Front Struts - What do These Numbers Mean

[Flyhalf]

Now find a 10speed ford engineer that i can talk too i can share many many info and data accumulated by 3 years of roadcourse racing

Back to 500
Will the CF spring rate be considered a noticeable ulgrade for the car or it won't work well

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[19-kilo]

Such good info. This sounds like why @Epiphany is advising against tuning the base GT500 shocks to CFTP controller settings.
Did we get any feedback on using CFTP springs on a base shock? The springs are higher rate. I’m wondering what using the base 500 damping would do to tuning characteristics.
I’m sure Ford would just say “don’t change it”. But I don’t want to pay $18k just to get stiffer springs

 

[19-kilo]

Now find a 10speed ford engineer that i can talk too i can share many many info and data accumulated by 3 years of roadcourse racing

Back to 500
Will the CF spring rate be considered a noticeable ulgrade for the car or it won't work well

Sounds like you have a base and want to do the same thing add stiffer springs.
You have the super cool “Italian” Mustang, right?

 

[Flyhalf]

Sounds like you have a base and want to do the same thing add stiffer springs.
You have the super cool “Italian” Mustang, right?

damn same time basically lol. so a 8-9% stiffer springs will not change how a damber works...however calibration I think play a rule here.
between lighter weight of the car, a small advantages in aero ( few dozens lbs) car is the same but my friedn Dylan said the CFTP drives very differently than a Base.. wonder if it is because the springs only

 

[Epiphany]

I have a Base car with Handling Package and added CFTP springs and the CFTP rear sway bar. I've put a few thousand miles on it and tracked it. It works without a hitch and I'm very happy with it.

 

[19-kilo]

I have a Base car with Handling Package and added CFTP springs and the CFTP rear sway bar. I've put a few thousand miles on it and tracked it. It works without a hitch and I'm very happy with it.

I don’t suppose anyone has compared base with CFTP springs to a full CFTP. I’m wondering how much difference the springs make

 

[Tomster]

I'm lucky to have been put in touch with THE gentleman that has handled calibrating the mag dampers for the GT350's and now the GT500. So I'm trying to be careful here in sharing some of what should be considered general information. I think it is important as this is the type of thing we don't get to hear about in detail from Ford - but we should! Anyway, some damper data to chew on...



The response...

"My pleasure... In all things related to suspension tuning, details matter. The damper "gap" - the flow area where the magneto-rheological effect takes place within the damper piston - was picked for both the CFTP and base GT500 by the Ford Performance Vehicle Dynamics Engineer to hit his desired performance targets. My memory of why certain gaps were picked is hazy, but I would guess that the CFTP gap is slightly smaller, generally resulting in higher maximum damping potential (good for smooth track usage) but also slightly increasing the minimum possible damping loads. On top of the physical damper gap change, we have calibrations... and this is where we have almost infinite ability for change: each drive mode has ~2000 separately tunable calibrations. Certainly, all ~2000 are not different from one another through all the modes - in many places we have values that are the same from mode to mode. Here's the "really great but crazy" thing: a change in even 1 of these ~2000 calibrations can sometimes make a very noticeable difference. (This is somewhat analogous to changes that we make in damper valving, where changing the thickness of a single disk in a stack of 10 disks by one step can make a noticeable difference.) The damper gap and the calibrations are a matched set, developed over a relatively long period of time on different road surfaces and evaluated by several knowledgeable people who balance performance, durability, and other factors to arrive at the best overall solution. Sorry for the long answer, but even this only scratches the surface on the tunability of MagneRide. More information may be found at MagneRide.com. Finally, I might mention that I speak from experience, having tuned the GT350, GT350R, and GT500 with FP V-Dyn engineers.

Best regards..."

Be careful Tob. Ford reads this stuff. I'd hate for you to suffer my fate, lol.

