RLCA bearing: who has removed theirs?

[Bluemustang]

I don't disagree with your methodology here, but I do disagree that the bearing causes binding. I have the stock vertical links (see zero reason to change them out), but everything else is bearings. With the sway bar disconnected and the spring/shock removed, the whole assembly moved from stop to stop buttery smooth. No binding at all whatsoever. My guess is that you will get the best results swapping out your struts/shocks with something different. The reading I've done on those Ford Performance shocks and struts is that they are only incrementally above the stock PP struts and shocks, which are woefully underdamped. :shrug:

I admit I am a bit confused myself. I do have some Koni dampers in my garage and BMR SP080 springs. I could pickup a BMR SP089 front spring...

I find it hard to believe others with the FRPP track pack haven't run into these issues that I'm having and that led me to believe that the bearings may be not meshing well with the overall setup.

The Ford Racing shocks, they do feel underdamped to me though.

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[BmacIL]

I admit I am a bit confused myself. I do have some Koni dampers in my garage and BMR SP080 springs. I could pickup a BMR SP089 front spring...

I find it hard to believe others with the FRPP track pack haven't run into these issues that I'm having and that led me to believe that the bearings may be not meshing well with the overall setup.

The Ford Racing shocks, they do feel underdamped to me though.

I still think you'll be happiest keeping the RLCA bearings and going to the 089/082 springs with your Ford Racing dampers. They're definitely more than just a small step above the PP, but do not have the rebound capability of the Koni when adjusted as so. I don't think you'll want that, though. Control and precision is more rewarding than firmness. Keep the things that make the car more precise, predictable and controlled and take away what makes it harsh.

 

[lugz]

I find it hard to believe others with the FRPP track pack haven't run into these issues that I'm having and that led me to believe that the bearings may be not meshing well with the overall setup.

The Ford Racing shocks, they do feel underdamped to me though.

IMO the bearings helped make the rear much more predictable under power and in transitions. Totally agree with you on the annoyance of the progressive springs combined with underdamped shocks.

 

[Bluemustang]

I still think you'll be happiest keeping the RLCA bearings and going to the 089/082 springs with your Ford Racing dampers. They're definitely more than just a small step above the PP, but do not have the rebound capability of the Koni when adjusted as so. I don't think you'll want that, though. Control and precision is more rewarding than firmness. Keep the things that make the car more precise, predictable and controlled and take away what makes it harsh.

I went on a long drive tonight over to my girlfriend's house which is about 50 minutes from me. I tried to stop thinking and just drive and see. I couldn't help feeling that the shocks are underdamped for these springs. Either that or it is just the nature of the progressive spring rates, but I suspect it might be a bit of both. Maybe it has nothing to do the RLCA bearings I have.

Handling can mean different things to different people. In terms of actual grip - gripping at high speed or in corners (even corners with bumps and uneven road conditions), the car stays planted without a hitch. It really does. But if your talking about handling as in "how does it feel", this is where it is lacking. It feels floaty at times even though that doesn't seem to make sense. It has a somewhat vague or unpredictable feel, which makes me not take it as fast as I would. Throttle down hard- and it feels planted. Off throttle or part throttle or over road undulations, it doesn't. Maybe that is just the nature of the progressive springs and it does not feel as "locked down" as the BMR SP080/Koni combo did. But then again it doesn't feel as "crashy" as that setup did at times.

Idk but it seems like with this setup, Ford opted for something that would do the job to make the car hug the road, but they sacrificed a predictable handling feel in order to gain some compliance to make it livable. With that said they succeeded but they also failed because I think the progressive springs can actually make it slightly harsher in certain situations. The variable rate cannot react properly to smaller bumps and undulations to make the car feel stable. And being that dampers are linear based and they are not reactive Magneride shocks, they cannot react to compensate for the spring rate at all times. I feel like a linear spring would do better by just reacting linearly. Simplistic yes but I think it makes sense.

Perhaps the softer rate of BMR SP089/SP082 set will make the ride more compliant while at the same time make it feel more locked down than presently due to the Ford Racing shocks being designed for the higher spring rate it pairs to. Perhaps this will eliminate the underdamped feeling I seem to have. And perhaps the Ford Racing shocks are milder than the Konis which will avoid making it crashy feeling or super locked down.

Am I making sense?

