Ford Performance GT350 Lowering Springs Group Buy

How long would you say all 4 took

2 days off and on again. Its was 100deg outside and humid the garage with a portable cooler was still hot. I took lots of breaks for water and to go inside to cool off ,surf the net, watch the news, etc. There really wasn't any motivation to go quick which wasn't possible as this was my first time working on a Ford. I had to get myself orientated to how their engineers put things together.

Lowering the subframe to release tension on the rear springs was a first. Especially with all this talk of subframe misalignment even from the factory, I was cautious and did a lot of reading. European cars use a special spring compressor and everything else you just release and lower the arm. I am still curious if the euro method would work making it 30min to swap out the rear springs. Tool pic attached below...

If I were to do it again straight through knowing what I know now the fronts 1hr and rear 1.5-2hrs. Add time to put the car on stands and remove wheels 3-4hrs total. I probably would only buy a new strut top nut and the lower bolts and nuts for the front. The swaybar nut is real long and I don't think there is any issue re-using them. If they fail you would hear a clunk and know to address them. The strut mounting itself is the critical part so I would just concern myself with them.

Did the alignment and surprisingly it was almost spot on to the track specs given in the supplemental manual. Ford did a good job designing these springs

The toe on the front left was out .03 and right .13

On the rear I needed an additional .03 on each side

As far as ride height it lowered it 3/8 on the front and 1/2 on the rear. The fronts should settle out at 1/2 so these are right to Fords published specs.

The ride in town is a lot better the car handles the wallows better and doesn't bob through them so that tells me there's more dampening. On larger dips there is a more pronounced affect again showing more dampening as the coils get stiffer more quickly through the compression. Overall I am very happy with the results just wished they were stock even on street driven cars.

Here is a little something to give you hypertension. Courtesy of my buddy VoodooBoss at Track Mustangs Online.

Carbon2Carbon R front splitter
R spec 6GR's
R spec Michelin Pilot SC2's 305/35/19
Ford Performance Lowering Springs

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Rick always has the coolest toys and gets everything first...:coolphotos:

Here's a list of the bolts and nuts that are to replaced when doing these springs according to the Ford shop manual for the GT350. This list is complete except for these parts: the caliper bolts (i'm installing the caliperfexion studs so don't need them) and the 6 front upper strut mount nuts (camber/caster plate kit I'm installing has these nuts so don't need these either).

Also, I put together this list for 2 GT350's as me and a buddy are doing the install at the same time so you just need to half the quantities in this list.

Still waiting on the call. Number 40 something on the list. I wonder if I should start looking at any and all vendors. All of these pics are making me jealous that I don't have mine yet, lol.

You don't need the stabilizer link nut. Those things are huge and also use a nyloc retainer not sure why they list it.

Also the hardware is "recommended" which is different from "necessary".

The front strut top retaining nut and front strut lower bolts and nuts are good insurance since they are critical suspension components so I would and have replaced those. The others are nice to have but not absolutely necessary. You'll hear a clunk if the swaybar link nut starts backing off the same for the rear shock hardware. The front strut is an integral part of the suspension the lower strut bolts have knurl ends at the base so they don't fall out if the retaining nut falls off.

Trying to figure out the lower control arm bolts your listing? There should be no reason to remove either the front or rear control arms for the coil spring install.
The front strut assembly comes off with removing the lower 2 bolts and nuts from the spindle and top 3 retaining nuts from the shock tower. The rear coils come out when the subframe is lowered since they sit between the body spring perch and lower control arm perch. When the rear subframe is lowered the tension is taken off the spring so you can remove it.

Any news on the second run of deliveries?

Just talked to Mike. He is expecting them anytime now

50 Deep said:

Just talked to Mike. He is expecting them anytime now

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Thanks for the heads up!

Lexluther said:

Rear left spring comparision

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So while we were installing a buddy's springs yesterday, I noticed this and was a bit confused about it.

Any thought on why they would switch the tight coils from the bottom on stock to the top on lowering springs on these?

RustedAngel said:

So while we were installing a buddy's springs yesterday, I noticed this and was a bit confused about it.

Any thought on why they would switch the tight coils from the bottom on stock to the top on lowering springs on these?

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Very interesting question. When you think about how the spring will move, if the wire is the same diameter everywhere, the tight coils effectively have a lower spring rate. So there will be more compression in the area of the spring that has the tight coils. Off the top of my head I would think it would be better to have the tight coils on the bottom, because the amount of mass moving with the tire/wheel/suspension is reduced. However, it's going to be reduced such an extremely small amount because the coil spring is a small percentage of the total unsprung weight that the difference is probably imperceptible.

After considering a little more, I think they probably they changed it so that it's easy to tell the difference between the stock springs and these aftermarket ones.

Hack said:

Very interesting question. When you think about how the spring will move, if the wire is the same diameter everywhere, the tight coils effectively have a lower spring rate. So there will be more compression in the area of the spring that has the tight coils. Off the top of my head I would think it would be better to have the tight coils on the bottom, because the amount of mass moving with the tire/wheel/suspension is reduced. However, it's going to be reduced such an extremely small amount because the coil spring is a small percentage of the total unsprung weight that the difference is probably imperceptible.

After considering a little more, I think they probably they changed it so that it's easy to tell the difference between the stock springs and these aftermarket ones.

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I've been doing a bit of digging. I think the difference is - the stock springs are linear, these lowering springs (in the rear) are Dual Rate. I think. That makes more sense to me in the big scheme of MagRide tuning and the different shock modes.

Almost seems like the dual rate is an insurance policy against bottoming out the shock, possibly protecting the shock mount, at a fast, extreme compression on a shortened spring.

To have increased flex rate.. The FP spring coils at the top are almost collapsed jacked up in my pic so they are compressed when the car is on the ground. The rest of the coils are the actions coils so if you hit a large dip or bump the compressed ones are there to push the wheel down to make sure it stays in contact with the road. The stock springs have just an extra coil at the bottom because of the deep pocket of the control arm. Effectively they are doing the same thing and making sure the spring doesn't fall out at full extension of the suspension. The stock is doing in a way that the car rides better by the way the coils are packed. And the FP are doing it in a way to provide traction rather than comfort. Both are ride control but for different reasons.

[MENTION=12069]Hack[/MENTION] The design looks similar to a progressive spring however ford advertised this as a linear spring. So think more of an offroad to spring keep the wheel down (dual action spring) rather than a progressive spring which is variable rate. The coils are the same size just tightly packed so they are the same rate. They are packed and compressed at ride height and during normal driving so they have no effective rate until they are decompressed.