up towards the floor of the trunk.



Then I will remove the factory style filter and replace it with a Aeromotive 10 micron filter and possibly mount it right in this area.



I'm going to get the lines cut tonight so I can try and get the IRS cradle in the car and see what other issues I might have with the install.
Peter, not sure if you saw what I did but I cut up my stock filter bracket, welded a plate to it and bolted a filter to it that allows -6 AN fittings. It's a 100 micron unit used as a "prefilter" and have a finer mesh filter just prior to the carburetor. Works very well.







I bent up my own lines from the filter forward and ran them on the driver side as I used a mechanical fuel pump and it needed the line run on that side.



Good luck!
 
Discussion starter · #728 ·
Peter, not sure if you saw what I did but I cut up my stock filter bracket, welded a plate to it and bolted a filter to it that allows -6 AN fittings. It's a 100 micron unit used as a "prefilter" and have a finer mesh filter just prior to the carburetor. Works very well.







I bent up my own lines from the filter forward and ran them on the driver side as I used a mechanical fuel pump and it needed the line run on that side.



Good luck!
I remember seeing your setup that's what gave me the idea with the filter. I'm probably going to mount mine to the trunk floor or the spare tire area. I would like to put it where you have yours the only problem is the upper control arm mounts will get in the way.
 
Discussion starter · #732 ·
Its been a while since i reported on the car so I thought I would give an update. There hasn't been an progress on the IRS its still sitting in the same position. I had to go out of town for work and a few other things have kept me from working on it. I've also been working on the front of the car. I wanted to switch to SN95 arms in the front of the car and eliminate the spacers I was running. Since Maximum Motorsports had a weekend deal on the SN95 control arms I decided get them.



I took all the front suspension out of the car and got ready to install the new arms.



Then I mocked up all the new front suspension parts. to get an idea how everything will fit together.



The body of the MCS coilovers are about a 1/2 narrower then the Koni's that used to be in the front of the car add the fact I'm switching to a 8inch spring I was able to remove all my wheel spacers from the car. I'm also going to switch to a 10.5 inch wide rim with a +18mm offset I should an 1/8 inch more outside clearance and 5/16 more strut to wheel clearance. I'm also gaining a bunch of camber in the front. When I had it maxed out I could only get about -2.3 degrees of camber. When got all installed and set the suspension to ride height just to see how much camber I was getting out of the front it was at -5.3 degrees. It wasn't completely accurate since not everything was torqued down but I should be able to get -3 degrees of camber on the front of the car now.

The one thing I did notice about the MCS coilovers is they are longer then the Koni's by about 1-3/4 inches.



I run the car about 2 inches lower then stock right now. The MCS have about 5-7/8 inches of total travel from full droop to full compression The Koni's have just over 6 inches. When I set the car to my normal ride height I only have about 2 inches of bump travel in the MCS shocks. The Koni's I normally had just under 4 inches of bump travel but there droop travel was limited to about 2 inches.

I bought the MCS coilovers from Race Ready Motorsports so I decided to contact them to see what they thought of what I was seeing. The owner Jon mentioned these are the second version of these shocks there first version MCS made were to short and didn't have enough droop travel. He checked around with other customers running these shock and they are running there cars with 2-3/4 of bump travel which is about the middle of the shocks travel. I would need to raise the car by 3/4 of an inch to get that much travel. Which I figured I would have no choice to do but Jon had another idea. He wants to have MCS remake them shorter since he does feel they are a bit to long. He's offering to do this at no cost to me and offered to pay for all the shipping. Which I thought was pretty awesome for him to do when he could of told me to just raise the ride height on the car. Its customer service like this that makes me go back to companies like Race Ready Motorsports. Now the one worry I have about making them shorter is I'm not sure what ride height the IRS is going to like. I might have to run the ride height higher in the front because the rear needs to be raised to make the rear of the car work. I noticed most lowering springs of the cobra lower the rear of the car by about 1.5 inches.

This week I'm going to switch my focus back to the IRS I need to get the brackets mounted in the car so I can get that out of the way so I can start to build the IRS on the cart. The last two weeks of the year I will probably take off work which will hopefully give me a chance to really focus on the car so I can get it done. I'm definitely not where I would like to be on progress but I kind of figured this would happen.
 