 

[TeeLew]

damn same time basically lol. so a 8-9% stiffer springs will not change how a damber works...however calibration I think play a rule here.
between lighter weight of the car, a small advantages in aero ( few dozens lbs) car is the same but my friedn Dylan said the CFTP drives very differently than a Base.. wonder if it is because the springs only

FWIW, I've now run the base Mustang Magneride strut and 350R strut with the same controller. It's not even close. The 350R strut has about twice the damping force. I don't know if the base 500 and CFTP is similar...honestly, I doubt it. They probably just have different mapping.

 

[Epiphany]

It's spelled out in the earlier posts I put up in this thread. There is a physical difference internally between the Base GT500 and the CFTP GT5500 dampers just as there in the GT350's. Mapping, or calibrations, are different as well.

 

[TeeLew]

It's spelled out in the earlier posts I put up in this thread. There is a physical difference internally between the Base GT500 and the CFTP GT5500 dampers just as there in the GT350's. Mapping, or calibrations, are different as well.

The difference from Mustang to 350R is huge. I doubt if it's that big of a difference. There are likely programming differences as well.

 

[Epiphany]

Again, the VDM calibrations are different between the CFTP and the Base cars. The dimensional differences, internally, are small. From what I understand, the physical differences between each pairing, whether GT350/GT350R or GT500/CFTP GT500, are rather small and relative (note spring rate differences as well in each pairing).

 

[Stang 19]

This is true, the base and CFTP have a different suspension calibration.

True. Dont waste your dough trying to upgrade a base to a cftp...magneride calibration is different. Maybe someone knows if a complete kit is avail? I would be surprised...

 

[Epiphany]

What do you mean by "complete kit?" Ford/FP don't offer Magneride damper/calibration upgrades for the GT350 or the GT500.

 

[TeeLew]

Again, the VDM calibrations are different between the CFTP and the Base cars. The dimensional differences, internally, are small. From what I understand, the physical differences between each pairing, whether GT350/GT350R or GT500/CFTP GT500, are rather small and relative (note spring rate differences as well in each pairing).

The engineer you quoted didn't *really* know what the differences were. He was guessing and trying to remember things from years ago. We're not going to do much better.

It would be silly for Ford to spec tiny differences in damper internals when the damper controller itself can account for massive ones. They don't keep a bunch of extra SKU's sitting around for fun. Chances are that they *tested* several versions, chose one and then adjusted the actual damping forces with the controller.

I _know_ the Mustang (all of them) use a certain Magneride (call Version A) spec. I'm fairly certain that the base 350 uses the same. The 350R _definitely_ uses a second spec (Version B) which is roughly twice the damping. I would suspect the 500 & 500 CFTP use the same version as the 350R. Having said that, it's entirely possible they use a third, Version C spec.

I have not found anyone at Ford Performance, Ford parts or a dealer that knows a damn thing about the Magneride. It's like an information black hole. Quizzing that engineer is you best bet.
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I wouldn't sweat the spring changes. The rate differences Ford works with is pretty small in most scenarios. The one that's a complete outlier is the Mach 1, which has the softest rear spring of the lot.

 

[Flyhalf]

The engineer you quoted didn't *really* know what the differences were. He was guessing and trying to remember things from years ago. We're not going to do much better.

It would be silly for Ford to spec tiny differences in damper internals when the damper controller itself can account for massive ones. They don't keep a bunch of extra SKU's sitting around for fun. Chances are that they *tested* several versions, chose one and then adjusted the actual damping forces with the controller.

I _know_ the Mustang (all of them) use a certain Magneride (call Version A) spec. I'm fairly certain that the base 350 uses the same. The 350R _definitely_ uses a second spec (Version B) which is roughly twice the damping. I would suspect the 500 & 500 CFTP use the same version as the 350R. Having said that, it's entirely possible they use a third, Version C spec.

I have not found anyone at Ford Performance, Ford parts or a dealer that knows a damn thing about the Magneride. It's like an information black hole. Quizzing that engineer is you best bet.
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I wouldn't sweat the spring changes. The rate differences Ford works with is pretty small in most scenarios. The one that's a complete outlier is the Mach 1, which has the softest rear spring of the lot.

9% is not big but neither negligible.
I just wonder if (for dual usage) a stiffer spring could be an easy upgrade?

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