 

[spiller]

I don't disagree with your methodology here, but I do disagree that the bearing causes binding. I have the stock vertical links (see zero reason to change them out), but everything else is bearings. With the sway bar disconnected and the spring/shock removed, the whole assembly moved from stop to stop buttery smooth. No binding at all whatsoever. My guess is that you will get the best results swapping out your struts/shocks with something different. The reading I've done on those Ford Performance shocks and struts is that they are only incrementally above the stock PP struts and shocks, which are woefully underdamped. :shrug:

[MENTION=19599]Bluemustang[/MENTION] I agree with [MENTION=29057]Ryan P[/MENTION]. The bearings decrease binding, not increase. If anything, they should make your ride more stable, not the other way around. It sounds to me like the dampers are your issue, 100%. My 996 GT3 was completely monoballed - every single bushing in the car. You could hit anything at speed and it was solid as a rock, no skipping or unsettling feelings. Always predictable with what it was doing (and that is saying a lot for a hardcore 911 - with the engine in the wrong place!). That car also had 10K worth of dampers. I know where you are coming from with your complaints because I have the ford racing dampers too, except mine are paired with SP083 from BMR. The ride is comfortable, but it can get very bouncy and unsettled over long undulations of a wavy nature, and large bumps unsettle the rear. I'm going to go to something a little more sophisticated. Probably either Steeda Pro-action adjustables or Koni sport. A full coilover would be best but I can't justify 3K for what will be a street car for 95% of the time.

 

[GT 550]

@ Bluemustang makes perfect sense. Do you know what happens if you hit the brakes hard over choppy surfaces at speed (assuming good tyres) - does it grip or skip?

[MENTION=29474]spiller[/MENTION] if you're interested an Australian company called MCA (Murray Coote Australia) makes adjustable coilovers for our cars. Murray does a lot of big $ motorsport suspension (Neale Bates' TRD was a client) and his son Josh does entry level stuff. There are three levels and I ran the X-C (Comfort) model in an R32GTR with 500 rwhp and very little stock susp travel. Including springs it was about $2k and the best money I spent on suspension ever. I ran them on full soft and had good ride and grip for variable road conditions. He will suggest keeping the stock swaybars as he comes from that school.

I'm not affiliated and neither have I tried the X-C on the GT yet, I'm an addicted tinkerer so will do the other bits first and then the shocks.

Sorry I've gone a bit off topic but IMHO damping is most of the battle in achieving good ride and handling in a DD. Of course geometry changes brought about by things moving when they shouldn't don't help. I'm attributing the 'stepping out' feeling in the rear of mine to the RLCA

 

[spiller]

It's all in the damping. [MENTION=29474]spiller[/MENTION] if you're interested there's an Australian company called MCA (Murray Coote Australia) that makes adjustable coilovers for our cars. Murray does a lot of big $ motorsport suspension including Neale Bates' TRD cars and his son Josh does entry level stuff. There are three levels and I ran the X-C (Comfort) model in an R32GTR that inherently has very little travel. Including springs it was about $2k and it was the best money I spent on suspension ever, and beyond Konis with custom valving I worked on with the Australia reps.

I'm not affiliated and neither have I tried the X-C on my car yet, I'm an addicted tinkerer so will do the other bits first and then the shocks.

Sorry I've gone a bit off topic but damping is 90% of the battle in achieving good ride and handling particularly in a DD.

Yeah mate, I know about MCA. The shop that built my GT3 used to use their parts. Exceptional quality! I haven’t got around the looking at their offerings for the mustang yet but I need to. I keep forgetting to call them. A couple of grand is very fair for what would be a decent coilover from them.

 

[lugz]

I went on a long drive tonight over to my girlfriend's house which is about 50 minutes from me. I tried to stop thinking and just drive and see.

Just curious, what's your alignment settings? Sorry if you said already and I missed it. Adding negative camber up front helped my car a lot but already had quite a bit dialed into the back.

 

[BmacIL]

I went on a long drive tonight over to my girlfriend's house which is about 50 minutes from me. I tried to stop thinking and just drive and see. I couldn't help feeling that the shocks are underdamped for these springs. Either that or it is just the nature of the progressive spring rates, but I suspect it might be a bit of both. Maybe it has nothing to do the RLCA bearings I have.

Handling can mean different things to different people. In terms of actual grip - gripping at high speed or in corners (even corners with bumps and uneven road conditions), the car stays planted without a hitch. It really does. But if your talking about handling as in "how does it feel", this is where it is lacking. It feels floaty at times even though that doesn't seem to make sense. It has a somewhat vague or unpredictable feel, which makes me not take it as fast as I would. Throttle down hard- and it feels planted. Off throttle or part throttle or over road undulations, it doesn't. Maybe that is just the nature of the progressive springs and it does not feel as "locked down" as the BMR SP080/Koni combo did. But then again it doesn't feel as "crashy" as that setup did at times.