I'm currently working on the front of my car as well. I have had an '04 steering rack for a few years now and installed that, new spindles, and the 35mm Eibach front sway bar. Of course the sway bar didn't clear the Moroso front sump, so now I need to fab some spacers to lower the bar slightly. For some reason the new spindles reduced the camber enough that I have to swap sides of the MM plates on top? They are both '96-'04 spindles, this situation surprised me. Such is the state of affairs when mixing & matching parts, always seems like an issue will arise if it can. What spindles are called for with your new setup?

Your MCS stuff looks really nice, where did you learn about this company? Will you be adding a 35mm Eibach bar up front as well?

Jay
 
Discussion starter · #734 ·
I'm currently working on the front of my car as well. I have had an '04 steering rack for a few years now and installed that, new spindles, and the 35mm Eibach front sway bar. Of course the sway bar didn't clear the Moroso front sump, so now I need to fab some spacers to lower the bar slightly. For some reason the new spindles reduced the camber enough that I have to swap sides of the MM plates on top? They are both '96-'04 spindles, this situation surprised me. Such is the state of affairs when mixing & matching parts, always seems like an issue will arise if it can. What spindles are called for with your new setup?

Your MCS stuff looks really nice, where did you learn about this company? Will you be adding a 35mm Eibach bar up front as well?

Jay
I first started seeing MCS coilovers on Vorshlag site. They've been around for years now in allot of racing series. I heard the founder of the company used to work for was an owner in JRZ and Moton. There made in the US and have really good build quality. They also have an option for 2 way adjustable coilover rears for the IRS. Here's the link to the place I got them the owner Jon is a really great guy.

https://racereadymotorsport.com/collections/fox-mustang-suspension-1/products/mcs-coilovers-foxbody

Here's some information about Motion Control Suspension.

http://motioncontrolsuspension.com/

I have the Eibach bar for my car but haven't had a chance to install it. I currently have the power steering rack zip tied to it so I could get the bolts out for the lower control arms. I have plenty of room with my sway bar since mine is moved 1-1/2 inches forward and the motor is set 1 inch back. I'm running the ford racing 7 quart road race pan on my car.
 
I've looked at other damper systems, I really like what I'm seeing with the design, quality , and technology incorporated in the MCS equipment. Unfortunately they are currently a budget buster for my purposes, it does give one pause to wonder how much is possible with the newer tech. You're changing so much on the car, I'm not sure you would be able to give an accurate description of what the MCS gear brings to the table versus your old setup, but I will be eagerly anticipating your thoughts nonetheless.

Jay
 
Discussion starter · #736 ·
I've looked at other damper systems, I really like what I'm seeing with the design, quality , and technology incorporated in the MCS equipment. Unfortunately they are currently a budget buster for my purposes, it does give one pause to wonder how much is possible with the newer tech. You're changing so much on the car, I'm not sure you would be able to give an accurate description of what the MCS gear brings to the table versus your old setup, but I will be eagerly anticipating your thoughts nonetheless.

Jay
It's going to be hard to tell how much they improve the handling since I'm going to a completely different rear suspension design. It's hard to image that the car is going to be better then it was at the last event. I only removed the sway bar and the car was allot better.

I did get some work done on the car tonight I focused on the IRS. I got the quad shock bolt in with the cradle.



It took a bit of work but its part way in. Now I need to mark the locations of the other bolts and start drilling holes. I also figured out how I'm going to route the brake lines and fuel lines. Once have the holes drilled for the upper mounts and it bolted in I'm going to make sure I can put it into place without any issues. Then pull it out and start to put it together.
 
Discussion starter · #737 ·
More work done on the car last two nights. I got the upper brackets mounted on the car. I would like to say I did something cool to get them mounted that looks totally factory but I didn't. I just drilled holes in the car and ran bolts through to make it work. I also didn't document it very well since it was really what I have seen a bunch of people do and sometimes when I'm making progress I forget to stop and take pictures. So I really only got pictures of the finished product.





The one thing I did do before I drilled all these holes was make sure everything was square in the car. When I had the motor out of the car I decided to check to make sure the k-member was still square in the car. So I know my k-member is square to the car. I talked with Jack at MM about how I could make sure the IRS cradle was square in the car. My fear that the cradle was not straight came from the fact when I installed it I seemed to have interference in places people don't normally have problems. So following Jacks instructions I made sure the cradle was straight in the car. I found that everything was straight so I marked and drilled the holes need to mount the brackets.

Now I'm going to pull the cradle out of the car and start building it on the cart so I can get it ready to install. I still need to finish plumbing up the fuel system and getting the brake plumbing figured out so I can get that in before the IRS gets installed. The one thing I'm not sure of is now that I have the upper brackets installed can I install the IRS with the gas tank installed in the car. I want to get all the fuel lines run the tank back in the car so I can prime the fuel system to make sure it doesn't leak. I don't want to get a ton of work done only to find I have a leaking fitting that I can't get to without removing the IRS from the car.
 
Interesting that you mention the tank, mine has not yet been put back. Just went out and looked the situation over, and the strap bolt on the driver side is going to be a very tight squeeze. Might even require a swivel socket. I think it would be good to have the tank in place first, looks like there isn't much room between tank and axle assembly.

I'm in the set-up process currently, oh joy now there are four corners to bump steer, and set toe and camber. I found out the hard way not to have the rear coil overs installed before setting bump steer, as the tie rod won't drop past the shock bolt. In addition, shim stack turned out to be different between the two sides. I got 2-5/8* camber with the FTBR cam bolts, so I set the front to the same amount.

BTW, nice job with the rear bracket install, looks great! Did you relocate the rear bolt hole in the brackets so as to not bother with the partially covered location? If so, that was a smart move so as to not to have to weld on the brackets. Glad to see you moving forward on the IRS build, still plenty to accomplish before you are ready to go play again.

Jay
 
Discussion starter · #739 ·
Interesting that you mention the tank, mine has not yet been put back. Just went out and looked the situation over, and the strap bolt on the driver side is going to be a very tight squeeze. Might even require a swivel socket. I think it would be good to have the tank in place first, looks like there isn't much room between tank and axle assembly.
I think the IRS should go in fine with the tank installed. The tank bolts on my car would be really hard to get in once the IRS is installed. Not to mention connecting the fuel lines. I pretty sure I know where I'm going to mount the fuel filter just need to do some clearance checks.

I'm in the set-up process currently, oh joy now there are four corners to bump steer, and set toe and camber. I found out the hard way not to have the rear coil overs installed before setting bump steer, as the tie rod won't drop past the shock bolt. In addition, shim stack turned out to be different between the two sides. I got 2-5/8* camber with the FTBR cam bolts, so I set the front to the same amount.
I have some time until I'm going to get into the alignment phase. I'm amazed you were able to get that much camber out of the rear. I had read most people only get a max of 1.5 degrees of camber. How much toe are you going to run on the car?

BTW, nice job with the rear bracket install, looks great! Did you relocate the rear bolt hole in the brackets so as to not bother with the partially covered location? If so, that was a smart move so as to not to have to weld on the brackets. Glad to see you moving forward on the IRS build, still plenty to accomplish before you are ready to go play again.

Jay
I just drilled a new hole in the side of the car. It worked good the nut on the other side is held in place by the factory one in the frame rail. Not my most inventive work but it will do the job. I'm going to drop the cradle out of the car tonight. I did think of one flaw to my plan to put the tank in the car first I wouldn't be able to wheel the IRS under the car with the tank installed. What I could do is get the front of the IRS mounted with the rear of it swung down out of the way install the tank connect the lines prime the system to make sure it doesn't leak the swing the IRS up into place.
 
I don't know how much difference there is in the tank mounting locations between the Fox and the SNs, but I did confirm that on my car the strap bolt on the driver side can be installed with the IRS in place. I will have a towel in place so as not to mar the powder, it is tight! I think it only makes sense, surely Ford wouldn't make the tank mounts inaccessible with the rear suspension in place.

Jay
 
721 - 740 of 1,272 Posts
Top