Idk but it seems like with this setup, Ford opted for something that would do the job to make the car hug the road, but they sacrificed a predictable handling feel in order to gain some compliance to make it livable. With that said they succeeded but they also failed because I think the progressive springs can actually make it slightly harsher in certain situations. The variable rate cannot react properly to smaller bumps and undulations to make the car feel stable. And being that dampers are linear based and they are not reactive Magneride shocks, they cannot react to compensate for the spring rate at all times. I feel like a linear spring would do better by just reacting linearly. Simplistic yes but I think it makes sense.

Perhaps the softer rate of BMR SP089/SP082 set will make the ride more compliant while at the same time make it feel more locked down than presently due to the Ford Racing shocks being designed for the higher spring rate it pairs to. Perhaps this will eliminate the underdamped feeling I seem to have. And perhaps the Ford Racing shocks are milder than the Konis which will avoid making it crashy feeling or super locked down.

Am I making sense?

The crashy/locked down feel of the Koni + 080s is classic overdamped condition. Too high of damping for the car and the body doesn't get a second small upswing on response curve, what you want for a good ride. If you get near or at critical damping it will just be one half a wave and done. You want in between the critically damped and underdamped curves here, though closer to the critical curve...that is a measure of your system damping ratio:

The unpredictably you're feeling is from the transition in rate of your current springs paired with your current dampers. A lighter rate linear spring like the 080s (or 089/082) with the Ford Racing will feel planted and predictable without being so overdamped that the car effectively loses downtravel from the strong damping (crashy).

 

[ctandc72]

I've been watching this thread with a lot of interest. I'm looking at adding the BMR lockout kit + Steeda alignment kit, PP front and rear sways, PP rear toe links, and the next logical step is springs / struts / shocks. I'm kind of waiting to see how the initial reviews go on the new Bilstein offering. I've used their strut / shock combo before and in my lowly opinion they offered the best compromise in everyday (Daily Driver) comfort / damping vs. handling prowess.

With all this mind, what springs would be suited to what I'm shooting for? I honestly would rather not lower the car at all - I already have issues with my driveway - but if either of minimum lowering springs would suit this setup, I'd be game.

 

[Bluemustang]

Goddamn the shop that I normally take my car to and does pretty thorough work - wants $800 to only swap springs and do 4 wheel alignment. Jeez that seems excessive. I reckon that disassembling strut and shocks and fitting new springs is a lot of work on these cars but damn.

I won't take my car to Ford anymore bc they can muck up a cup of coffee.

Considering that plus the expense of SP089 springs and new OEM tie rods I'm looking at $1,000 probably if I go this route. It's like redoing my suspension over again for a third time... Idk now I'm thinking maybe I'll keep what I've got and deal with it.

 

[BmacIL]

Goddamn the shop that I normally take my car to and does pretty thorough work - wants $800 to only swap springs and do 4 wheel alignment. Jeez that seems excessive. I reckon that disassembling strut and shocks and fitting new springs is a lot of work on these cars but damn.

I won't take my car to Ford anymore bc they can muck up a cup of coffee.

Considering that plus the expense of SP089 springs and new OEM tie rods I'm looking at $1,000 probably if I go this route. It's like redoing my suspension over again for a third time... Idk now I'm thinking maybe I'll keep what I've got and deal with it.

It's about a half day's work. Really not too hard to do. There are some DIY garages that charge about $40/hr and you have full tool access. Look into that maybe?

 

[Bluemustang]

This is not really related to the LCA bearing thing but thought I'd share.

I installed some Steeda polyurethane vertical links the other day. I installed them thinking they would provide some added compliance over the BMR delrin-spherical links that I already had. And because I had some noise issues with the BMR links because they didn't have grease fittings and they would creak from time to time.

I didn't really think I'd feel a difference but I did! Definitely feel some added compliance and throttle feel from the rear feels nicer less harsh. And I feel like a bit nicer ride on the highway? Might be just placebo but I think this is an improvement to the ride quality.

 

[Jmart]

Good to hear! I'll have time to install mine next weekend and will provide a second data point after I get some seat time with the new setup.

This is not really related to the LCA bearing thing but thought I'd share.

I installed some Steeda polyurethane vertical links the other day. I installed them thinking they would provide some added compliance over the BMR delrin-spherical links that I already had. And because I had some noise issues with the BMR links because they didn't have grease fittings and they would creak from time to time.

I didn't really think I'd feel a difference but I did! Definitely feel some added compliance and throttle feel from the rear feels nicer less harsh. And I feel like a bit nicer ride on the highway? Might be just placebo but I think this is an improvement to the ride quality.

 

[Angry50]

i am having troubles getting to the 2 inside bolts of the RLCA to install these.. am i missing something? or is there a tip. it seems to be a 24mm but i cant get an impact gun on it and its difficult to get a wrench to it

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